Need help on what to upgrade

[burndote]

Specs:

CPU: Intel Quad Core Q6600 2.4ghz

Motherboard: ASUS P5K

Video Card: EVGA Nvidia GTX 550ti

RAM: Kingston 4gb DDR2

PSU: Thermaltake 500w

Monitor 1: Samsung 23" B550V

Monitor 2: Samsung 22" 226bw

Recently I started noticing that I lag quite a bit when a lot of things are going on at once, I was wondering what I need to upgrade to stop that?

I mostly use this computer to game(Diablo 3, Skyrim, Battlefield 3, Steam), While also having Google Chrome open with multiple tabs. It would be nice to be able to run Diablo 3 Full Screen Windowed mode smoothly on one monitor while playing a video or something on the other.

Help would be much appreciated !

:)

[Open Minded]

Are you planning to overclock? Also, the 550ti is not that fast if you're looking to run games at max settings. In some cases, the 550Ti trades blows with a GTX 260.

[burndote]

Probably not , Don't have any experience with overclocking and don't want to risk messing something up.

Damn really? The video card was only purchased 5 months ago :(. Was thinking of upgrading the motherboard and getting 8 gigs of DDR3 ram, Would I notice much of a difference in performance if I do that?

[a1ien]

The Q6600 was a great processor, and I got a-lot of use out of mine using it at 3.3GHz for many years. It was still working fine when I upgraded.

But yours at 2.4GHz (no overclock) is really really starting to get old. You could overclock to at least 3ghz with a new cooloer. But really you should replace the CPU and motherboard with Ivy Bridge parts. You can get a great to amazing upgrade for as little as $200 to 300 if you shop around.

You purchased a pretty cheap video card, you get what you pay for. It's OK for sure, no need to frown.

When you say you would upgrade the mobo you mean the CPU too right? Otherwise there is no point. Go for the CPU upgrade and get some use out of that 550Ti before you replace. CPUs last longer than GPUs anyways.

[burndote]

I see , Was hoping to leave upgrading the CPU to last seeing as it's the most expensive.. But would something like this be ok for me? http://www.playtech.co.nz/afawcs0139235/CATID=769/ID=17696/SID=609467419/productdetails.html

[Astra.Xtreme]

I see , Was hoping to leave upgrading the CPU to last seeing as it's the most expensive.. But would something like this be ok for me? http://www.playtech....uctdetails.html

That's crazy expensive compared to what it costs elsewhere:

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131837

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504

Total: $436 + $20 mail-in-rebate

There will be plenty of room for overclocking if you'd want. It's really easy on an Asus board. You just have to go into the UEFI and bump up the CPU freq to whatever. There might even be some presets. You'd be able to get to at least 4.0GHz on air cooling without having to adjust any voltages.

Your GPU will be a bottleneck, so overclocking probably won't be needed anyway, but it's an option.

Also, you could look into a SSD as your Windows boot drive. That will give you a crazy performance boost. Look at the OCZ Vertex 3 or 4. Crucial M4 is good too if you want to keep the price down slightly.

[a1ien]

Yeah it's not super cheap right now because Ivy Bridge only comes in pretty high end models. But you want to stay pretty high end so the result is much faster than your Q6600.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2580686&Sku=M69-0017 Here's a CPU+Mobo for $300, 340 - 40 mail in. Don't spend too much on RAM, just get 8GB of DDR3 1600 for under $55.

You know, if your system is laggy, you might have too much junk installed. A clean Windows install could be good.

[TEX4S]

Per your question about RAM -

More than likely you will not notice a big difference going from 4GB-8GB with the apps you mentioned. Reason for this is most software doesnt take advantage of more than 4GB. Yes its good to always have some breathing room so in the event you are using 4GB of RAM - its not an issue because you have so much more - so in that aspect - you will notice something. Since DDR3 is so cheap - there is no reason not to go with more - 8GB is a good amount - if you're not doing media creation, VM(s), or the like - you have plenty of RAM w/ 8GB.

Going from your Q6600 to Ivy Bridge is a big jump - but remember CPU isnt a huge factor in overall performance. As mentioned your grfx card is a lightweight, it is definately hurting you. Have you thought about going with an SSD for boot ? Like a1ien said above, a clean install is 1 way to get the computer running fast as it can.

If you decide to get a better grfx card, you might want to think long & hard about a better PSU. The one you have is OK, but just OK... A little bigger antec PSU will be good.

[BumbleBritches57]

I see , Was hoping to leave upgrading the CPU to last seeing as it's the most expensive.. But would something like this be ok for me? http://www.playtech....uctdetails.html

Lol, Video cards are by far the most expensive part, but like the other poster said, you should deffo upgrade your CPU.

Yeah, those are inport duties and shipping fees, that CPU's about $200 in America lol, maybe someone will buy it here then ship it to you?

[BumbleBritches57]

Per your question about RAM -

More than likely you will not notice a big difference going from 4GB-8GB with the apps you mentioned. Reason for this is most software doesnt take advantage of more than 4GB. Yes its good to always have some breathing room so in the event you are using 4GB of RAM - its not an issue because you have so much more - so in that aspect - you will notice something. Since DDR3 is so cheap - there is no reason not to go with more - 8GB is a good amount - if you're not doing media creation, VM(s), or the like - you have plenty of RAM w/ 8GB.

Going from your Q6600 to Ivy Bridge is a big jump - but remember CPU isnt a huge factor in overall performance. As mentioned your grfx card is a lightweight, it is definately hurting you. Have you thought about going with an SSD for boot ? Like a1ien said above, a clean install is 1 way to get the computer running fast as it can.

If you decide to get a better grfx card, you might want to think long & hard about a better PSU. The one you have is OK, but just OK... A little bigger antec PSU will be good.

Especially when you realize that almost all games are x86 only, and can only uses ~4GB of RAM to begin with.

[Open Minded]

Ivy bridge would be a major leap. I came from a Q6600 (at 3.2 GHz) and holy crap is my 2600k faster. It's the first time in my 25 years of being on computers that I feel my CPU is fast enough. Ivy Bridge takes the speed a bit further whilst drawing less power... less heat too if you don't overclock.

As Texas pointed out, an SSD is a major upgrade and worth every penny. You can find a 120 gig SSD for around 100 US dollars now that does 90k IOPS and has 500+ meg/sec read throughput. They're really sweet. The SSD made a bigger difference than the CPU upgrade in terms of how fast my computer felt in everyday use and loading Windows and all my programs.

If you're thinking about it, look into a Z77 motherboard and the i7 3770k. Get the K even if you don't overclock just to be able to have that option in the future if you do wish to get some free speed (and there's tons to spare) from the CPU. You said you like to multitask, 4 cores and 8 threads is the way to go. Great for running multiple VMs at the same time, too!