£600-800 upgrade, what would you do?

beasty6

beasty6

beasty6

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hey guys, ive got a lot of spare cash in january and would like to upgrade my PC

I use my pc for gaming and general internet browsing etc

My current spec is
I5 760 3.5 ghz
Msi p55 gd80
2x4gb corsair xms3 1600mhz
Vtx 6990
Antec khuler 620
Seagate barrcuda 320gb
Seagate barrcuda 250gb
Antec true power 750w
Cm storm trooper with a few aercool sharks
Asus dgx sound card

I currently have a 23" 1080p monitor and would like to upgrade that to a 27" and i would
also like to ditch the 2 hdds and get 1 2tb hdd and a 120gb ssd for windows etc

So what would you guys do and what would you change/upgrade?

Cheers
 
Last edited:
And single large hdd and a ssd is on the list, just want some better performance from my pc

Also i forgot to mention, i also want to make my system quiet, so i was thinking a h100i and some new fans but i feel that my 6990 is the main problem here
 
is the cpu/mobo upgrade worth it? will i see a decent upgrade in games and general speed of the pc?

or do i upgrade monitor/gpu and add a ssd and bigger hdd?
 
Managed this, but went £100 over.

I'm not all that great at working out baskets for people, sorry :p

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 660Ti Power Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £239.99
1 x Asus VE276N 27" Widescreen LED Multimedia Monitor - Black £199.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £112.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD128BW) £109.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £78.98
Total : £924.04 (includes shipping : £11.75).


If perhaps you held on a little longer for a 27" monitor, it'd be an option I guess. The 660Ti is a great card, YouTube videos suggest it handles Battlefield 3 on max at 60FPS just fine :)

Whether you deem the CPU/Motherboard upgrade worth it depends I suppose. If you feel like you've got plenty of power for now, then perhaps hold on for a bit and throw more money at a new monitor/cooler/GPU or whatever else you want :p But I don't really know to be honest, sorry about that.
 
beasty6 said:
is the cpu/mobo upgrade worth it? will i see a decent upgrade in games and general speed of the pc?

or do i upgrade monitor/gpu and add a ssd and bigger hdd?
Click to expand...

I woud have thought that GPU is still good. Have you installed MSI afterburner? Tried setting a custom fan speed profile to help tame the noise?

i5 760 vs i5 3570K

Ivybridge CPU is better. Consumes less power, it has an improved IGP over the sandybridge CPUs, more on this later.

The mobo could be dropped to the Z77X-D3H which is a little cheaper (both are Sli/Xfire capable). These mobos have a 3 year uk based warranty and a dual BIOS. It also has the lucid MVP software, this will use the IGP for light tasks and only call on the 6990 when needed for gaming. When you are gaming the IGP can boost the GPU. Quicksync uses the IGP to assist with video encoding tasks providing you have software that supports it.

Of course you can flog off your old mobo and CPU. You don't qualify for the members market yet (1000 posts) but maybe the mods would make an exception if you asked (ive seen it happen). If you wanted the cash to help pay for the H100i CLC it might motivate them to let you post your gear on the MM ;)
 
I wouldn't bother upgrading to a 27" unless you have the grunt to power it.

The 760 still performs very well so upgrading to a 3570K wouldn't be justified. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/701?vs=191

The 6690 also performs very well in comparison to the AMD 7950. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/515?vs=550

I'd probably just get the following:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD256BW) £199.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £78.98
Total : £288.58 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
triggerthat said:
I wouldn't bother upgrading to a 27" unless you have the grunt to power it.

The 760 still performs very well so upgrading to a 3570K wouldn't be justified. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/701?vs=191

The 6690 also performs very well in comparison to the AMD 7950. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/515?vs=550

I'd probably just get the following:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD256BW) £199.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £78.98
Total : £288.58 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Click to expand...

What you talking about Willis? ;)

The 27 inch screen I spec'd is 1080P the 6990 will run through it just fine, he can still use the old screen as a 2nd display.

Of course we all have different opinions, there never strictly speaking is a "right answer". However I don't know how long he has left warranty wise on the kit he has. What I don't like about the P series mobos is the lack of onboard video output. If there is an issue with the GPU its much easier to diagnose when you have an IGP to use. When you factor in that the LucidMVP (and quicksync) software make clever use of the IGP as I explained it becomes even more useful.

