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Hi guys, Its been awhile. Ive been using my rig (signature) for years now and it can no longer handle high end games or graphics. Im not sure what to do with it though so im hoping for advice. Would you upgrade components, which ones? or go for a new build? Everything is running at stock speeds. Would love to hear your thoughts! CPU: Phenom II x6 1090T BE @ 3.2 MOBO: ASUS M4A89TD PRO/USB3 RAM: Corsair Vengeance 24GB 1600 GPU: ASUS 6950 2GB @ stock Storage: WD Caviar Black 640GB + Vertex 3 OS Drive Chassis: Lian Li Lancool K63 Cooling: CM Hyper 212+ PSU: Corsair HX750 Display: ASUS VH236H x2

Hi All, I am thinking about giving my PC an upgrade. I discussed which SSD to get in another topic and I'm pretty much settled on one of two options will pick one of them later this week. Now, I'm thinking either to upgrade my GPU possibly get GTX 960, GTX 970 or maybe the GTX 1070 or getting a new CPU - Board - RAM I know the difference between both upgrade options. One will boost my graphic experience. The other will boost my overall experience but the graphics department will not experience that much of a change. I want your opinion on which path shall I choose. Currently, I casually game every once in a while. I mostly play Hearthstone and sometimes Starcraft 2. And occasionally Assassins creed, Blacklight. I did not experience any significant lag with my current machine but it sometimes happens. So, which path shall I choose? For the GPUs, I want to get GTX 970 or 1070 when its released but I don't want to pay more than 280$ (after shipping and import fees) in a GPU for a system that will not be handling a ton of games like I used to do. So with the current prices, the GTX 960 sounds the appropriate choice. However, I want to know will it perform well on a big 42 - 50 Inch TV at 1920x1080? Or shall I try and find a cheaper GTX 970? My current card, the GTX 275 is doing very well on my 20 inch screen with 1600x900 res. But I will get either a 27 inch screen with 1920x1080 and a TV for movies..etc with the same res. Or probably will skip the monitor, and get a 50 inch TV. Let me know what you guys think of which path shall I choose and if you have any recommendations as where to find a good deal for the GTX 970?

I am playing The Division beta and I'm looking to upgrade so I can play this game on Ultra settings and a reasonable FPS. Current benchmarks show AMD's are beating the nVidia's by up to 20FPS in some settings (see ) My current rig: CPU: Core i5 2550K (Sandy Bridge) at 4.5Ghz Mem:8Gb Corsair vengeance @ 1648Mhz GPU: nVidia GTX770 2gb I run everything fine with High settings and shadows down to Low/Mid my FPS maintains around 50ish out of combat and 30ish in combat My question is should I spring for a GTX970/980 or should I consider a system rebuild to avoid bottlenecks? I'm not really wanting to do a full system build again so I'm leaning to just getting a new GPU, but what are your guys' thoughts? I was also thinking of just getting another GTX770 and doing SLI because doesn't DX12 and Windows 10 to combine the video memory to 4gb then rather than sharing the 2gb from one card? Thanks for any input!

I'm currently running Windows 7 and am happy with it. However, it would be a big help for the computer to boot up quicker than it does now (takes about 45 seconds). A little history: it used to take a couple minutes from the time I pushed the power button until the Windows start-up was complete. I replaced the old rotating hard drive with an SSD and that made a very big improvement...........it now takes about 22 seconds for the POST, and an addtional 23 or 24 seconds for Windows 7 to start up. I've heard that Windows 10 has a fast start up, but I am concerned about the drivers............I've heard that there might be problems with the drivers, especially on older devices, and I would rather not take the chance unless the new start up time is much faster than the 23 - 24 seconds that I currently have. Also, I hear that Windows 10 does automatic upgrades and I don't like that, but I thought that I read somewhere that you can change the settings so that the upgrades are not automatic.........not sure about that. So, take the chance on having driver problems and upgrade problems? Naturally, the POST will always take 22 seconds (this is as fast as it will go even after making BIOS changes to speed it up). So, the best I can expect is to reduce the start up from about 45 seconds to sometthing less than that, but will never be faster than 22 seconds. All advice appreciated.

