Video Card and Ram Upgrade..advice neededPost Date: 2012-06-17 |
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SgtJarkman 
Newbie 
Joined: 13 Sep 2009 Online Status: Offline Posts: 13 |
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 Topic: Video Card and Ram Upgrade..advice neededPosted: 17 Jun 2012 at 12:19pm |
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Good Day
I am looking to upgrade my DS rig...a few years old now...need some advice. Was thinking about upgrading he video card and upgrading the ram to 12gb. Below is what i have now....would like to keep the upgrade around $400...thank you for any advice. Cheers! Processor: Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz (Quad Core) Factory Overclocked to 3.75GHz Motherboard: EVGA X58M (Chipset: Intel X58) System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1600MHz Corsair/Mushkin (Digital Storm Certified) (Hand Tested) Power Supply: 1000W Digital Storm Certified (Dual SLI Compatible) (Silent Edition) Card Reader: - No Thanks Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (1TB Western Digital (7200 RPM) (32MB Cache) (SATA) (Extreme Speed) Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: - No Thanks Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks Optical Drive 1: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 20x / CD-Writer 48x) Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections) Video Card(s): 2x SLI Dual (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 896MB (Includes PhysX Technology) Add-on Card: - No Thanks Sound Card: 7.1 24-bit / 192kHz Decoding High Definition Integrated Audio Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 1: Asetek Liquid CPU Cooler Liquid Color: - Not Applicable, I do not have a H20: Stage 3 Cooling System Selected |
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Orange7
Senior Member 
Joined: 24 Apr 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 776 |
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Posted: 17 Jun 2012 at 1:50pm |
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Hey, SgtJarkman. The RAM, price-wise, should be absolutely no problem. Buying anything form Corsair or Kingston (or most of the 100 other brands available on any site) should be fine, and the price should definitely be within range. The graphics card, however, will be difficult. For a modern graphics card, I have probably heard more recommendations for the 670 than for any other card. However, the cheapest 670 that I could find was $399.99. The cheapest 7950 was $369.99, which (while not necessarily out of the range) would probably be over budget including the RAM. Of the two, and with your budget in mind, I would probably go with the 7950. On Newegg, they also have 4GB sticks of 1600MHz DDR3 in the $25 range, so if you wanted to add two more 4GB sticks, and remove the 2GB stick, that would bring the cost to around $420.
Edited by Orange7 - 17 Jun 2012 at 1:51pm |
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DS xm15 Stage 4
i7-3820 (2.7GHz/3.7GHz) 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 GT 630, 1GB 240GB Intel 520 |
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FrankW
DS Veteran 
Joined: 22 Feb 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2254 |
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Posted: 17 Jun 2012 at 2:00pm |
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Hi SgtJarkman,
I don't know if you can do any better than what you have for just $400. I don't know if a single 670 or 680 is going to give you as good of results. SLI 670 would be way better but that isn't in your budget. It has a lot to do with what games you play. I had to look at Crysis Warhead to get a comparison of old and new cards. That is a very demanding game and if you stay away from that then a single 680 would work at 1920 x 1080. But with a single card you are not going to see much, if any, improvement over your SLI 275. I would wait till one of your 275s fail or get a better budget. If you are gaming then 6Gb of memory is probably all you need. Frank Edited by FrankW - 17 Jun 2012 at 2:02pm |
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Orange7
Senior Member
Joined: 24 Apr 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 776 |
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Posted: 17 Jun 2012 at 3:09pm |
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The theoretical comparison between single 670 and single 275 can be found here: http://www.hwcompare.com/12581/geforce-gtx-275-vs-geforce-gtx-670/. As it shows, a single 670 should theoretically be about twice as good as a 275, and use much less power. It should use about a third of the power of two 275s in SLI, and I believe that it should run about as fast, if not a little faster. If you went with that option, you could always add a second card later, which would be much better than your current setup.
If you wanted an upgrade that kept the SLI, but was closer to your budget, you could hook up 2 570s from Newegg for about $560. I would advise against that, however, because 570s are not nearly as much of an improvement as 670s, as shown here: http://www.hwcompare.com/9055/geforce-gtx-275-vs-geforce-gtx-570/. If you still felt that you needed more RAM (although I agree with FrankW about the fact that 6GB should be good for most stuff), you could still get 4GB sticks for an extra $25/stick. |
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DS xm15 Stage 4
i7-3820 (2.7GHz/3.7GHz) 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 GT 630, 1GB 240GB Intel 520 |
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