After a cheap but worth upgrade...

Delvis

Delvis

Delvis

Caporegime
Joined
7 Nov 2004
Posts
30,197
Location
Buckinghamshire
Hello all

Long shot, but I'm after a cheap but worthwhile upgrade (i.e. significantly noticeable performance)over my old setup:

Current setup:
-Athlon X2 4400+
-2 x 1GB GSkill ram (DDR 400)
-NVidia 9800GTX (although I think there are newer versions of this or something?)

In short, I just want a nice but chirpy CPU/MOBO/RAM upgrade, that won't break the bank and I can upgrade at a later date is need be...There are obviously i3's, but would they be an improvement? If so, I could potentially do some testing with some 'old' kit I can use for a short term. Otherwise it's i5/i7 and i7's are wayyy out of budget I think.

So, any pointers? :) I'll probably keep my graphics card for the interim, no it's not the best, but it should run most things half decently, and does currently.

x
 
There's really no doubt about it, any i3 will utterly spank your now very, very ancient Athlon. A quick Google will confirm that for you in spades! Even the original i3s - which in turn are spanked by the latest ones - will be a massive improvement over an Athlon x2.

Comparison of a 4600+ to an original i3 530 (now a 5 year old cpu) http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/35?vs=118
 
Cheers Zefan

Daft question but would the 3dsmax benchmarks be anything to worry about? Or would GPU help put that out of the equation?
 
Yeah honestly pretty much anything you can buy would be a huge upgrade. What's the total budget? You could stretch your cash further buying second-hand.
It depends on the rendering engine used, but 3DSMax usually relies heavily on the processor.
 
Only ask as I like to dabble with 3d modelling occasionally, but I guess it will just require a longer rendering time.

So, what could I get from ocuk? Couple of hundred of that would be preferable, could maybe do £300 after Xmas... my current GPU should suffice for a bit
 
£300, 2nd hand market place all the way.

Cheapest mobo, cpu, ram bundle you can find for £150 and a 290x (roughly 150/160 on there just now or a 970 of they've went down in price.

Is a 9800gtx agp or pci-e?
 
Pci-e

I doubt I can afford £300 at the moment, spent too much lately. £200 is more likely...

I can get an i5, 8gb ram and a mono from here for £200 or under,I did look in the MM but couldn't see much on ATM
 
I'd wait for a bargain bundle on MM, save as much as you can on that and spend the rest on a new gfx card. I doubt your card can play most recent titles at 1080p with a decent fps.

If you don't game at all, then an i5 is going to be a huuuuuuge upgrade.

Bundle on mm now, cpu ram and mobo. Probably get it all cheaper as a bundle, put the rest towards a gfx card when you can afford it.
 
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I'd just get the cheapest old i3/i5/i7 bundle with 4gb+ ram for under £150, then a Radeon 7950.
 
Begbie said:
I'd wait for a bargain bundle on MM, save as much as you can on that and spend the rest on a new gfx card. I doubt your card can play most recent titles at 1080p with a decent fps.

If you don't game at all, then an i5 is going to be a huuuuuuge upgrade.

Bundle on mm now, cpu ram and mobo. Probably get it all cheaper as a bundle, put the rest towards a gfx card when you can afford it.
Click to expand...

I do game but not as often as I used to. I'm no graphics hog but I like things to look relatively decent. I play Skyrim on the current setup and most recently Dishonoured, both look decent. This is why I'd rather spend ore on the initial setup then save up for a diff card later.

Having said the above I've not seen anything on graphics cards in years so I'm way out of the loop :p

Zefan said:
I'd just get the cheapest old i3/i5/i7 bundle with 4gb+ ram for under £150, then a Radeon 7950.
Click to expand...

Are we talking new or MM? Won't touch eBay.
 
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Get yourself in the MM. Loads of stuff started popping up yesterday as people want to move up to Skylake. Decent Z77 boards around £40. 3570k for £80. 8Gb or ram went for £15!! £150 would get you a mobo/cpu/ram bundle. You need to move quick though to get what you want.
 
Aye I've been looking periodically. I guess I just don't know what's what anymore.

Does it really matter that much in terms of the mobo? Just asking in general really :)
 
If you pick up a Sandybridge/Ivybridge unlocked K series cpu then ideally you want a Z77 board so that you can overclock the cpu. You can also overclock on P67/Z68 but Z77 was the last chipset on socket 1155 so it makes sense to go for the most recent. Aside from that it's up to you and what you want from a board.
 
I figured I'd be getting a socket 1150, so I can potentially upgrade the CPU at a later date...

Won't be overclocking, can't be bothered with that nowadays :p
 
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