I bought this this relatively old desktop some time ago (second hand) and am thinking of overclocking it. APU: AMD A6-3600 (4CPU / 2.1 GHz) RAM: 4GB (Probably going to upgrade this too.) HDD: 500GB Would it be safe to overclock?

At this point I NEED to upgrade my PC's monitor and that will happen in the next 2 months but... For the time being the monitor I'm currently using is quiet laughable. Let's just say that at the time I built my first PC about 3 months ago, I had not fully considered the impact that a half decent monitor or even a lower end monitor would have on my gaming... So I decided to save some cash and just stick with an old 18" Acer moniter very similiar to THIS one, that was leftover from a long ago discarded emachines desktop. Now I'm no idiot, I was'nt planning on settling for gaming in 1366x768 resolution! See... At the time I had an old HP Notebook with a Nvidia 8200m GPU, which when connected the the monitor through the VGA port allowed for resolution up to 1920x1080 on both the acer monitor and notebook display! I basically figured that if a 128bit notebook GPU could handle 1080p (quit well actually) on the acer monitor. Than my R9 280x OC Edition should do the same and/or better w/ absolutely no problem... Well... For whatever reason I was wrong. Dead wrong! Whenever I try to set the resolution to anything past 1366x768 with my R9 280x and the Acer monitor, the screen immediatly goes black and a prompt states that the current resolution is not supported by my monitor... I have tried adjusting the resolution thru windows and thru AMD's Catalyst Control Center. Even with various setting enabled/disabled... (GPU scaling for instance) But nothing seems to work. I should note that I have to use a DVI to VGA adapter with the Acer and my R9 280x, which I believe may be a large part of the problem. All the drivers are up to date on both the GPU and monitor but that doesnt seem to make a difference. So if you have any ideas on how to remedy the situation that would be most helpful... I would even gladly settle for 1600x900 for the time being.

Ok everybody I just got my first client for my fledging computer repair business and I'm in the process of getting my A+ certification. Basically they are a non profit with 10 computers in a lab that does basic resume help and things of that nature anyway they are in need of upgrading from xp to windows 8 and I was wondering if it would be better to do a clan install or an upgrade version? I have heard pro and con for each and I was just wondering which is better in this situation considering were talking a much older os would a full install after wiping the hard drive be better? Or should I get them the upgrade version and save myself the headache oh having to wipe the hard drive?

Well i have just moved from console to PC just to game i have bought a second hand PC for $95, its old but here are the specs i just want to Know if it would be good for normal gaming : PSU: 420 w MB: Asus M2N68 AM Plus OS: Windows 7 Home premium 64bit CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+ x2 (2.3 Ghz) Memory: 1gb ddr2 667 Mhz x2 HDD: 150 gb ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Video: PowerColor HD7750 1gb DDR5 ( bought this for $140 nz) i am only only planning to game on 1360 x 768 resolution Up coming upgrades (sadly both second hand parts) CPU: AMD Phenom X3 8650 2.3ghz (Bought for $39.55 nz) Memory: G.SKill DDR2 800 2gb x2 (goin to buy) i know that theres newer parts ddr3 ram and the new FX processors and all, its just that im working with what i already have but i will upgrade again later, So yup that's pretty much what i got or going to have. I also have pre ordered my self a copy of BF4, and i wonder if i could run it with all the upgrades added.

So i am currently running a Radeon 4890HD (Old, I know!) and I do a heavy amount of gaming. I wanted to see if I could get any solid recommendations for around $200 US that would be a noticeable difference that what I am currently running. (PCI-E Cards only) The card can not be incredibly beefy either due to limited space in the casing and using a smaller motherboard. Any Advice? Games I play: MMOs - Final Fantasy A realm unborn (Beta stages atm) First person shooters - Counter Strike but will eventually play BF4 once released. Appreciate any help!