£350 upgrade

xb8browney

xb8browney

xb8browney

Soldato
Joined
19 May 2005
Posts
6,896
Hello,

I've got a nice bonus coming next month and I want to set a little aside for a upgrade but I haven't been keeping an eye on the best chip sets etc..

I'd like

cpu 2500k?
motherboard I tend to go for Gigabyte
ram 8gb
cooler

I mainly play bf3


if anyone could give me some feedback please I really don't want to go over £350.
 
Hi,

Do you want the option of SLI/Crossfire in the future?
What case do you have?
Are your drives all SATA?
 
Hi Bud,

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3P Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £129.98
1 x G.Skill RipJaw 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit £34.99
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
Total : £382.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).





This cooler also is great but as a heads up is very big. Great for OC cooling though. Also don't forget you can knock off the postage :)
 
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gregster said:
Hi Bud,

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3P Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £129.98
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
Total : £347.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).




This cooler also is great but as a heads up is very big. Great for OC cooling though. Also don't forget you can knock off the postage :)
Click to expand...

What, no RAM? lol
 
This if you want SLI/Crossfire,


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £38.39
1 x Zalman CNPS10X Extreme CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/775/1155/1156/1366) £26.99
Total : £356.75 (includes shipping : £9.50).




This if you dont,


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard REV 1 £84.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £38.39
1 x Zalman CNPS10X Extreme CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/775/1155/1156/1366) £26.99
Total : £341.75 (includes shipping : £9.50).




Assuming of course the answers to my questions:)
 
gregster said:
Hi Bud,

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3P Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £129.98
1 x G.Skill RipJaw 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit £34.99
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
Total : £382.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).





This cooler also is great but as a heads up is very big. Great for OC cooling though. Also don't forget you can knock off the postage :)
Click to expand...

1333MHz RAM:D

1600Mhz is the best price/performance sweet spot.
 
Yes I forgot the ram first time. I am going to give up on specs as mine always come out too expensive. I love building rigs but can't argue with yours Stulid. Cheaper than mine also :) Show off lol
 
All I can say is, I use the Tranquillo and @ 4.6 my cpu is cool always (29c Idle and 68 under full load). Downside is maybe it's size but I have a huge case, so that wasn't a problem. Stulid might be able to tell you the pluses and minuses on the Zalman.
 
Gelid is a very good budget cooler and will suffice to 4.5-4.6 pretty easily Ive found it struggles in high ambient rooms, if you want to try and push your cpu further and dont want to go down the water route. Also the stock cooler will suffice to 4.3 ish pretty easily and maybe's 4.5

Then these are the cooler you want to look at

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-015-NC&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-000-PT&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-020-AL&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

or the thermal right silver arrow which i cant see on the site. Personally i like to match colour so I have a red phanteks which works insanely well at high cpu clocks/volts.
 
stulid said:
This if you dont,


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard REV 1 £84.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £38.39
1 x Zalman CNPS10X Extreme CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/775/1155/1156/1366) £26.99
Total : £341.75 (includes shipping : £9.50).




Assuming of course the answers to my questions:)
Click to expand...


That's the same spec I done but with a different cooler.

Thanks for your input
 
xb8browney said:
Thanks for the reply

I wont be doing sli/crossfire

I have a NZXT Alpha case

I only have the one drive which is a SSD
Click to expand...

Cool, you dont have a DVD drive then?

But for what you said, my cheaper spec is ample, the motherboard is Ivybridge ready and has excellent reviews, seems to overclock well also,

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2011/10/11/gigabyte-ga-z68ap-d3-review/1
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/gigabyte_z68ap-d3_review/1
http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/gigabyte_ga_z68ap_d3_review,1.html
http://www.kitguru.net/components/m...-z68ap-d3-z68-review-bargain-buy-of-the-year/
 
stulid said:
Cool, you dont have a DVD drive then?

But for what you said, my cheaper spec is ample, the motherboard is Ivybridge ready and has excellent reviews, seems to overclock well also,

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2011/10/11/gigabyte-ga-z68ap-d3-review/1
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/gigabyte_z68ap-d3_review/1
http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/gigabyte_ga_z68ap_d3_review,1.html
http://www.kitguru.net/components/m...-z68ap-d3-z68-review-bargain-buy-of-the-year/
Click to expand...

Yeah I have a DVD drive :P

£330 sounds nice and if I got >£100 for my current kit that would be great.

Like I said I've always preferred gigabyte and the fact it's ivy bridge ready is a bonus.
 
I've bought the kit now but I'm temporarily running 5Gb any way I've just tried BF3...same settings I've always used and it's playing really bad like when turning round it jerks? I've had to reduce some settings and the GPU fan is quite loud compared to normal

Any ideas?
 
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