£200-300 for a quick upgrade

slylittlefox

slylittlefox

slylittlefox

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Morning all!

I'm going to be coming into a little bit of money in a couple of weeks and want to carry out a few upgrades to my PC.

The specs of my current system as it is now:
- C2D E6300 1.86GHz
- 3GB Generic DDR2 RAM
- Crappy ASRock Motherboard
- Asus EAH3650 512MB DDR3 Silent Graphics Card*
- VideoMate T500F TV Card*
- Western Digital 300GB SATA (System drive)
- Western Digital 250GB SATA (Backup drive)
- Samsung F1 Spinpoint (?) (General dump for video's etc)*
- 600W Generic PSU
- First Generation Antec Tower Case (i.e. the first case they ever made :p)
- Samsung 2443BW 24" LCD*

* Bought a month ago

I quickly realised with my last upgrade that I made two bad choices. I should have bought a dual-tuner, and the graphics card, whilst it's silent and outputs to my HDTV via HDMI (which is primarily what I wanted it for), is also a bit crap when it comes to games.

I'm thinking of buying a nice case, a PSU, a new motherboard and some cabling bits. I know the CPU is pretty slow in modern terms, but I've never found myself waiting for anything as a result of the CPU running at full hilt.

Ideally I'd like to keep it under £200, but can stretch to £300 if needed. I like the idea of an aluminium case, but I move about a fair bit and I think it'd just get scratched with the passage of time. Any thoughts on that?

Also, with the PSU, it's struggling. The 12V rail was running at 10.5 the other day :-/ I'd also like to put another two HDs in there given the PSU capacity.

Oh, I suppose I might need a optical drive of some description :D When I did the last upgrade in January I thought of installing a BluRay drive, but couldn't stomach the cost, and I see that they haven't gone down at all. So maybe just a DVD-RW?

So! Anybody any suggestions for the above? I used to run a hardware review site but I've been out of the loop for a long time now :)

TIA :)
 
ocuk119.jpg


The above should show a pretty decent increase in performance. I've included a CPU cooler, so give a go at overclocking the E6300, this should show a decent improvement in the overall speed of your machine. The 4670 will be much better than the 3650 you've currently got, if you really want to play games better then I'd suggest upgrading the graphics card. Normally I'd spec in an antec 300 gaming case, but trying to keep the price down I've swapped it for the coolermaster. It's still a great little case for the price, smaller than the 300, but shouldn't have any problems fitting the above in. The 520W coolermaster is a great PSU and will power the system easily.

Obviously I've spec'd at the higher end of your budget, if your not really bothered about gaming then you could drop the card (stick with your 3650), maybe put a little extra into the case (go for the antec 300).
 
Thanks for the reply!

Cases are really expensive :(

Ideally I would like to replace the graphics card, but I can't afford to replace something I spent £60 on a month ago :(

What are your thoughts on the following?



(Excuse the WinSnap notice!)

I really like the look of the Antec, but the cost is way overbudget I think :( I want a case that focuses on cable management, and doesn't look 'busy' on the outside (hence why I've picked the Antec with the door)...

Thanks for the advice on the overclocking too, will give that a go once I've got rid of the stock cooler :)

Forgot to ask: will the 500W PSU cope with the 6 HDDs and the graphics card?
 
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
MB-280-AS_60.jpg
Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £114.99
(£99.99) £114.99
(£99.99)
CA-149-CM_60.jpg
Coolermaster Real Power 620w Modular Power Supply £78.19
(£67.99) £78.19
(£67.99)
CA-028-OK_60.jpg
Compucase 6XM1-BUF Midi Tower Case - Black/Silver (No PSU) £62.09
(£53.99) £62.09
(£53.99)
HS-017-AR_60.jpg
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £20.69
(£17.99) £20.69
(£17.99)
TH-001-AR_60.jpg
Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound £4.59
(£3.99) £4.59
(£3.99) Sub Total : £243.95 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DHL Select Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.99 VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £38.24 Total : £293.18
 
Don't need the TIM as the Freezer 7 Pro comes with MX-2 pre-applied.

