I really appreciate all the help you've given. Thank you all very much.
I don't mind learning, that was actually my main reason for joining this forum; thank you all for being patient.
My only problem is that Gpu-Z says I have GDR5 memory; is this an issue?
If I don't upgrade, will my GDR5 work in a DDR3 Am3+ mobo?
Also what kind of memory fits the budget and still effectively runs games?
I would also like to know if you have any suggestions on a mobo?
Does the Intel have GDR5 support?
GDDR5 is the type of VRAM memory built into your GPU. DDR3 system memory is entirely unrelated. Yes, a DDR3 mobo with DDR3 RAM sticks installed will work fine with a GDDR5 GPU.
What kind/how much RAM do you currently have installed? You should be able to simply transplant it onto the new board, but we need to check that before you pull the trigger.
Also, if you plan to upgrade your mobo/CPU you'll want to make sure that an aftermarket cooler will fit in your rig and that the case header won't cause any wiring issues with the new board (this is often the case with mass-market, proprietary desktops). What kind of case do you have? If it's a mass-market desktop, what's the model number? Apologies if you've already provided this info., I'm at work and can't sift back through the thread right now.
To aid your search and avoid issues, you need to look for micro-atx AM3+ motherboards. I'll try to find a couple for you to check out.
Here are some suggestions:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128504
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157309
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131795
NOTE: DO NOT PURCHASE ANY OF THESE UNTIL WE'VE MADE SURE THAT THEY WILL FIT YOUR PARTICULAR SITUATION.
Ok, I've done some research for you and I unfortunately have some bad news for you. With all the variables in play and given that your system is going to be used for gaming, I don't think you're going to be able to upgrade. You're going to need to start over. Let me walk you through why I came to that conclusion.
First of all, your motherboard is not a true micro-atx board; it looks like it has slightly offset mounting screws. This is relatively common among OEM, mass-market boards because the system builder--Dell in this that case--assumes that the machine will be sold as a unit and simply replaced rather than upgraded. What that means for you is that a new motherboard likely will not fit properly in your case. You could try it, but I wouldn't.
Additionally, a new motherboard may or may not work with the front-end harness pinouts. Basically, you may not be able to properly connect the tower's buttons to the motherboard. Even worse, that case has terrible ventilation and appears to be far too small to accommodate anything other than a stock CPU cooler. Bad airflow + small case + stock CPU cooler + modern games on high settings = a recipe for catastrophic hardware failure. It isn't worth the risk. Even if you could get it working, you're going to need to buy a new OS disc since I assume your comp came preloaded with Windows. Changing the motherboard usually requires a fresh license if you don't have an install disc.
Next, you're going to need to upgrade your RAM to at least 6 gigs of DDR3 if you want reasonable gaming performance. Right now it looks like you have 2 GB DDR2. That won't work in a gaming rig.
Finally, that model of Inspiron is listed as having a Radeon HD 4350 with 512 MB of VRAM. That's woefully underpowered for today's games. You're going to need at least an HD 6xxx series with 1-2 GB of VRAM if you want to be able to play next-gen games--or even some current games.
As you can see, you're going to need a new case, motherboard, CPU, GPU, and some faster RAM if you want to game at any reasonable level. Knowing what I know now, I'm not even sure you have a CPU bottleneck--I think you may have a whole system problem.
I apologize for getting your hopes up; I tried my best to help you with a cheaper upgrade path. Sadly, the time for a total overhaul comes for nearly all of us. I wish there was a better way given your budget, but you're going to be best served by making due with what you have and saving for an entirely new rig.
I can help you put together a build plan if you'd like, but it's going to be around $500-800 to solve all your issues. Sorry, buddy.
Ah, I see now that I forgot about your newer GPU. Sorry about that. As you said, though, you're going to need a much better card for 60 FPS at 1080P regardless, even on medium settings. If you're going to build new, you shouldn't settle for medium. Go for ultra, that way you'll be down to medium instead of very low in 2-3 years. It's much more cost effective that way. Besides, you can get a high/ultra budget rig rolling for well under a grand.
As for the RAM, you must have an upgraded model of that Inspiron; everything I saw said 2 GB. However, you're going to need to upgrade to 6-8 GB DDR3 no matter what.
I can definitely help you put together a budget rig *rubs hands together eagerly*. Just tell me what price we're shooting for and we'll get rolling. We'll need to do that via PM or the General Hardware forums, though, because this forum is reserved for more focused discussions.
I mean better in comparison to the Xbox360-just to clarify.
Hello,
I am having issues with almost every video game I play. It seems that I drop 10-20 fps during heavy explosions and also during specific loading areas.
Some games, for example Diablo 3 are NOTORIOUSLY bad for lagging caused from disk access. Eg explosions, loading of new areas or textures == lag and stutter. It might not be an issue having to do with your GPU at all.
Eg. Diablo 3 and some games benefit greatly if you put them on a SSD.
Just click on my avatar and select "send message" or whatever that option is in the drop-down menu (on my phone now, so it's a little different).
