£300 upgrade

aproctor

aproctor

aproctor

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Joined
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Lincolnshire
I currently have a fairly decent PC but feel it is getting a bit long in the tooth.

Can anyone recommend a decent upgrade for around £300?

Currently i have.

Be Quiet DP 650w
P5K Premium
Q6600 G0 @ 2.9ghz
460GTX SOC 1GB
4GB DDR2
WD CB 1TB
Win 7 Pro

Monitor - Samsung 226bw

Cheers

Andy
 
Gaming is about as intense as it gets, i might burn the odd blu ray/dvd once a month but 5 seconds here and there is not a huge issue.
 
Well you have a few choices:

1) Buy a 480GTX and pocket the rest. A pretty decent performance boost.

2) Buy an ssd and pocket the rest.

3) Go sandy bridge, probably won't be much to pocket and depending on what you buy might need a smidge more.
 
Well SLI isnt an option with that motherboard, so selling the GTX460 for a GTX570 would be around £140 total cost.

leaving around £150 for a SSD.
 
Hmmm just realised though. He doesn't have sata 3 on his mobo and some of the new ssd's actually do quite a bit worse on sata 2 when they are made for sata 3. Though I suppose if he wants to buy a sata 2 one that's allright. Something to consider though.

He could get an expansion card though.
 
Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £164.99
(£137.49) £164.99
(£137.49)
MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £89.98
(£74.98) £89.98
(£74.98)
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £39.98
(£33.32) £39.98
(£33.32)
Sub Total : £245.79
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £51.06
Total : £306.35

£294.95 with free delivery

The motherboard only supports a single graphics card.
 
Some good options there.

I am dicing with upgrading the mobo and CPU, will i have to install the OS again?

Also do i really need to upgrade my GPU? i like the idea of SLI but don't want to have to upgrade my PSU, which i fear i may have to.

The monitor idea is a good curve ball but i would want a 26" and would probably still be in the same position (if not worse) due to higher gaming res needed to run native.
 
yes you will want to re-install windows, different chipset drivers.

Also put the latest drivers on for the GPU, a nice fresh install free of the junk always feels nice.

SLI isnt possible with your current motherboard, nor the one above, so the PSU will be fine.

Do you use a aftermarket heatsink on your current setup? is it Socket 1156 compatible? (1156 is the same as 1155)
 
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I am aware of the SLI but in general i do not think my PSU is up to it.

I use an aftermarket cooler but it is only a cheapy AC freezer 7.

How stable is SB now?
 
Its very stable, the only issues were the sata3 ports fixed with B3 boards, and people complaining about asus boards.
 
I would upgrade to SB and then consider a SSD/gpu upgrade later down the line. Maybe christmas. SSD technology is zooming along and prices are steadily coming down so if you have several things to upgrade it is sensible to leave it to last in my opinion. Plus you'll want a SB mobo with 6gb to have able to take full advantage of what SSD has to offer unless you get an expansion card for 6gb sata, which would later be made redundant by your next cpu upgrade.
 
I may just build a new PC towards the end of the year then.

As my only real option is a full system overhaul.

Does anyone know from the top of their heads whether my board supports 8gb RAM?
 
8igdave said:
Why would you buy more ddr2 ram? 4gb is enough anyway. While I do have 8gb I only have it because it wasn't really much more than buying 4gb of ddr3.
Click to expand...

Is it?

I was under the impression Win7 uses as much as it can get hold of.

£50 doesn't seem to bad for that.
 
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