Well, I need to upgrade my hardware...

[15357]

It turns out that I was cheated on my 500W PSU. It was a Heroichi thing, with actually great reviews, being cheap and also sturdy. Until some people actually did go and ran some tests on it and it blew up and took the whole computer with it when it was on full load.

Anyway, I need to get a new PSU before mine blows up on me. I was expecting to use it for at least 6 years, but oh well.

So, my plan is to gradually upgrade my hardware until October so that I can enjoy BF3 in its full glory. I was wondering if a 550W PSU (with great reviews and a decent cost - Antec VP550P. I've heard that it ran efficiently and well enough that it performed better than most 600W PSUs) would be enough in the forseeable future (6 ~ 8 years) to power my hardware, which I plan to get the second-to-most powerful without coupling the graphic cards.

Also, the RAM. I've 4GB of RAM, which I plan to upgrade to 8GB. I never thought that I would need any more than 4GB, but lately I've been experiencing some problems with not enough memory, et cetera, perhaps due to my multitasking. Is there any way that I can gradually upgrade to 2 sticks of 4GB with my current 2 sticks of 2GB? Like 2 2 4 in one month, and then onto 4 4 the next.

Also, my CPU seems powerful enough (AMD Phenom II X4 955 BW, OCed), but if I did want to change it, to say, a bulldozer of AMD's, would I need to change my motherboard (current has a AM3 socket in it)? If so, would a 6-core CPU be worth the change?

As for the GPU, I think I'll change that one last.



Thanks in advance; I should be looking for a job or an internship to afford the upgrade. :E

 

[Quixoticism]

A 550w power supply should be good for any single card build and even some midranged SLI configurations. Once you get into the area of cards like the 6950 and 560Ti you will probably need more power to run two of them. So know what you want graphics wise and them make your choice.

It's possible to upgrade RAM one stick at a time but I would recommend against it. 8GB of RAM is pretty cheap these days(not sure about Korean pricing) and buying in a pack you will probably get a better deal on them. Also if you mix memory you won't be running in dual channel anymore which won't be as fast.

As far as upgrading your cpu, if you're fine with how your x4 runs now then just hang onto it for a while. Bulldozer does require a new chipset(AM3+) so you will need a new motherboard. If you're mostly interested in BF3 I would say wait until some benchmarks come out for it and if it's able to use 6 cores than go ahead and get one.

 

[Viperidae]

Bulldozer does require a new chipset(AM3+) so you will need a new motherboard.

No... AM3+ is called such because it's compatible with AM3 and the chipset after Bulldozer.

Numbers, what are you doing that you say you need 8gb? You'd have to be doing some serious graphic design multitasking. 8gb will not improve gaming performance, just fyi.

I'd go with the Corsair 550w or 650w.

 

[OmegaX]

No... AM3+ is called such because it's compatible with AM3 and the chipset after Bulldozer.

Numbers, what are you doing that you say you need 8gb? You'd have to be doing some serious graphic design multitasking. 8gb will not improve gaming performance, just fyi.

I'd go with the Corsair 550w or 650w.

There is nothing wrong with going for 8 or even 16gb of RAM. It is relatively cheap and you can plan for the future. People absolutely laughed at me when I put in 4GB several years ago.

 

[Quixoticism]

No Viper, Bulldozer requires the AM3+ chipset. The AM3+ chipset is backwards compatible though so you can run an AM3 processor like the current Phenom 2s on it, but not the other way around.

 

[Viperidae]

Oh hmm. For some reason I thought he was upgrading the motherboard but not the CPU. My bad.

There is nothing wrong with going for 8 or even 16gb of RAM. It is relatively cheap and you can plan for the future. People absolutely laughed at me when I put in 4GB several years ago.

Except it has no impact on gaming performance.

 

[Acepilotf14]

Except it has no impact on gaming performance right now.

Yeah.

 

[15357]

Thanks a lot to all of you. I'm glad I've got that figured out.


By the way, I think I'm having problems with the RAM, since I'm using nearly all of my physical memory capacity when playing games, and it sometimes exits because of "low memory". That's why I thought 8GB might be necessary. If it doesn't have an impact on gaming performance, I'll stick with the 4GB for now, and try and increase virtual memory or something.

 

[Eejit]

Except it has no impact on gaming performance.

Multiple EVE clients?