Hi Shady,

I don't think you would see any improvements, as the motherboard doesn't really improve the overall power of your system. What I would suggest is, if you were to upgrade your motherboard - upgrade your CPU at the same time.

It's not worth investing more money into your system, because at the end of the day you're still constrained by your AMD CPU. Yes, it's overclocked, but it doesn't begin to compare with a mid-range Intel Core i5 processor, which you could buy for around $200, and a great motherboard for $100-$150.

This is more than you wanted to spend, I'm sure, but you could sell your current CPU and motherboard to contribute toward your upgrade. Doing this, would give you a huge change in your frame rates, and it would be visible in most games.

From here, the next option I would suggest is buying an SSD - this again will help your system feel much, much smoother. Your GPU is fine and won't need to be upgraded, the same goes for your RAM and PSU.

Hi Ian,

There's no best or worst score in 3DMark, but you can find a close score to yours by visiting 3DMark's 'Results' site. There, you can search for systems with a particular CPU or GPU. From there, you can look at some results of a GPU or CPU close to, or exactly the same as yours.

This is the best way to see what results are close to yours, and whether your system is getting results that are similar (within 5-10% of those scores). Remember to check if they're running stock or overclocked CPU or GPU clocks, too!

If you find yourself not scoring near the compared results, I always suggest a fresh format and re-install of your operating system. This way you can get fresh drivers on, and wipe away any congestion on the system - kind of like a spring clean of your system.

Happy 3DMarking!

Hi Clint,

Definitely overclock your CPU, but whatever you do, do it on air and save all of the cash for some GPUs. Your biggest bottleneck is going to be the GPUs and the higher the resolution, the more GPU grunt you're going to require.

I would go down the route of some CrossFire AMD Radeon HD 7950s myself, after using them for some testing, they're incredible pieces of hardware for the money. You could check out something like Sapphire's VAPOR-X HD 7950 3GB OC with Boost. Two of these in CrossFire would be insane, and would give you 60fps minimum in any game out right now.

The other thing to remember is, you're only on a 60Hz screen. Any frames above 60fps are wasted, so ideally, you want to be maxing out at 60fps. Two Radeon HD 7950s would allow you to reach this with all eye candy cranked to maximum, anti-aliasing (AA) included.

Alternatively, you could push for the HD 7970, or overclock the 7950 itself and get yourself a Corsair H100 cooler, too. Newegg sell the Corsair H100 for $99. Then you could overclock your CPU, which would become the new bottleneck with the new GPU setup.

Hi Bryan,

You'll be glad to hear that we'll be featuring many articles on 120Hz monitors here at TweakTown in the near future, as that is what I personally use at home. I have four of the bad boys on my desks, and it's very hard for me to use anything but 120Hz monitors now.

Fluidity in games is very important, especially for first-person shooters, but the biggest issue is achieving 120 frames per second to enjoy that smoothness. Sure, a 120Hz monitor is smoother by default than a 60Hz monitor, but you get absolute perfection - as close to a CRT as you can get - by getting a minimum of 120fps on a 120Hz-capable monitor.

Enabling V-Sync on a 60Hz monitor helps, but it doesn't even begin to come close to the fluidity of a true 120Hz monitor. I would definitely recommend getting a 120Hz monitor, but the GPU you have chosen won't be capable of pumping out 120fps at 1080p in most games like Battlefield 3, for example.

I personally run a Core i7 and a Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC, and if I overclock it and reduce my details down a bit in Battlefield 3, I can reach 100-120fps average. An HD 7850 or GTX 660 will require you to drop the resolution down to something like 1280x720, but you would hit 120fps pretty easily.

That's the problem with 120Hz monitors, they'll always have you buying new GPUs to keep up with game releases!

Hi Rumy,

For gaming at 1366x768, I would suggest something like Sapphire's Radeon HD 7850 GPU. These bad boys can be acquired for less than $200, with NewEgg selling them for $169. The 1GB of on-board RAM will be enough to crank most games up to medium or even high detail at 1366x768.

So while you won't be gaming at Full HD resolutions, you'll be able to enjoy some high detail in your games with the GPU's extra unused bandwidth.

Hi Toni,

This will probably get me a bunch of comments saying I'm wrong - but at the end of the day, the performance difference between high-end motherboards is not that great. I'm talking strictly performance here, not features - but pure, raw numbers.

Sure, there'll be a few percentage points between motherboards on benchmarks, but it's not like motherboard A versus motherboard B is a 30% difference in performance. You're looking at BIOS differences, PCIe slots, overclocking headroom, 3- or 4-way GPU support, board quality (transistors, cooling, etc) and then finally, SATA controller/s, etc.

So there are differences between high-end motherboards, but performance you'll find will be in the same 5-10% range of any board in its class. Anything from ASUS, Gigabyte, ASRock and others will give you some seriously great performance.

Hi Oded,

Most RAM manufacturers won't state that their memory will be compatible with all boards, but at the end of the day it's still just RAM. By using that rule, if your board takes DDR3, then any DDR3 from any company, will work. As long as it's around the same speed (anything faster will run its clocks lower to work), and the same pin count (200-pin, 240-pin, etc).

You can buy any of the G.Skill kits, as long as it's the same DDR type as your motherboard. Your Gigabyte EP45T-UD3LR takes DDR3 memory, so you'll be fine. Get any of their dual-channel DDR3 kits and away you go!

Hi Severus,

The NZXT Phantom 410 should be able to house Corsair's H100 cooler, but it would be up to you if you want to go for the newer H100i. From what I've read in preparation for this question, Corsair's H100 will fit into the NZXT Phantom 410.

For peace of mind, I would go for the Corsair H100i, as you said - you know it works. That way you won't be worried when installing it. Let us know how you go! Definitely comment back here when you finish the build and let us know how you went!

Edit: I read the question wrong, and presumed you wrote "H100". The H110 is a 280mm unit, so by the looks of the Phantom 410, it will not fit. The H100i, however, will fit - so my recommendation is the same - go for the H100i!

Hi John,

Normally I'd be fearful of recommending a 450W PSU for a video card like that, but from EVGA's own website, the maximum power draw of that GPU is 195W. If you don't overclock the EVGA GeForce GTX 680, then the rest of your system - let's say it's a Core i7, 8-16GB of RAM, SSD and a few days - should be fine.

The actual power draw is always different to what people think, and companies like EVGA will state that the requirements are a 'minimum of 550 Watt power supply', but that is usually an older PSU, or a non-brand name PSU. Silverstone make some great power supplies, so you should be fine.

Hi Cory,

This is a hard one, as it could really be anything. Our previous question was very similar to this, so I'll give you similar advice. Step-by-step elimination. You say it only happens when gaming - does it happen in every single game? Have you tried re-installing Windows? Defragging your hard drive?

I would try disconnecting all of your external devices - speakers, ethernet cable (or turn Wi-Fi off), external storage, etc. Go down to just bare monitor, keyboard and mouse cables being plugged in. From there, test out a game in single player and see if it crashes - if it doesn't - reconnect things one by one.

I would also suggest getting some temperature monitoring programs like MSI's Afterburner and Real Temp or Core Temp for your CPU.