If you paid £60 for a 3650 a month ago you were ripped off. They are widely available for £35-40. £60 is 4670 territory which are miles better.
 
Kennysevenfold said:
Spec
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, though the case you've quoted only has 4 internal drive bays for HDs - and I need six. Certainly given me food for thought though.

I'm wondering whether to just buy a case and PSU, and then leave the internals as they are. The reason being is that I'm really wanting to focus on getting a nice clean internal - with enough room for my 6 HDs and cable management paramount.

Without upgrading the CPU and RAM, would a new MoBo be worth it? Though I do like the sheer amount of connections with that Asus :)

Saying that, my current MoBo only supports four SATA drives... hmmm...
 
Yeah probably wasn't a great decision that one :p For the power supply, don't bother with anything over 500W, either the one I spec'd or the one you've chosen is more than enough, even if you decide to get a better graphics card later on. 6 hard drives, that's an awful lot, Im guessing you've just built up a collection of them. Will need a decent size of case to accomodate all of them.

That compucase looks terrible, in my opinion anyway. Go for the 300, it has the space for 6 hard drives, it'll still be a tight fit though. Get a couple of fans aswell for it, improve the air flow.
 
ro55o said:
Yeah probably wasn't a great decision that one :p For the power supply, don't bother with anything over 500W, either the one I spec'd or the one you've chosen is more than enough, even if you decide to get a better graphics card later on. 6 hard drives, that's an awful lot, Im guessing you've just built up a collection of them. Will need a decent size of case to accomodate all of them.

That compucase looks terrible, in my opinion anyway. Go for the 300, it has the space for 6 hard drives, it'll still be a tight fit though. Get a couple of fans aswell for it, improve the air flow.
Click to expand...

Yep I'm not a fan of the compucase either.

I'm pretty set on an Antec, this one's lasted me six or seven years, so I'd like the next one to do the same.

As for the HDs, yep I have gathered a collection of them. They are in use though, backup's for four systems, holding ghost images, and then the Spinpoint three-quarters full with HD content and 160GB of music. But maybe you're right, I bet if I went through them all and got rid of anything I didn't need, I could do without the extra 2 HDs. But then... they're just sitting there doing nothing :p

I've just seen the Antec Three Hundred for £52 from a competitor. So the basket now looks like:




Plus the £52 for the Antec 300.

Thoughts? I don't know whether to scrap the MoBo (as I don't know what advantages it will bring without a new CPU/RAM?) and go for a better spec case. But the price of cases are ridiculous, and I'd feel robbed if I spend £100+ for one :(
 
Hmm - sort of gone off the P182 now, with it being a midi-tower. I'm used to a full tower and think there'll be more room to play (and hide cables) within one.

Why do none of the Antecs have removable HD cages anymore? That was one of their best features... :confused:
 
Argh - the price of cases is outrageous. Think I'm going to go for a case and a PSU and some cable management bits, save up for a MoBo at a later date :(
 
If you want the best price/performance, ro55o's spec is what to go for.

You could drop the PSU from ro55o's spec as a generic 600W would run that no problem and spend a bit more on a case of you choice.
 
Thanks for the replies!

neon.uk said:
If you want the best price/performance, ro55o's spec is what to go for.

You could drop the PSU from ro55o's spec as a generic 600W would run that no problem and spend a bit more on a case of you choice.
Click to expand...

I'd like to stay with a modular PSU to keep cable mess to a minimum. Thanks for the input tho, I'm looking through ro55o's spec again :)

freddie64 said:
The P182 is a big case and has great cable management.
Seen it a bit cheaper somewhere with free postage.
Click to expand...

Don't suppose you have any pics/links of the inherent cable management features?

/goes Googling
 
Just read a review on ***** - the P182 looks like the case for me. I'm going to go with:

Antec P182 Gunmetal Grey Super Mid Tower Case - No PSU
Akasa Cable management kit
Coolermaster RealPower 520W Modular PSU
Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-7P Freezer 7 Pro Socket 775 Processor Cooler

And then look to upgrade the CPU/MoBo after my next injection of cash :)

Unfortunately I've managed to find all of the above cheaper elsewhere - shame as I much prefer the 'OcUK experience' :(
 
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