Since your not updating to a current gen PC, due to budget, you should look into ebay and buy used parts. $130 for a Q6600?? Ebay, $68 link If you like, i'll can sell you mine. i went from Q6600 to i7. Never overclock. It still works, just switched out last month. It is good that you didnt upgrade to Win7 with a 75GB HD. It takes too much hard drive space, runs a algorithm, that uses link to link older drivers, but still think its the actual size. So windows think you have no space. I swear to you, my win7 OS folder was ~25GB!, i only had a 90gb SSD. so 1/3 of that was my OS, 2-3 games. Out of space! With the speed technology is going and how fast it comes out, any PC you build, i feel you only have a 3yr time frame to upgrade. After that its not worth it. Also try aiming at a balance of budget/enthusiast build. Generally speaking build the PC with room to upgrade. Also you dont need a $200 case. Opt for a budget case for >$80. Buy a better single card, then settle for 2 weaker cards to run SLi/Crossfire. Then successfully upgrade by getting the same card again later on (usually cheaper, next year or 2 sales. like black friday, cyber monday, christmas, july 4th, etc). Use only 2 channels of your ram, so you can double your ram, at a later date. Performance wise, 2x4GB is better then 4x2GB. Get a unlock CPU. So you can overclock and extend the life of your PC, even more. This way you have the PC to play current gen games for the next 3 years, and only put in another 400-500 down the line (2-3 yr later, that's like saving $1 a month for the next 2-3 years. DEFINITELY DOABLE) And still play current gen games for another 3-4 years. IMO Budget gaming PC are more suited for MMORPG, because you see yourself playing for the next 5+ years. ie: world of warcraft, everquest 2, heck people still play everquest. Now your budget PC can play the game you want on high and you never have to worry about upgrading. Their graphic engines are like 3 generations behind.
I am planning a full upgrade, look at the posts on the bottom of page 3. It will take me a while, but in the end it will be more worth it then just upgrading this one.
For a good cheap PSU look at the Corsair 80+ Builder Series. They're very decent for a low price. For a modern system running something like an i5 and a GTX640 or GTX650 you will likely need something in the range of 400w - 500w. I have always liked Coolermaster cases and even their cheap ones are decent. http://www.scan.co.uk/products/cool...ce=google shopping&utm_medium=google shopping Something like this would do you. A case is a very personal choice though so search around.
It's the same alright, but why did SOE explicitly tell people with Steam to not verify the game files within Steam? The client is the same but the downloader/launcher is not. I would rather go for the native downloader/launcher anytime. If 90% of the people playing PlanetSide 2 are using Windows 7, then of course 90% of the crashes will be on Windows 7.
Lol, I guess that is one way to look at it, but I mean I did tests, compared the amount of crashes, the amount of time before the crashes, I ran monitoring programs such as GPU-Z, to make sure that it was using everything it could. Things like that, I tried running in XP mode, that fixed a lot more crashes then Microsoft would like to admit.
I am thinking about the NZXT phantom, but as far as the PSU goes, a lot of cases come with them, so that doesn't bother me too bad, it depends on what case I get, I guess.
I'm not going to be the one to tell you you must upgrade to Windows 7 if you want to play PlanetSide 2 only. I myself refuse to upgrade to Windows 8, and I'm proud to say I've never used Windows Vista. My experience is that PlanetSide 2 runs great on Windows 7 and the few glitches I've had is not to blame on Windows 7, or so severe that I'm considering going back to Windows XP. Windows 7 is to good overall experience for me to go back. However, if you feel Windows XP is enough for you then why not. I personally feel that Windows 7 and the fact that it has a great 64 bit native support is something I cannot do without.
The only reason I refuse Windows 7 right now is because of the crashes and lagspikes it brings with it on my low spec PC. I plan to upgrade to Windows 8 as soon as I get my new PC
There's a good explanation of that. For a while (I expect it'll still happen) Steam were behind with the data on their end. SOE had submitted the latest patches to their system, but it hadn't changed it. So basically by verifying over Steam you'd de-grade your installation to an older version, which the SOE launchpad would then have to fix. It is also for this reason that you should avoid using Steam's tool entirely if a game has its own tools for integrity (especially MMOs)
There's really no reason to buy that SSD. It's not going to help much at all in games, especially in this one. I bought a pretty fast 1TB drive for 1/2 the price 1.5 to 2 years ago.. And I still haven't put it into my desktop, because I stopped using the desktop. So I still have a new in box 1TB drive.. Budget PCs are not going to have SSD.. Yes, you will load things faster, especially Windows. You will load up applications faster. However, you can load up the game fast enough without an SSD. You can load up windows in a few seconds, especially Windows 8. You can run and load up applications very fast too. In game? You will load the map a little bit faster. I compared speeds and it's nearly not notifiable. But if you want just that tiny amount of disk space for all that money for a budget PC. Then go ahead. But you can get much more space, and put the money into something better in other things. I've used both Windows 7 and 8. There's really no difference, but I feel the 8 is better. If you get used to an app as a desktop. Which I am in most of the time. It's definitely not a Windows Vista Fail like many are saying. There's even pictures and my professors even think it's another Vista. Which is further from the truth. (they haven't used it)
The king has a point - if game performance is more important to you than faster overall loading performance, you should consider taking the SSD money and getting a better intel processor than you've picked. (I should have mentioned that earlier, but lack of coffee makes the mind boggle)
You're right. It's not a fail like Vista. Vista had some problems and Windows 7 was the solution. Windows 8 doesn't have problems. It has the GUI of a phone. And that's not a problem but an epic failure. If the next Windows doesn't fix that it's going to fail also. Who in their freaking right mind substitute a great desktop GUI for a phone GUI?
iv seen i7 920s and 930s go for $70-$100, and the famous i5 2500k go for $150... a q6600, which i have a couple of, going for $130 is an atrocity. iirc, i got them new for $190 in 2008.
GPU might be a decent future investment, especially if you're not upgrading every year. Haswell is coming and AMD is gearing up for a CPU war with their hated enemy, and it may drive prices down in the CPU sector.
Except that, it looks 98% like Windows 7, but it feels like there's more stuff that doesn't look like XP. I don't even go to that "phone GUI" much often. However, there are things that are useful on it. If you're not into or wanting to multitask between many things, that's what it is good for. (if you strictly want to use Skype, browser, games, any app, etc) Or, you can be like the pro Win7 guy and just stay in the desktop. hehe. Which is what I do most of the time. If you can upgrade to Win 8 or buy a Windows 7, I would just upgrade to Win 8 since it is cheaper..
I get what you are saying about the SSD, but I need to get a hard drive, all I do is game, PlanetSide 2, BF3. Borderlands 2. Thats all the PC is for. Whether or not the load time is notably improved (Which it will be comparing to the PC I currently have) I still want the faster load times.
I know, but I want to be able to load it as fast as possible, whether it is a small improvement, or a large improvement
Honestly, get an SSD. You don't realize you actually need one until you get one, it increases load times and also get me a 3+5 fps increase. As for CPU, you should really upgrade yours, PlanetSide 2 uses quite a bit of CPU and unfortunately, only uses 1 core. I recommend investing into an AMD FX 6300 or a Core i3 2120. You should also get 8GB's of RAM, I recommend the Crucial Ballistix stuff, cheap and good value.
