Budget upgrade ~£150

James_p

James_p

James_p

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Joined
7 Mar 2007
Posts
123
Hi

I'm looking to upgrade my trusty e2180 following some hardware dying, not sure which bit but I'd guess gfx card.

Don't need anything fancy just mobo and CPU. On board gfx will be fine but I would like USB 3. Tempted to pick up an ssd in the future so maybe sata3 as well.

Suggestions please...

Thanks, James
 
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Can you list what parts you have and whats dead.

Are all your current drives all SATA?

Does your case take a ATX board or mATX?
 
ATX will be fine
I have -
8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600mhz
Corsair HX520 psu
Sata hdd
Keyboard, mouse

Not exactly sure what the other bits are off the top of my head but i bought them in 2007! This is long over due.
 
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At least you already have DDR3 so won't have the added expense of new ram.

How's this?

Intel Pentium G3220 3.0GHz £47.99

Asus B85M-G Intel B85 £59.99

The Pentium has built in graphics although it's on the low end of the Haswell cpu's. You could always drop in a better cpu such as a full blown Haswell when you can afford it.

You could always got for a AMD APU with very good built in graphics.

AMD A8-6600K 3.90GHz £99.99 (seems overpriced to me though)

Or for £28 cheaper the slightly older and slightly slower

AMD A8-5600K 3.60Ghz £71.99

ASRock FM2A75M-DGS AMD A75 £52.99

The thing with this route is that AMD's next cpu's are likely to be FM2+ and might not work in FM2 boards.
 
pastymuncher said:
The thing with this route is that AMD's next cpu's are likely to be FM2+ and might not work in FM2 boards.
Click to expand...

From what i have seen, they are definitely fm2+ and do not work on the FM2 boards. If rumors are true, then there are some big improvements and are definately worth waiting for. The G1 sniper FM2+ board is already released, looks incredibly well built and is affordable, so if you go FM2+, i would grab that board.
 
Thanks guys,

Am I right in thinking amd still provides the better performance/price compared to Intel?

A FM2+ board with an FM2 CPU seems to best option from a future proof perspective.
I'm assuming AM3+ is at the end of the line although it looks like it is still going strong. And recent reviews have said it's better to get a am3+ cpu and dedicated gfx card over fm2.
 
The AM3+ cpu's are more powerful than the FM2 cpu's. The latter ones is all about the inbuilt gpu performance as they hammer any other inbuilt graphics on the market by a huge margin. If you want cpu grunt then a FX6300 or FX8320 with a decent board is the best AMD option.
 
I plan to order the following in the morning. Any last minute comments?
Thanks

AMD A8-6600K 3.90GHz (Socket FM2) APU Richland Quad Core Processor (AD660KWOHLBOX) £99.95 (£83.29)
Gigabyte G1.Sniper A88X AMD A88X Chipset (Socket FM2+) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £89.99 (£74.99)
Sub Total : £158.28
Shipping : £9.00
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £33.46
Total : £200.74
 
For that price might as well get an i3 with a basic motherboard. Seems your spending/wasting money on the iGPU even though you state onboard will be fine. At least you could upgrade ridiculously easily to an i5 or i7 where as with FM2 it'll definately mean another cpu/mobo upgrade.
 
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