A really good sized fast SSD and the storage HDD was a good safe shout. Although something tells me that his P series mobo doesn't do sataIII.....I could be wrong but if im right a lot of the speed of your suggested SSD is wasted :(
 
honosuseri said:
What you talking about Willis? ;)
Click to expand...

Finally... :)


honosuseri said:
The 27 inch screen I spec'd is 1080P the 6990 will run through it just fine, he can still use the old screen as a 2nd display.

Of course we all have different opinions, there never strictly speaking is a "right answer". However I don't know how long he has left warranty wise on the kit he has. What I don't like about the P series mobos is the lack of onboard video output. If there is an issue with the GPU its much easier to diagnose when you have an IGP to use. When you factor in that the LucidMVP (and quicksync) software make clever use of the IGP as I explained it becomes even more useful.

A really good sized fast SSD and the storage HDD was a good safe shout. Although something tells me that his P series mobo doesn't do sataIII.....I could be wrong but if im right a lot of the speed of your suggested SSD is wasted :(
Click to expand...

Agreed, The 6990 won't struggle one bit.

Im pretty sure (98.6%) his current Motherboard doesn't have SataIII so an SSD is a bit of a waste, without upgrading the motherboard and CPU too...
 
beasty6 said:
Dont you have to have a constant high fps with 120hz monitors?
Click to expand...

I posted a link for the CPU benchmarks. Trigger kindly did the GPU comparison, if you look at the benchmarks you see your GPU is a bit of a beast, most of the benches are running at very high resolutions.

Now if you want these high resolutions on a 27inch screen that is going to gobble up a lot of your budget. The monitor I spec'd isn't amazing but I was trying to balance things out with what you wanted. As I said I have a 1080P 3DTV, the reviews werent completely positive but I checked it out in person, last year in the boxing day sales. Considering I got 4 pairs of active glasses and everyone who has sat through a film or played games on it are pretty impressed I'm happy with it......of course there will be people who think I was a mug lol

If you run your GPU on a 1080P 120hz monitor and disable the AA/MSAA you will manage higher FPS. It's a lot of poppy you are talking about shelling out so I don't blame you for having questions and being dubious of our suggestions.
 
So shall i just get the ssd and hdd and see what the 8xxx series and newer intel sockets have to offer, could save abit more aswell

But i would like to reduce the noise of my pc, it really is loud, can hear it at the other end of the house while standing next to the tv!
 
beasty6 said:
So shall i just get the ssd and hdd and see what the 8xxx series and newer intel sockets have to offer, could save abit more aswell

But i would like to reduce the noise of my pc, it really is loud, can hear it at the other end of the house while standing next to the tv!
Click to expand...

Might as well wait for the sales mate really no?

Is hard to say, like I said triggers suggestion was safe, trouble is you wont get the full performance till you upgrade the mobo and get sataIII (i've checked the website and it only lists sataII).

I saw a leaked spec sheet for Haswell, which wont land till gone March. If it's true the main difference seemed to be the lower TDP (I cant say about performance) but the enthusiast or K edition CPUs TDP weren't much lower than IVY.
I'm guessing it must be your GPU that makes the noise. Trouble is you can't just disconnect it to see on the P series mobo. Did you try adjusting the fan speeds in MSI AB? I've heard the Antec 620 stock fan is quite loud at full chat, if you have overclocked maybe that's adding to the problem too :(
 
No i havent as its a toasty card aswell, get up to 90 degrees in bf3

I was thinking of getting a x79 setup but will wait and see what haswell brings before i upgrade the cpu/mobo

Im happy with gpu performance, just the heat and noise of the darm thing
 
beasty6 said:
No i havent as its a toasty card aswell, get up to 90 degrees in bf3

I was thinking of getting a x79 setup but will wait and see what haswell brings before i upgrade the cpu/mobo

Im happy with gpu performance, just the heat and noise of the darm thing
Click to expand...

To be fair it does have two GPUs on the PCB the thing is a beast, I was being heavily sarcastic when I said it should be fine to keep ;) Maybe you might want to look into doing a custom water loop for the CPU and to cool the GPU too?
 
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