Eking a Few More Years from my Computer

Hey all, computer setup question for you all. My current rig will turn three come December, and I'm wondering what my best options are to extend its life for another three years (assuming all its parts behave), since that's how long I'm trying to go between computer upgrades (can't really afford more often).

Last time I tried a mid-life upgrade to a computer, I'm not sure I made the best choice. I upgraded the 3D card slightly, but I can't say that it made its last three years noticeably better. I'm wondering if this time around I should upgrade to more RAM, since I currently have 4 GB and City of Heroes seems to like its RAM. Also, I can get another 4 GB RAM for not a whole lot more money ($50 or so), rather than over $100 for another graphics card that will play nice with my current setup. I'm thinking a new processor would also be too costly, or too difficult to fit in with my rig to make it worth it (but I'll listen if someone thinks otherwise).

I mostly play COH (and a little of the Total War series on the side, like Empire, and hopefully Shogun 2 when I can afford it). Might get some in to Portal and maybe some other MMOs, but I can't see me leaving CoH in the next three years.

Any thoughts you all could give me would be much appreciated. For a little more detail, I have a 512 MB 9800GT PCI Express 2.0 graphics card, 4 GB of DDR2 SDRAM, and an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66 processor. Oh, and a 500 watt power supply. Let me know if you need any more info to help me out.

A new GPU is going to help you a lot more than another 4 GB of RAM. A Radeon 6850 or a GeForce 460 will be a big ol' upgrade for you without breaking the $200 psychological barrier that I know some folks have about upgrades. Dunno if it will make another three years but I guarantee you will get more longevity from a graphics upgrade than a RAM upgrade.

You didn't list what operating system you are running. But if you are not running a 64 bit OS, more RAM won't do you a whole lot of good, if any.

The graphics cards Emberly mentioned are a good choice. But I agree that it might not help you over the whole three years you are looking for.

Yea, you are going to need 64-bit Win 7 to use more memory. More memory may help but probably not as much as you would think.

Brand and model number on your power supply would help.

The 9800GT is listed as a 105 watt card. Using that as a guide power wise, a GTX 550Ti uses about the same amount of power but should be around 70% faster.

Not a lot you can do with your CPU. It's likely that your motherboard doesn't have any recent BIOS upgrades so it could recognize any of the current Socket 775 Core 2s that are still available.

Also bearing in mind he is using DDR2 ram the chances are that his current 4Gb is 4 1Gb modules so adding a further 4Gb will probably mean replacing all the current modules rather than adding extra.

I was thinking about that myself (it's been a while since I designed a rig around Socket 775). But in the case of 4, 1GB DIMMs he could go to 6GB if he swapped a pair of 1GB DIMMs for a pair of 2GB ones. Still would need to use something like CPU-Z or check in the BIOS to find out what he currently has and what the DRAM settings are so he can buy a pair that match speed and timings.

But like I said, I don't he'll see much of an improvement by adding memory. Now if he is stuck with a 32-bit OS (not sure) he isn't seeing all the memory he currently has installed so going to 64-bit Win 7 would allow all 4GB he currently has to be used.

I know how the OP feels.
Running a similar kind of rig. Best suggestion is to follow Emblery's advise on the GPU cards. In my case, I upgraded to a GeForce GTS 450 (1MB) not quite a year ago. Runs CoH rather well and I figure I'll be able to get a couple more years of life out of the card.

Thank you for the time...

@Travlr (Main) / @Tymers Realm (Test)

The GTX 460 is rated at 160 watts. Since we don't know the details about GP's power supply it may be a gamble. That's the reason I suggested only the GTX 550Ti which is rated as using around the same amount of power as his current card, a 9800GT.

Okay you have an Earthwatts 500 watt PSU so a 1GB GTX 460 won't be a problem. It can handle up to 444 watts at 12 volts. The reason I ask is that older designed power supplies don't skew their output to 12 volts like modern PSUs. The 12 volt part of the supply feeds both the CPU and the video card (which is 95% of 12 volt wattage used in most systems).

For instance the cheapest 500 watt PSU at NewEgg can only put out 240 watts at 12 volts. You can still find these is lesser cases. That's why most graphics cards have a minimum power supply wattage and a minimum number of amps at 12 volts requirement.

Unless it's changed, Co* takes up about 2G tops that I've ever seen... of course, I'll be the first to admit, I've not done a check in a while, maybe it's more. It's mostly about 1.5G that I've seen. I don't think adding memory will solve anything, unless the problem is you're running Co*, and 14 other programs, and are bumping up against the memory due to that.

The Core2 Duo has two cores. Co* takes up two. There's your biggest issue, if only in that you need to have more cores active if you're needing Co* and something else running. The CPU is where it's at, and beyond that, the video card. The rest of it is fine, IMO, although I am curious as to what that GF460 Father talks about would do in it...

My rig is very similar to yours: E6750, 4G ram, GF9600GT, on a Gigabyte GA-P35-S3G board, with a Thermaltake Pure Power 500Watt PSU. I have no plans to upgrade this box, I'll be making a new one with a i5, and a reasonable GPU. But if it were shown that I could get 25FPS minimum at all times with full Ultra and all I have to do is swap out the GPU... that I would probably do.

Are there any hard numbers on GPU vs CPU swap outs for performance improvements? I'm thinking the CPU is more important in this case, but I don't have the parts to play with to find out for sure...