What's my bottleneck and what's the best upgrade path?

[koocha]

Hi all

I'm currently running an Intel Q6600 at stock speeds with 4GB DDR2 and an AMD Radeon HD4890.

What's the bottleneck with this? I'm wanting to upgrade to a newer CPU with hardware AES support, but will the graphics card be the bottleneck here and all I'll get is a faster CPU? I'm looking at the AMD A10 APU, but aren't sure if the onboard graphics will be better than what I already have.

Any help would be appreciated here. I've been out of the hardware area for a while now, so aren't that 'up' on the latest stuff.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What are you doing with your computer,ie,is it a gaming rig??

[kalniel]

Bottleneck will depend on the specific task. Simplest way to discover it to lower the speed of a component/increase the load on that component whilst doing the task and see if it has any effect on the running speed. (Or increase speed/decrease load).

So if you are playing a game, then you could reduce the resolution of the game and see if it impacts the framerate. If it does, then it's likely you were bottlenecked by your GPU.

[koocha]

Thanks for the replies. I'd like to use it for gaming, but its primary use is an HTPC. I've been looking at VESA mountable cases but can only find ITX and they can't house my graphics card or 4 x 2TB HDDs.

I'd like AES in the CPU because all of my drives are encrypted using truecrypt so that'll speed things up.

Is the Q6600 still OK by today's standards?

[kalniel]

Is the Q6600 still OK by today's standards?

If you're CPU bottlenecked then you might find a more modern CPU will be faster. But for moderate gaming it's more than capable enough. However moving to a CPU with AES acceleration might be advantageous as you say.

[koocha]

If you're CPU bottlenecked then you might find a more modern CPU will be faster. But for moderate gaming it's more than capable enough. However moving to a CPU with AES acceleration might be advantageous as you say.

I'm not sure if it'll be worth the upgrade though. I'll need a new motherboard CPU and RAM. I'm looking at about £220 (AMD FX 6300 and 8GB), unless I went the A10 route. Not sure if the onboard graphics will be better than my 4890 though.

[koocha]

Forgot to mention that because it's an HTPC I run everything through my HD TV, so all gaming should be done at 1920x1080

[koocha]

Just had a thought, does anyone know if the GPU can handle AES acceleration?

[dave87]

Have you got an SSD? That made the biggest difference to each of the systems I've upgraded.

[kalniel]

Have you got an SSD? That made the biggest difference to each of the systems I've upgraded.

Yes, I'd second this actually. Especially if other upgrades would be substantial. (No a GPU won't do accelerate AES cryption for your hard drives). An SSD will make a huge improvement to the snappyness of the system. Won't improve gaming though.

[Jack Foz]

That CPU is a little old now but I think that an SSD would work wonders, it wouldn't do much for gaming except for speeding up loading times and you wouldn't want to put many games on an SSD unless you got a big one because games take up ridiculous amounts of space.

[koocha]

Thanks for the replies.

I don't have an SSD. I've got a 500Gb 7200rpm for the OS and all installed things, then 4 x 2TB drives for storage.

Instead of an SSD would it be better to get a hybrid drive?

Just so you know, I installed Battlefield 4 and with the res at 1920x1080 it put all the graphics settings to Medium automatically. I also installed Call of Duty Ghosts, but that won't run because of me only having 4GB RAM. The other thing was I installed 3D Mark, but that kept failing on the DirectX 11 test :-(

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thanks for the replies.

I don't have an SSD. I've got a 500Gb 7200rpm for the OS and all installed things, then 4 x 2TB drives for storage.

Instead of an SSD would it be better to get a hybrid drive?

Just so you know, I installed Battlefield 4 and with the res at 1920x1080 it put all the graphics settings to Medium automatically. I also installed Call of Duty Ghosts, but that won't run because of me only having 4GB RAM. The other thing was I installed 3D Mark, but that kept failing on the DirectX 11 test :-(

Your graphics card is DX10. Regarding the CPU,AM3+ is only really viable with ATX motherboards as the mATX ones are based on old chipsets. AMD Kaveri is being released next month,which is FM2+ and is better suited for smaller motherboards.

[koocha]

Your graphics card is DX10. Regarding the CPU,AM3+ is only really viable with ATX motherboards as the mATX ones are based on old chipsets. AMD Kaveri is being released next month,which is FM2+ and is better suited for smaller motherboards.

Do you know if the graphics on there be better than my 4890?

EDIT: Just been reading up on it, looks very promising. Combined with 2133mhz RAM it looks like this might be the winner!

[Kiyam]

As to the SSD comment, I wouldn't be so sure, when I swapped from a RAID0 mechanical array to a SSD I noticed my FPS went up in a lot of games, with no other hardware changes, the games affected were Borderlands 2, BF3 and Aion (most noticeably Aion, I would always get stuttering non stop at random times with my mechanical drives revving up and down up and down).

[koocha]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm fiddling with http://uk.pcpartpicker.com to try and get a nice system up and running. I'll post it when I've done to see what people think about it

EDIT: Here's the build I'm looking at, but replace the A10 for a Kaveri when it's released.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2sEio