Any Improvement Tips For My Current PC?

[ND02G]

Hey Guys... I Was Wondering If Anyone Had Any Ideas For Improving My Rig. Its Running Pretty Good, But, I Just Got A Bad *** Dell Core 2 Duo At Work And I Am Willing To Try Any Improvements On My Current Personal Hand Built Rig. Here Is What I’m Running.

Case: XG Viper 2

Motherboard: DFI Lanparty nF4 SLI-DR In SLI Mode

CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4400+ 2.2 MHz

Memory: 4Gig Corsair Twinx PC3200

GPU: 2 GeForce 6600 GT 256Mb 16x PCI Express In SLI Mode

PSU: Ultra 500 Watt Titanium X-Connect

Hard Drive: 3 Seagate 250Gig Barracudas, 1 Western Digital 120Gig External

Optical Drive: Memorex 16x/52X Dual Layer DVD/CDR Combo

Floppy Drive: Ultra 7in1 Media Reader/Floppy Combo

Cooling: Cooler Master Hyper 48 Heat Sink, Vantec Tornado CPU Fan 4000Rpm, 2 Vantec PCI Slot GPU Fans, Vantec UFO Exhaust Fan, 120mm Intake Fan, Vantec Northbridge Chipset Fan, Vantec Nexus 4 Port Multi-Fan Controller

Front Connect: 4 USB, 1 Firewire, Microphone, Headphone

Other Extras: Ultra UV Cathode Lights, Fan Speed Display, Temperature Display, Runtime Clock


Any Comments Would Be Appreciated I Just Wanna Run My Games A Little Better And Be Fully Prepared For Vista Ultimate

Thanks!
ND02G

 

[raybay]

Nice rig. The weakest link is the Memorex. It came with a year's warranty and they are good about replacement. Otherwise wait till it fails before replacing it.
If it were mine, I would add a high quality case fan. But it appears you have put some good planning into it, and all your componets are good choices.
Prepare to replace the video card sometime, as it will fail sometime if you are a gamer. Nothing to do until then, unless you have lots of bucks.

 

[MetalX]

Yea, you need a new videocard. Single new cards like 7900/7950s and X1900/1950 series can ownage old dual videocards like dual 6600s or dual 6800s. And why do you have 4 gigs of RAM? Overkill much?

 

[agi_shi]

Videocards, definately. Change 'em.

And I'd also change the powersupply if you decide to get a pretty powerful card... Because I'm not sure if that Ultra is going to bring you 500 good watts.

And Please Stop With The Capitals On Every Word. It Makes Me Read Each Word As One Sentence, Which Means I Can't Read It Too Fast (And I Usually Speed Read). Besides, It's Annoying. Thanks To You.

 

[MetalX]

Get some 7900/7950s and SLI em up, or get an 8800GTX. No need to SLI an 8800GTX as that would be so powerful, it would be CPU limited by even a Core 2 X6800.

 

[Grafficks]

For graphics upgrade, get either two mid/high end DX9 cards in SLI, or go for one DX10 card. That will improve gaming performance a lot.

Also I agree with replacing that Power supply. All (except a select few) "Ultra" power supplies are not quality parts, and therefore cannot deliver the "good watts" that agi_shi was referring to. The Ultra X-Connect has very bulky cables anyway, which impairs airflow regardless of its modular design.

The only good Ultra power supplies are the X-Finity (which I am currently using) and the X2-Connect. These ones are made by Wintech and cannot be dubbed as "generic".

However, getting something made by Enermax, Antec (not the SmartPower line), or OCZ would be a superb choice.

You definitely have enough memory to run the top games (4GB FTW!), all you need are better graphics card(s) to push a better frame rate and picture quality.

Good luck

 

[ND02G]

Awesome!

Awesome Guys! I’m Going For It.. Direct X 10 Here I Come!!! I Could Sorta Tell it Was My Vid Card Holding Me Back In Performance. Anyone Have Any Suggestions On Brand Name For The 8800GTX? Does The GTX Have Allot More Power Than The GTS? Does It Make Allot Of Heat?

The 4 Gigs Of Ram Was Because I Multitask Allot Of Graphics Software And I'm Waiting To See If Vista Will Use All 4Gigs Vs. XP Only Seeing 3Gigs. Hahaha Yeah I Know... Overkill

So My 500 Watt PSU Won't Hold Up? Humm... I Guess Its Pretty Maxed Out Anyways.. There Is Only 1 Plug Left

 

[raybay]

The OCZ is not the same quality or performance as Antec, Enermax, oolermaster, FPS, or PCPower and Cooling (Silencer, PCP&C, and Turbo-Cool. OCZ is located in Canada, but their power supplies are made in Shanghai and various Chinese locations... by a consortium of five technology marketing companies. Do not assume that their power supplies are the same as their memory.
Remember always that OCZ is really a marketing company owned by Chinese and Singapore companies, that bought OCZ of Canada for its marketing potential... a company that did not exist until 2001.
We are beginning to see a lot of failures in the OCZ power supply products.

 

[CNTInTraining]

the attack of X-connect! have a fire extinguisher ready
go for a hiper tpre-r 580W imo
http://www.xoxide.com/hiper-power-supply-blue.html
or if u wanna show off
http://www.xoxide.com/hiper-modular-ii-730w.html

 

[MetalX]

Wow, that second PSU is crazy... 64A on 4 12V rails. Kicks the *** outta my 33A on 1 12V rail...

 

[CNTInTraining]

yea i think its their newest release, i remember when i got my 580 hiper i was stunned, but this is just crazy. Not sure how good the wire management would be though considering they attach below it.