Hi, Both me and my wife like to game on our PCs. Usually it's single player games like Elder Scrolls or Civ V or something, but sometimes we like to play MMOs. Well, our setups are getting a little old for that. Heck, I have a GeForce 550ti, not the best but not awful, and I get around 12 fps in EQII because of my CPU bottleneck. In short I need a new CPU, the highest GHz I can find, and as long as it just needs air cooling I'm willing to overclock a bit. Obviously I'll need a new motherboard, but I want to keep my 8gigs of ram. Unfortunately I have no idea how to figure out what brand/type of RAM of have, and if it's compatible with a motherboard/CPU combo. For my wife, I guess she COULD keep her RAM, but it's only 4gigs and I'd like to surprise her with a few more gigs, so I'm ok with buying entire new RAM for her. My Rig: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 @2.33GHz 8.00GB RAM 64 Bit Operating System Geforce GTX 550 Ti My computer was originally a Gateway LX6810-01, but I've since upgraded the GPU and PSU. Wifes Rig: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @2.40GHz 3.00GB RAM 64Bit Operating System GeForce GTS 250 Can't remember what her computer originally was. I would LIKE to spend less than $400 per computer, but I am willing to go a little bit one way or the other. Are AMD chips as good as Intel now days? I would like something that's going to last me a little while before becoming useless. Thanks for any help guys.
Hi, Welcome to the forums. Keeping your ram would make the choices of motherboards and CPU you could use very limited because all modern systems use DDR3, and your current system has DDR2. Givin the cheap prices of 8 gigs of ram today it doesn't make sence to buy an out of date motherboard in order to re-use your ram. These are the parts i would recomend. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128523 I choose a mATX form factor motherboard to ensure they would fit in your cases. If you know your case will accept a full ATX motherboard there may be a better choice for you, but all you would gain is more expansion slots.
I actually bought a new case, sorry I didn't mention it. It will accept a full ATX Motherboard. Thanks for the help so far
