Advice for upgrading my desktop please!

vangle

vangle

vangle

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Joined
17 Feb 2012
Posts
76
Hey all!
Well I've had my PC for a while now and its not let me down so far (Hooray!) apart from a few little stutters every now and again but its getting to the point where I feel its is getting a little outdated. I do play quite a lot of games (Yay procrastination!) and I do enjoy them running smoothly and recently with some of the higher detail games that are coming out I feel they are being limited by my current PC's specs.
Therefore to my main point, I am thinking about buying some new parts but as I havent really done much to my PC in a LONG time I'm quite out of the loop and in my desperation I come at last to this forum.

Here are my current PC specs (if you want any other information just ask I will do my best to provide):
Mainboard : Asus M2N-SLI DELUXE
Chipset : nVidia nForce 570 SLI
Processor : AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ @ 2400MHz
Physical Memory : 4096MB (4 x 1024 DDR2-SDRAM )
Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
Hard Disk : Seagate ST320005 42AS SCSI Disk Device (2000GB)
Hard Disk : Western Digital WD25 00AAKS-00B3A SCSI Disk Device (250GB)

As you can see memory isnt really a problem (2tb harddrive) and I am almost certainly going to get more RAM (4bg of RAM in this day and age is pretty pathetic) but if there is any other improvements you might suggest then fire away!

Thank you all! :)

Edit: As we all know money doesnt grow on trees so i would like to keep costs to a mininmum really. Thanks!
 
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most important thing is budget?

as would like to give you intel build but that would mean you would need new mboard. that 9600 could use an update i was using it not so long ago and it is starting to struggle with newer games.
 
First of all, thanks for the quick replies!

My budget isn't huge (also depends how much christmas shopping ends up crippling my bank account) and if needs be I can start saving. As of now I'm just looking at my options. I was hoping for something around mid level.
 
Something like an i3 + 7850 should do it if you have the money.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards w/ FARCRY3 & Sleeping Dogs PC Games £155.99
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £89.99
1 x MSI H77MA-G43 Intel H77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro-ATX Motherboard £53.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £23.99
Total : £335.35 (includes shipping : £9.50).



Is this in your budget? No need to buy anything else if you can re-use case psu hdd etc
 
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very similar to what i just found^^^

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus HD 7850 DirectCU II V2 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ FARCRY3 & Sleeping Dogs PC Games £155.99
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £60.00
Total : £317.38 (includes shipping : £9.50).



and then a RAM upgrade as you mentioned in your first post.

Something like this should make you a fairly decent rig for most modern games.
 
i would just wait until crimbo passes, you have saved and little and know your exact budget. what you can get now as apposed to what you could getin a month or two's time will be completly different.
 
Is there really any difference between the
MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards w/ FARCRY3 & Sleeping Dogs PC Games £155.99
and
Asus HD 7850 DirectCU II V2 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ FARCRY3 & Sleeping Dogs PC Games £155.99
apart from the company?

Also I was planning to this over time like a part every so often so would it be better to wait until i have all the pieces and put them all in together or would it be better to put the parts in as I get them?
If the latter, which would have the most influence on my PC in general? (seeing which to buy first)
 
depends what period of time we are talking about here if its going to be 3-4 months your best saving your money ad buying everything together if its going to be over a month just buy them , keep them then install at once
 
also that MSI 7850 has slightly higher clock speed. not sure which one would be cooler in terms of heat probably about the same. but MSI cards tend to be cool and quiet.
 
Okay thanks for all your help. I'll probably be back when i've put one of them in wrong and my computer has blown up! Haha.
 
What is the difference between an Ivybridge and a Sandybride and which would I be better off with?
From what I've read the Sandybridge is better for overclocking but I thought I may as well check :)
 
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vangle said:
What is the difference between an Ivybridge and a Sandybride and which would I be better off with?
From what I've read the Sandybridge is better for overclocking but I thought I may as well check :)
Click to expand...

Overclocking wont really matter, as the Ivy has better IPC, which kind of balances out.

Unless you can pick up a Sandy for cheap, go with Ivy. And a Z77 motherboard. Then you will also have PCIE 3.0 support.
 
I had a X2 5600+ at 3.1Ghz and it was horrible on a M2n-e still on it
But long story short if you are really limited on cash get a Phenom II X3 705E and overclock the life out of it
Problems:i read at some point that front bus is locked on M2n-e sli
Problem 2:latest video card that motherboard supports for me the HD5000 series is supported with bios 1703
So you can get a CPU second hand 40pounds and if overclocking the 705E can do 3.4-3.8Ghz
 
olivier renault said:
Overclocking wont really matter, as the Ivy has better IPC, which kind of balances out.

Unless you can pick up a Sandy for cheap, go with Ivy. And a Z77 motherboard. Then you will also have PCIE 3.0 support.
Click to expand...

I was thinking about getting the
MSI H77MA-G43 Intel H77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro-ATX Motherboard
which was suggested by ConnorJoshua
 
Hey I'm back again now that I have a decent budget. I can spend roughly £500 instead of the £300 ish originally thought so what is the best setup I can achive for that?
Thanks in advance!
 
Okay I managed to pick up an Intel i7-920 processor for £99 so thats £400 left primarily for a motherboard and graphics card!
 
vangle said:
Okay I managed to pick up an Intel i7-920 processor for £99 so thats £400 left primarily for a motherboard and graphics card!
Click to expand...

Hmmm interesting choice. You will now have to find a socket 1136 mobo and you also need DDR3 RAM ideally in Tri-Channel. It would have made more sense to buy that i7 in a mobo bundle second hand.

For £500 if I was trying to get the best for my cash and providing there is a decent PSU in the rig.......

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2700K 3.50GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £224.99
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7850 OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz, Sleeping Dogs & Dirt Showd (GX-100-GI) £129.95
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte Z68A-D3H-GEN3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 (MB-380-GI) £52.00
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £43.99
1 x Thermalright Macho 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £29.99
Total : £492.91 (includes shipping : £10.00).



Mobo can be updated to UEFI to modernise it. It has USB3, sata III and can overclock the i7 2700K (hence the heatsink) which still is quite a beast. As an added bonus it also supports SLi/Xfire for running dual GPUs, your PSU will limit this option however. The 7850 is a midrange GPU but they do overclock very well and offer pretty decent bang for buck and you could potentially run two of them on the mobo.

Or I could have got the Ivy i5 3570K and a single GPU orientated Z77 mobo for about the same outlay keeping the rest of the parts in the basket.
 
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vangle said:
Okay I managed to pick up an Intel i7-920 processor for £99 so thats £400 left primarily for a motherboard and graphics card!
Click to expand...

1366 mobo are harder to find these days...Interestingly I'm about to put a setup on flee bay. mono+chip+ram.
 
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