Suggested upgrades

[Kyle Puttifer]

I want to upgrade my rig for use with codemasters F1 games, which are obviously very resource-heavy.
Say I want to run High settings, what would you guys recommend?

Preferably, I wouldn't upgrade my OS as it's fine as it is.
I'll need something about those temps as well - I need to know if I'll be able to get away with not upgrading the fans.

 

[Jim Cole]

Well first off, what is your budget and what do you plan on keeping?

Without that information, I would suggest that you upgrade your CPU to the Phenom II 945 Black edition as well as a decent new CPU heatsink and fan, as that will give you a bit more horsepower without replacing the motherboard. Secondly I would suggest you upgrade to one of the HD X770 cards, most likely the HD 6770 would be good, but if your budget can afford it, go for the HD 6970 1Gb version. Those 2 upgrades alone should allow you to run pretty much any game on a single monitor with everything turned up to full or max.

One other thing that you should consider and that is upgrading the ram to a pair of 2Gb sticks that are running 1600 instead of the slow stuff that is currently in your system.

 

[Kyle Puttifer]

Need more info on the CPU heatsink/fan and the RAM upgrade - chances are, if I showed that to mum she would get something archaic from the 80s.

 

[Jim Cole]

Here is the CPU I would suggest as the 945 is not available from this site, but the price is good: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103924

Here is the Heatsink and fan: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186035

And here is the Ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231427

 

[Kyle Puttifer]

Good quad-core that, because anything decent from Intel is out of the question.
I'll probably go with the 6770, good price.

Are my temps OK?

 

[Jim Cole]

Your temps may change once you replace the graphics card and CPU so not to worry about those just yet though they are fine for what you have.