Maximum PC

I had a build originally made in summer 2009. It's going on 3 years old, and it's starting to show a bit of age. I'm going to list all the parts I have and their price so that you have an idea of my budget (it is pretty flexible). The only difference is that the 470 I have was actually free and from last Spring because the 285 was replaced under warranty and they just upgraded it to the 470 for me.

Part Type Manufacturer Model Purchase Price
Case silverstone Fortress 238
power supply pc power and cooling 750 watt 120
Mother Board asus p6t v2 290
cpu cooler noctua NH-U12P SE1366R 75
Processor Intel core i7 920 230
RAM ocz 6GB 1600mhz 100
Video Card evga gtx 470 360
Sound Card creative xfi gamer 80


The biggest thing I notice is that load times on some games (Shogun) are extremely slow. The game runs fine at high settings, but it just loads slowly. Programs such as indesign and photoshop take a while to load, but overall run ok.

The video card handles everything at ultra high settings well, but is extremely loud and fairly annoying.

I always had this plan of upgrading everything piecemeal so that I wouldn't have to spend a lot of money at any one time. I am not itching to upgrade immediately, although I could do it any time between now and September really. If there is something coming out soon that is worth waiting for (ivy bridge, a 600 series card), then that's fine.

1. You didn't list your storage, but I'm going to assume you have mechanical drives.

2. Shogun and most other total war series RTS games have crazy long load times. Even if you have a fast HDD, it just has poor MB/sec read speeds for some odd reason. I have similar issues and its a known issue; some have stated to run the game in dx9 mode to reduce times, but honestly, I didn't remedy my load times at all.


What you could use is a fast SSD to boost load times; that's about it. Maybe think about putting a liquid cooling loop for your loud 470. If you have a microcenter nearby, you can check to see if you can grab a Danger Den 470 full coverage water block for $36 (link), Add a cheap 1 or 2 fan 120mm radiator, a cheap xspc pump/reservoir and you'd almost be rocking it for $100-150ish; maybe even cheaper.

Ya they are all mechanical drives- pretty fast though. Everything is at 7200 RPM and I always bought good HDDs.

I'll take that to mean that I should be ok on my current parts for a while? I don't want to have to completely rebuild the system when I update next; I'd like doing it piecemeal.

one 470 is still plenty fast compared to 98% of the rest of the world. Maybe think about pickin up a 2nd used one for uber cheap. But like I said, if you got some spending money and hate the loud noise from the blower, think about getting it liquid cooled and be nearly silent operation. Just something cool about playing a modern game on a system that's too damn eerie quiet.


Didn't you say you had a MC nearby? I know friends who have build entire LC loops for less than 100 from their clearance bins. One picked up a 2x120mm name brand radiator for like $20-30, pair it with a cheap $30 pump/reservoir and the $30 block, maybe another $10-20 for bits and pieces and you'd be set. If I had a MC near me, I'd do that.