How to speed up this computer?

[compgenius2003]

Hello everyone,

How would you upgrade or speed up this computer:

Vista x64

Asus Maximus Formula (X38)

Intel QX9650 @ 3.0 Ghz (1333 FSB)

Zalman 9700NT

4GB Corsair XMS DDR2 1066 5-5-5-15

Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS (G92/512MB)

1920x1200 and 1600x1200 displays

Logitech G15, MX Revolution

2 300GB Western Digital Veloci Raptors (Raid, System Volume)

2 74GB Western Digital AFAD? (Raid, Paging File)

1 500GB Seagate 7200.11 (Data)

1 500GB Seagate 7200.10 (Data)

1 400GB Western Digital External USB (Backup purposes)

1 120GB Seagate External USB (Backup purposes)

Also would there be a noticable, worth wile, difference between the integrated SoundMax audio vs the Asus Xonar D2X?

Thanks a lot everyone for your comments. :D

[Numpad]

personally i would put more fans on it.. but, i dont know much about computers.. i just like lots of fans lol... mine has 7 :)

[Skulltrail-old]

A KillerK1 would increase your online gaming performance.

You could also get another 8800GTS and run both under SLI. That would probably double your gaming performance.

[Raa]

Speed up? In what way? What's slow for you?

Gaming? Get a bigger video card.

Every day tasks? well with those hard drives, you're not going to go faster.

UHh.... yeah, that's about it. You need a bigger video card to leverage the gaming power, but the rest is "smokin'" - until Core i7 lands anyway :p

What was your speed like in XP? ;)

[Darconf]

erm ,,,, the maximus is crossfire not sli.

add 2 4850s and OC that puppy to 3.8Ghz :D

as far as the soundcard goes , if your going to use the xonar on a digital amp and home theater,,, yes the xonar would sound better. on desktop speakers , I dont think you would notice any difference.

Edited October 11, 2008 by Darconf

[ToneKnee]

Hello everyone,

How would you upgrade or speed up this computer:

Vista x64

Asus Maximus Formula (X38)

Intel QX9650 @ 3.0 Ghz (1333 FSB)

Zalman 9700NT

4GB Corsair XMS DDR2 1066 5-5-5-15

Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS (G92/512MB)

1920x1200 and 1600x1200 displays

Logitech G15, MX Revolution

2 300GB Western Digital Veloci Raptors (Raid, System Volume)

2 74GB Western Digital AFAD? (Raid, Paging File)

1 500GB Seagate 7200.11 (Data)

1 500GB Seagate 7200.10 (Data)

1 400GB Western Digital External USB (Backup purposes)

1 120GB Seagate External USB (Backup purposes)

Also would there be a noticable, worth wile, difference between the integrated SoundMax audio vs the Asus Xonar D2X?

Thanks a lot everyone for your comments. :D

I'd take the memory upto 8GB's.

I would purchase top quality SSD drives for your system. Buy 4x64GB ones and do RAID-0 with them. Here is a recent members review of some cheap SSD's: https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...view=getnewpost Like it's been mentioned in that topic, would be advisable to get a RAID card with on-board cache memory or get SSD drives with write cache already on them.

Upgrade the graphics card like someone else just posted before me. If you want a faster CPU, why not go down the Core I7 route when it comes out?

[Skulltrail-old]

erm ,,,, the maximus is crossfire not sli.

A GTX280 Quad-SLI setup would annihilate the 4870 X2, however the price is a bit over $680.

[Darconf]

A GTX280 Quad-SLI setup would annihilate the 4870 X2, however the price is a bit over $680.

does that price include a motherboard that's capable of quad sli, and a power supply that will carry that much power draw?

[Skulltrail-old]

does that price include a motherboard that's capable of quad sli, and a power supply that will carry that much power draw?

Nope. :D

Probably a total of $800-$900 for the entire package. ^_^

[devHead]

That's a smoking computer! Why would you need to speed it up? Fast enough for what? Maybe I'm way out of touch, but 4 GB of RAM is plenty, a 3 Ghz CPU and a video card with 512 RAM. Plus enough hard drive space for just about everything you could want.

Just my opinion...

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

If I were you, I'd buy a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16829102019

It'll do all the sound processing which will take some load off your CPU, thus giving you a slight boost in gaming performance.

[Phillip]

I'd backup all my data, and reformat and reinstall.

[Argote]

The easiest thing you can do for gaming is get 2x RadeonHD 4870.

For general performance get some drives in Raid, either high end SSDs or WD Velociraptors.

[compgenius2003]

Hello,

First thank you for your input. Let me also say that to the format and reinstall, well that was done about 2 months ago. And to go to 8GB I believe I would want to go to DDR3 1333 or faster rather than stick with DDR2 1066. However, to do that the cost would out weigh the benifits, IMO. After my experience with Creative's lack of support for the older X-Fi's I will never purchase another Creative sound card. I did for get to post that the computer does have a 1200 Watt PSU already, so any power requirements are or should not be an issue. I would consider going to Crossfire because it is faster than what I have now, but I do not care for ATI/AMD. Would a GTX 280 be worth the upgrade? Lastly, I guess the rumor is that the Core i7's should be around 40% faster? Oh, and the computer is hooked up to some Logitech Z-5500 speakers.