Some motherboards are both DDR2 and DDR3 compliant, but they're relatively rare and I'm guessing yours isn't one of them.
$500 seems doable, actually. Let me work on it. Out of curiosity, what kind of HDD do you have? We may be able to salvage it.
Some games, for example Diablo 3 are NOTORIOUSLY bad for lagging caused from disk access. Eg explosions, loading of new areas or textures == lag and stutter. It might not be an issue having to do with your GPU at all.
Eg. Diablo 3 and some games benefit greatly if you put them on a SSD.
The 5770 is for sure a more powerful GPU than what is in the Xbox 360. But the Xbox 360 targets 1280 x 720 native resolution, some games are even lower than that. Call of duty renders at only 1024 x 600! That is a huge reduction in pixels likely from what your PC is running. That is how the 360 gets away with using so many shader effects etc... the fillrate demand is very low.
What resolution is your monitor? The 5770 will struggle at 1080p on modern games. You would actually probably have a better gaming experience if you hooked your computer up to a 720p TV and played from 5-7 feet away, as if it were a console. Of course this isnt always ideal for all games. But for some games (ie. console ports) it is a great solution and frees up the GPU to increase detail settings. The 5770 can do 720p in it's sleep. It has a decent amount of shader power but is really limited by 16 ROP's. You really want a 32 ROP card to drive 1080p.
And lastly, your CPU is heavily bottlenecking you at this point. Games used to not use much CPU back in the day when you bought that processor, but now games are using a lot more physics, which are usually heavily triggered by explosions. That would explain the drop in FPS in physics heavy games you are experiencing. Athlon X2 is really underpowered for modern games. Not sure what other CPU's that motherboard is compatible with. Could you get a quad core Phenom in there? That would help a lot.
I did a preliminary shop for you tonight. I think $500 is going to be a stretch since you're going to need at least an HD 7870 to really "blow away" the consoles (or at least get on the same level as the new consoles), but right around the $650 mark is definitely doable if you can salvage your current HDD and stick to AMD chips. When you start to fall below the performance marks you want (around 1.5-2 years from now with a 7870), you can simply buy another 7870 and/or overclock your CPU and be right back in the game.
A word of warning about a first build: you're going to have people trying to convince you to buy $300 processors and $250 motherboards, $300 cases the size of small apartments, and $500+ video cards capable of producing 473 million frames per second. That's where personal choice comes in. If you've got the money and are willing to spend it on a dream machine, I say go for it. However, my philosophy has always been to never spend more than I have to in order to get the performance I want even though I've got the dough. Miserly? A little, but I have more important financial priorities than my computer. That, and I take pride in the fact that my "budget" rigs can keep up with machines that cost twice as much or more in nearly every game out there.
You're also going to run across people who forget important pieces of information like I did with your GPU and others who are simply wrong. Take suggestions (yes, mine too--I'm just a hobby builder after all) with a grain of salt and don't let people bludgeon you to death with 50 million benchmarks or meaningless technical trivia that amounts to nothing in the real world. Pick the components you want, do your homework, and STICK TO YOUR BUDGET. These projects have a habit of getting out of control monetarily if you let them.
Good luck, and feel free to PM me if you need help. I love vicarious building.
A bundle of relevant information here, thanks to many, but specifically BigChickenJim.
Given that you're looking for other opinions, I decided to chip in.
You are running a 32 bit version of Windows 7, which means that you would need to acquire a 64 bit version in order to validate adding more RAM, given that the former version only addresses up to 4 GB. Because the GPU's VideoRAM and other devices' Input/Output are memory-mapped into system RAM, bearing in mind you have a GPU with 1 GB of VRAM, you end up with barely over 2 GB of usable RAM. This is somewhat problematic as far as recent games go, although the recommended settings for the ones you brought up, appear to be around the aforementioned amount.
Nevertheless, this likely is one of your issues (run Task Manager on the background while playing any of the games for a couple of minutes and then check the graph to determine the amount of available memory in the meantime and diagnose this as a limitation or not) and as pointed out, not only would you need to add extra RAM, DDR2 no less, which happens to be more expensive and slower than DDR3, you would also be required to install the 64 bit version of the OS, for it to take advantage of the extra physical memory and allow the 32 bit games to make full use of the up to 2 GB they're entitled to. If this proves to be one of the issues, which frankly, it will ultimately come to be as you approach more recent gaming titles.
Moving on to the GPU - the resolution you're aiming at may demand more than what it can deliver. Again, the games you bring up aren't particularly exigent, but later on the road you will likely notice the absence of rendering power. Utilizing a similar method to that described above with Task Manager, you can leave GPU-Z running on the background whilst you game for a couple of minutes and eventually browse the data on the Sensors tab, in order to acquaint yourself with the usage percentage of the GPU. Additionally, if you tick the Log to File option, GPU-Z will write down the information for you, for posterior analysis. Make sure you un-tick the option once you're done recording, not to end up with an immense and unneeded log file.
Where the CPU is concerned - this bears yet again the mention of the fact that those games aren't Quad-Core demanding, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to have the extra machinery - you're running a somewhat obsolete gaming CPU. Again, Task Manager to the rescue and to provide some information, regarding CPU usage.
