£300 Christmas upgrade

[andythelandy]

I recently bought a 7950 and I think I'm right in saying my current CPU (see sig) is holding it back a bit ?? So I'm after a CPU motherboard and ram for about £300 I'd quite like to go Intel this time I was never that impressed by the 955.

I have one weird requirement I have a pcie TV card and the 7950 is about 2.5 slots width so this rules out the placement of the pcie slot on a fair few motherboards I've looked at!

I will probably run it on the stock fan for a while before over clocking as I think a decent heatsink will push the £300 budget.

Thanks in advance

 

[Idleman]

Intel.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £191.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-SLI Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £99.95
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £56.99
Total : £358.52 (includes shipping : £8.00).



AMD.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £119.99
1 x Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £56.99
1 x Thermalright Macho 120 CPU Cooler £29.99
Total : £296.56 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 

[andythelandy]

Wow didn't realise how much an i5 cost, is the amd build a significant upgrade from the 955?

 

[Idleman]

Wow didn't realise how much an i5 cost, is the amd build a significant upgrade from the 955?

I would say so.

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/37...AMD_Phenom_II_X4_955_(125W__rev._C2__BE).html

 

[andythelandy]

Nice comparison I believe they respond well too over clocking to? For gaming alone I'm not sure the i5 is worth it.

 

[Idleman]

Nice comparison I believe they respond well too over clocking to? For gaming alone I'm not sure the i5 is worth it.

For your budget, the 8320 is the better option. It also affords you a cooler, if you don`t already have one.

 

[kaku]

Bear in mind that in lightly-threaded applications you would see no difference with the 8320 vs the 955. Depending on which games you're playing this might affect you, but for the popular FPSs (Crysis/BF4) the 8320 would be a big improvement.

 

[beasty6]

I have a 8320 coming today, and I'm upgrading from a i5 760@4ghz.

For the money mate nothing can touch it,

I got the 8320, CVFZ board, H80i, and a AF140 case fan for 380

 

[andythelandy]

I hear you, I just don't think i can justify the extra price when I can get a decent cooler with the amd setup and overclock, most games are supporting multicore now aren't they?