[hawker1986]

Well if your looking for a discrete soundcard and dont want to go creative, another option is asus Xonar series cards, theyre driver support is meant to be excellent and the sounds cards are just as good as the creative options. Personally I think for gaming at 1920x1200 you would notice a big difference going to a GTX280, but I would consider a 9800GX2, it performs just as well if not better in some instances and can be got pretty cheap these days, just something to think about. But if your planning on custom cooling (eg new HSF/water) then the GTX280 is a better option. As for RAM I would say go for the 8GB, more RAM is never a bad thing and with it being so cheap atm you might as well cash in, DDR3 is way too expensive, and if you want good performance DDR3 I would be looking 1600-2000mhz not 1333.

Hawker

[ToneKnee]

Well if your looking for a discrete soundcard and dont want to go creative, another option is asus Xonar series cards, theyre driver support is meant to be excellent and the sounds cards are just as good as the creative options. Personally I think for gaming at 1920x1200 you would notice a big difference going to a GTX280, but I would consider a 9800GX2, it performs just as well if not better in some instances and can be got pretty cheap these days, just something to think about. But if your planning on custom cooling (eg new HSF/water) then the GTX280 is a better option. As for RAM I would say go for the 8GB, more RAM is never a bad thing and with it being so cheap atm you might as well cash in, DDR3 is way too expensive, and if you want good performance DDR3 I would be looking 1600-2000mhz not 1333.

Hawker

I agree on that part.

DDR3 is having teething problems like DDR2 did when it first started. DDR1 400Mhz ran faster than DDR2 533Mhz, 600Mhz for example, but obviously times have changed now and DDR3 will as well, though, if you want too, hold out for the Core i7 series from Intel and see how DDR3 performs. But at the moment, DDR2 is the best for your money and 8GB is dirt cheap.

[Ci7]

my short answer wait for core i7 skulltrail platform while you are at it get yourself some 256GB SSDs and Raid0 them also while you are at your way take nV 350 GTX in SLI :D

[compgenius2003]

Well considering that the processor in this computer was about $1400 when it was purchased, I don't think it will be replaced anytime soon. And it has not been overclocked yet, there still should be a lot of life in it. That leaves an upgrade to 8GB (DDR2 1066 or DDR3 1600+ but would require a new motherboard), and possibly a new video card. Some of the games played on this computer are:

Grid

World in Conflict

Crysis

Crysis: Warhead

Call of Duty 4

Steam Games (Stalker, HL2 Series, CS2)

Sims 2

Sims 3 (when it is released)

Flatout Ultimate Carnage

Aside from games the compute has been used with Adobe Photoshop and Premiere. Thats about it besides everyday multitasking (Office, Internet, Music, Movies). It would be nice to have a Blue-Ray Player for HD movies, however, that requires an additional SATA connection, which, this computer does not have.

[gummyz]

The 8800GTS is still a decent card to run those games at your native resolution, not full graphics though. If you wish to play with all settings to high including HDR,AA,AF, then the upgrade to the 280 would be worth it (imo). Basically, only the video card upgrade will show a good beneifit to performance. Any other upgrade won't benefit as much, for gaming.

[stezo2k]

personally i think that setup is perfect for most things. i'd just reinstall windows myself

[x3lumin8x]

Ummm, a bit overkill on the HDD's. A separate backup server would make more sense, but, that's just my opinion. Anyway. What Raid is your setup? What's the wattage on the PSU? Since you have thousands of HDD's :/ hooked up, you might be short on wattage.

[Mike]

put it up for sale for ?50 and it'll go extremely fast:whistle::

[capr]

from the looks of things, a gtx280 should set you off for now if you do heavy gaming that your 8800 can't handle. anything else that you buy will just be too much... i would say save your money a few more months and get better parts as they come out. for the market right now SSD hard drives are all i can recommend as far as speed goes. also make sure you put them in raid with a dedicated raid card.

8gb of ram is over doing it for most people. check your ram usage every once in a while. most people don't push 3 while they are gaming. so 8 would just be way too much in my opinion.

[Mannlich]

Get a GTX280 and overclock that processor. What is the point of having that unlocked multiplier if you are not going to push that chip to the extreme? That is the whole reason that they are so expensive. Even with the Zalman 9700 on there, you should be able to get some serious mileage out of that chip.

[compgenius2003]

Ummm, a bit overkill on the HDD's. A separate backup server would make more sense, but, that's just my opinion. Anyway. What Raid is your setup? What's the wattage on the PSU? Since you have thousands of HDD's :/ hooked up, you might be short on wattage.

There are two Raid 0 volumes. The two velociraptors are raided together for the system volume and the older 74GB raptors are raided together mainly for the paging file. The computer has a 1200 Watt PSU, which should be enough. I am considering the GTX280 as an upgrade, however, I usually do more photoshop and everyday stuff rather gaming so I would think the upgrade to 8GB of DDR 3 would be more benificial but I am not too sure. Upgrading the memory would allow me to match the FSB (1333 for both the CPU and memory, not 1333/1066).