So far, I've attempted to provide easy diagnostic methods, for you to acquaint yourself with the response of your hardware to the software demands. Discarding for a moment the upgrading venue, you would want to attempt over-clocking the CPU and GPU - depending on what's being strained the most. CPU wise however, given that we're talking about an OEM board, you likely won't be able to follow this route, which only leaves GPU over-clocking. From what I can tell, this won't solve your issues, but let's explore that option for a minute and hopefully you can report back with relevant information that will allow us to definitively deem your whole system as obsolete and from there on, I'm sure BigChickenJim will be happy to help you with both of his *rubbing hands*.
I would generate a few, 3 or 4 results per each game you're having issues with, to determine whether over-clocking the GPU is a relevant course. If you come to the conclusion, after analysing the GPU-Z generated logs, that its usage is constantly above 90-95%, then over-clocking will help.
Firstly, however, I suggest you download AMD's clean-up utility, run it, reboot and proceed to install the the latest stable release of Catalyst Software Suite (13.4 as of today), which you can download from here. Do not install Catalyst Control Center - un-tick it during the installation and instead, download MSI Afterburner and set it up so it starts with Windows, as it's much lighter on resources and will likely suffice your needs. All this procedure should hopefully prove a solution to any driver issues.
From there on, if you happen to identify the GPU as the culprit, you should be able to tweak its clocks via MSI Afterburner, using the sliders - they should be set to 850/1200 by default. For guidance on HD 5770 over-clocking values, consult posts around the web, or if it comes to that, I'll provide you with some.
I wouldn't get my hopes high, not unless this issue suddenly began occurring on previously smoothly-running games, which you weren't clear about, in which case software could be the culprit, best case scenario. Given that you would indeed need a complete system upgrade, do explore every possible course until you've definitely ruled out every non-upgrade related fix.
JD
Although I was aware of the 64bit issue involving memory up to 4gb(I'm prepared, not to excited about the jump, but I have a 64bit version of Windows 7 as well), I am a bit confused on what utilities are taking up my machines ram. I believe windows requires 1gb of memory, but what else is taking that ram up? I apologize if I'm misunderstanding.
So by this do you mean that 32bit allows less than 2gb of memory even with upgraded RAM?
As far as using Gpu-Z, what do you recommend I look for?
I'm still unsure if I can upgrade to the Phenom II x4 955, but I wouldn't mind a temp fix. I recall reading bad things about this or other OEM machines as far as upgrading is concerned; do you have any idea why these are so difficult to upgrade, assuming they actually are?
1. Don't get too wrapped up in the technical side of memory mapping and CPU addressing. You're likely to confuse yourself if you do. What you need to know on a practical level is that, as I said before, you need around 8Gb of DDR3 system memory. To do that upgrade, you need both a DDR3-compliant motherboard and a 64 bit OS. The rest is just technical fluff.
If for some reason you'd like to read about the subject on a nitty-gritty technical level, this is a good place to start: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1035670. Interesting, but ultimately unnecessary information in your case.
2. When JD says 95% usage, he means your GPU's average usage during gaming. If the usage is consistently very low, it could point to a bottleneck elsewhere. If it's consistently very high, you likely are pushing your rig as hard as it will go and will need an upgrade. I feel like we've already established that you need a new rig, but if you want to run this test you can. You're simply looking to see if your average GPU usage is high (I'd say 80% and up) or relatively low (below 80%).
MSI Afterburner's in-game overlay is the best way to monitor usage if you decide to test, but I believe GPU-Z has a logging feature that can do the same thing. As for why MSI Afterburner crashed your comp, I have no idea. By nature it is an extremely low-level-access program, which means it's very invasive and sticks its virtual tentacles out everywhere in your system. That can cause issues with antivirus software, and indeed that is the most common cause of Afterburner issues. However, your crash could have been caused by a variety of things, and without being able to access your logs it is nearly impossible to tell which was the culprit. For now, just avoid it. Honestly I think the testing is a waste; your comp is simply outdated and we already know this.
3. Do not, I repeat DO NOT overclock your CPU on that motherboard unless you are prepared to lose the whole system. You will likely fry your system and could possibly cause a fire if the board has inadequate VRM or Northbridge cooling (and I suspect it does). The GPU overclock is much safer, so if you want to try that I say go for it. Just watch your temps carefully and take it easy. Oh, and for future reference CPU overclocking is best done directly through the BIOS instead of a third-party program. The same is true of GPU overclocking, but since GPU BIOS can be a huge pain in the butt it often makes more sense to use software programs.
4. As I said before, a Phenom II x4 is the best CPU that board will take. I think it's a waste of your hard-earned cash, but if you want to buy one you should be ok provided that your temperatures in that stuffy case don't get too high. OEM boards are often difficult to upgrade on because they are frequently not standardized or user-friendly. The manufacturers don't expect you to be diving into a pre-built to upgrade, so they don't design or plan with that contingency in mind.
Hope that helps.