upgrade my ebay find - I Racing rig

kevburner · 24 Jan 2013 at 20:56

hi all,
need some advice on best upgrades for this system i picked up for £80 off ebay i know its old but coming from my old xps 1530 laptop its like night and day, got £300 to throw at it only want it for playing I Racing

here is what i got so far-

AMD Athlon 64 5600+ Dual core 2.8ghz
4GB Ram
160GB HArd drive
Foxconn A7VMX K AM2 AM2+ AM3 AMD Motherboard
nVidia GT 240 1GB GDDR3 PCI-E Graphics Card (New)
Windows 7
Aerocool QS-202 Midi Tower Case (New)
500W ATX PSU (NEw)

thxs kev

snips86x · 24 Jan 2013 at 20:57

Do you have a budget?
What did you want to upgrade?

From looking at your spec, I'd got with a 120gb SSD to start with.

RJC · 24 Jan 2013 at 21:01

Hello and welcome to the forum

Do you know the make and model of the PSU?

kevburner · 24 Jan 2013 at 21:05

i have £300 to upgrade , the best upgrade for better peformance for i_Racing been away from pc building for along time (geforce 2 gts and 3dfx cards are what i remember) so am a bit lost on where to start i want fps and eye candy just seem a bit lost
thxs kev

kevburner · 24 Jan 2013 at 21:05

have not got a clue on psu

edscdk · 24 Jan 2013 at 21:08

sell the machine keep the COA get a new budget gaming machine...

£370 you can jsut about squeeze in an ati 7850 and a s1155 system (either a low i3 or high what ever not quite i3s are called)

snips86x · 24 Jan 2013 at 21:11

The PSU should have the make, model & wattage on it. You'll be better off getting something like 2x 670's but with your budget, maybe 1 670.

Also, your PSU @ 500w will not support SLI, you'll need a min of 750w.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 670 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £289.99
Total : £300.79 (includes shipping : £9.00).

You may also have issues with bottlenecking as your CPU would hinder the GPU performance.

The other option would be to replace the mobo, CPU & RAM and use the card you have until you can afford something more & a new PSU.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77M-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £86.99
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVI38G160C9K) £35.99
Total : £302.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).

kevburner · 24 Jan 2013 at 21:12

what COA is that the case?

RJC · 24 Jan 2013 at 21:13

kevburner said:
have not got a clue on psu

It be worth checking or post a pic of the name plate / details.

As one of the upgrades would be a new GPU, but if the PSU is a cheape horrible one this can course issues.

kevburner · 24 Jan 2013 at 21:13

jesus there are some quick response time on here :-)

kevburner · 24 Jan 2013 at 21:53

i think this is my psu
sumvision 500 power x3

RJC · 24 Jan 2013 at 22:03

You need a new one, but remove the Link before a mod see's

kevburner · 24 Jan 2013 at 22:12

what psu should i get?

LukieBoy007 · 24 Jan 2013 at 22:12

A GTX 670 with a Athlon? There will be some huuuuge bottleneck there.

You could upgrade a lot of it, and go for something like this:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z77M-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £86.99
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £83.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £38.99
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVI38G160C9K) £35.99
Total : £257.35 (includes shipping : £9.50).

And then look around for a secondhand graphics card with the money left over. Or you could wait and save up an extra £100 or so and get a 7850.

Ohlawll · 24 Jan 2013 at 22:20

Hi there, personally if i had a £300 budget i'd go for something along the lines of this;

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7850 IceQ X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H785QN2G2M) £155.99
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x Asus P8H61-MX USB 3.0 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - OEM ** £37.99
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVI38G160C9K) £35.99
Total : £331.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).

Yes, its ~£30 over budget but it would be a most worthwhile upgrade.

kevburner · 24 Jan 2013 at 22:45

can i not just upgrade cpu and gpu?

or am i better off forgetting it and upping my budget say to £500 so i can put it in a case that can sit under my tv?

RJC · 24 Jan 2013 at 22:57

kevburner said:
can i not just upgrade cpu and gpu?

or am i better off forgetting it and upping my budget say to £500 so i can put it in a case that can sit under my tv?

I've been looking at the AsRock website regards the motherboard and I am having dificulty in finding the CPU support list.

My personal option is look at a complete new build, as you will almost end up that way.

JimboJet · 25 Jan 2013 at 00:17

I'd go with Ohlawll's/lukieboys suggestion, though as you need a new psu as well I'd get a secondhand 5850 for around £50-60 and a quality psu that will last you a few yrs and give you headroom for any future upgrade.

Hagar · 25 Jan 2013 at 12:07

YOUR BASKET
1 x Xenon Intel Core i5 3450 3.10GHz DDR3 Bundle - Quad Core £244.98
- 1 x Standard Build Systems - Approximately 5-7 working days £0.00
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 400W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £40.00
Total : £296.38 (includes shipping : £9.50).

Upgrade graphics and disk later.
Sell your DDR2 and get another 4GB ram later.

TheEliteReaper · 26 Jan 2013 at 00:13

cant use the auction name or has things changed now and everyone just warn/suspend me instead :rolleyes:

..

dont know what I Racing is, but from what youd got, id probably upgrade the GPU at least unless its quite an old game then anything would do lol