Upgrade advice for a friend.

Akagi

Akagi

Akagi

Caporegime
Joined
29 Jul 2011
Posts
37,137
Location
In acme's chair.
Hi there, I have a mate with these specs:

AMD Athlon II x2 @ 3GHz
Asus M4A78LT-M LE
4GB 800MHz DDR3 (I honestly didnt even know it existed)
Radeon HD5670
250GB SATA HDD

He says (quite understandably) that his PC is slow to start up and load applications, and he wants to be able to play his mainstream titles on much higher settings, but wont touch the likes of crysis, bf3, metro 2033 etc. He originally wanted to replace it with an entire new build, But i suggested that instead of replacing it he could salvage some of his old PC and buy:

AMD Phenom II 965BE
8GB 1600MHz HyperX
Radeon HD6850
OCZ Agility 3 60GB

This would come to around £250.
Any thoughts/Suggestions?

I know that a whole bunch of you will say "Don't get the Agility, get an M4 because they have a lower faliure rate and everyone loves them!" But I can get the Agility 3 considerably cheaper, and even though OCZ faliure rates are higher, they are still very low.

I may sort him out with a 7850 if i can find one cheap enough and if he wants it. But it would be over £150 as opposed to the £85 - £95 that the 6850 will cost.
 
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Firstly the mobo does not support that processor so would not go for that. (due to wattage - 95W max)

Personally i would sell the current bits and go for an intel build, outside of games such as the ones mentioned i don't think the 7850 will give a good bang for buck upgrade over the 6850.

As for the SSD's get what you can afford but bare in mind that the prices of HDD's and SSD's are falling through the floor at the moment so may be worth waiting a few months for an SSD and put the pennies into the main build thus getting more room for less cost at a later date say for christmass and a better all round system.

Something like this would be my choice but its a few quid more than the proposed build but remember the mobo wont support your proposal.(source)


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £75.98
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1333C9DC) £29.99
Total : £302.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).

 
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G840 vs AMD 965

YOUR BASKET
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked FTW 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (01G-P3-1363-KR) £124.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x Intel Pentium G840 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £56.99
1 x GeIL EVO Leggera 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GEL38GB1600C9DC) £35.99
Total : £297.96 (includes shipping : FREE).



I prefer the 460 to the 6850 but it's more than £100 (the 6850 here is too). The G840 is on par gaming wise with an i3 whilst being a lot cheaper. It also uses less power than the AMD CPUs which is a bonus. Ok the AMD CPU wins at video encoding against the G840 but the 460 GPU has cuda to accelerate video encoding to counter this and the lack of quicksync which the i3 has.

I've used the Z77 mobo as he could upgrade to a SB or IB i5K much later, which we all know is better than what AMD can offer. If he sold his old mobo bundle and GPU maybe he could claw back enough cash for a SSD too.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel 330 Series 60GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £53.99
Total : £53.99 (includes shipping : FREE).



Just a thought as using a 965BE isn't possible
 
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Thanks for pointing out that i can't use the 965BE, that could have been disasterous :P
 
Gav_881 said:
Firstly the mobo does not support that processor so would not go for that. (due to wattage - 95W max)

Personally i would sell the current bits and go for an intel build, outside of games such as the ones mentioned i don't think the 7850 will give a good bang for buck upgrade over the 6850.

As for the SSD's get what you can afford but bare in mind that the prices of HDD's and SSD's are falling through the floor at the moment so may be worth waiting a few months for an SSD and put the pennies into the main build thus getting more room for less cost at a later date say for christmass and a better all round system.

Something like this would be my choice but its a few quid more than the proposed build but remember the mobo wont support your proposal.(source)


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £75.98
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1333C9DC) £29.99
Total : £302.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).

Click to expand...

No GPU :rolleyes:
 
Sorry guys, i forgot to mention that this guy wants to do a little bit of video encoding/converting/rendering and such. He doesnt expect miracles, just a little more power.

Also i completely forgot to mention that his case is M-ATX, so i would need a M-ATX board. I am going to break his computer open tommorrow hopefuly, and see what the other parts are. I may be able to persuade him to save for a little longer and do a complete build if the parts are all ****e.
 
A couple of full system spec's, one for a lower budget, one for a higher one.

i5 3570K 3.4GHz
8GB Geil Black Dragon 1600MHz
Asrock Z77 Pro4-M
MSI HD 7850 Power Edition 1GB
Coolermaster Silent Pro Modular 500W
OCZ Agility 3 60GB
Asus Xonar DGX
Samsung SH-S222BB DVD-RW
Fractal Design Arc Mini (front filter mod)
2x Bitfenix Spectre Blue 120mm

£676





i3 2120 3.3GHz
8GB Geil Black Dragon 1600MHz
AsRock Z77 Pro4-M
Saphire HD7850 1GB
Silverstone Strider Plus 500W Modular
Asus Xonar DGX
Samsung SH-S222BB DVD-RW
Fractal Design Core 1000
1x Xilence Pro Fan Blue 120mm

£509.90

*edit* he already has a HDD, and all the peripherals.
also I recon i can make up some lost performance on the i3 build by overclocking that sucker :P i'm quite confident with my clocking now :D
 
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acme15 said:
also I recon i can make up some lost performance on the i3 build by overclocking that sucker :P i'm quite confident with my clocking now :D
Click to expand...

There isn't a lot you can do to overclock the i3-2120.

The multiplier is locked so you're limited to increasing the Base Clock.

So much is linked to the Base Clock that you're looking at a few percent before things go pear shaped.
 
Surveyor said:
There isn't a lot you can do to overclock the i3-2120.

The multiplier is locked so you're limited to increasing the Base Clock.

So much is linked to the Base Clock that you're looking at a few percent before things go pear shaped.
Click to expand...

Could I push it to 3.6 without everything going pear shaped..?

*edit* ok it looks like people get stuck at 3.45GHz. i see your point :p no matter however. That will do...
 
Gav_881 said:
the prices of HDD's and SSD's are falling through the floor at the moment
Click to expand...

The prices of HDD's still arent back down to where they were before the floods :rolleyes:

But yes, SSD's are getting so much cheaper so much more quickly, it is mind boggling...
 
I have just learned that my friend wont have the money together until January - February. So after 5 months, i will probably have to do a complete re-spec anyway :p
 
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