Cheap upgrade

dtsrules

dtsrules

dtsrules

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Joined
29 Jul 2003
Posts
327
Hi

My sons looking to upgrade his system problem is he only has £150ish. He currently has a core2 duo e6600 with a gtx460.
Is the spec below worthwhile.

Intel Pentium G840 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £53.99

G.Skill RipJaw 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit [F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL £37.99 (no idea why but he says he wants 8gig and not 4)

MSI H61M-P31-G3 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £38.99

Sub Total : £117.47

Total : £152.36
 
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It doesn't matter, the memory controller is only rated for 1333mhz but loads of people are running 1600mhz with Sandybridge based processors (memory controller is in the CPU) no problem :).
 
E6750 vs G840

He needs a bit more cash to be fair fella

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-DS3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £74.99
1 x Adata XPG Gaming v1.0 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (AX3U1600GC4G9-2G) £38.99
Total : £203.96 (includes shipping : FREE).



The i3 is better than the 840 with it's hyperthreading (essentially makes the i3 dual core as good as AMD quadcores). The Z77 mobo supports USB3 and sataIII, the lucidMVP software uses the CPUs IGP to boost the GPUs performance. It has 4 RAM slots so he could start with 4GB of RAM and add more later.

The 460 is a pretty good budget gaming GPU (i have one), has he overclocked it?
 
honosuseri said:
What OS is he using btw? If he wants more than 4GB of RAM his OS MUST be 64bit not 32bit
Click to expand...

This. If it's Windows 7 though the licence key can be carried over to a 64-bit ISO if he has a 32-bit copy.

May be best to stick with the G840 though, even if it's only dual core it's still a brilliant budget gaming chip, and it will will be a good upgrade from the E6600.

However, the i3 is also a good step up from the pentium, so if your son can find the extra money, or you lending him some, it will last him a good few years. Can also stick with the H61 MSI board if he's not planning to upgrade to an i5 later on.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D3V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £47.99
1 x Adata XPG Gaming v1.0 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (AX3U1600GC4G9-2G) £38.99
Total : £176.96 (includes shipping : FREE).



Dropped the Z77 mobo back to the H61. THis H61 mobo does USB3 and SataIII. Personally I'd aim for the Z77 mobo myself. The i3 is better than the 840 (although i have used the pentium 840 and it does have some poke for the price), as i mentioned before the i3 has hyperthreading and it also supports quicksync (speeds up video encoding), the G840 doesnt support quicksync sadly.
 
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