Long overdue upgrade. Circa £1500-1800

Jonno02

Jonno02

Jonno02

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13 Mar 2011
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Hi guys,

been a while since I've thought about upgrading my PC, but alas, the time has come as current gen games are pushing the system to its limit. I'm looking for a full system upgrade I think, my current set-up is:

Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor
MSI HD 7950 Twin Frozr III Boost Edition 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Iiyama Prolite E2481HS-B1 24" Widescreen LED Super Slim Bezel Monitor
Gigabyte Z87-D3HP Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
TeamGroup Xtreem LV 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-21300C11 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit
Zalman Z9 USB 3.0 Midi Tower Case - Black
Corsair Builder Series CX 500w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020059-UK)


The system will be mainly used for gaming, with some other processor intensive activities. I'm looking to spend around £1500, but could stretch to say £1800.

I do not require any peripherals or Windows. I'll probably be looking at a second SSD purely to have games boot from, so around 256gb. Possibly looking at a monitor upgrade and using my current as a second monitor.

I'm completely out of the hardware loop right now, so any and all help is very much appreciated.
 
You don't need a full upgrade. Overclock the CPU and get a new GPU and you'll be good to go. Perhaps another 8gb of RAM and a bigger SSD if you wanted. You'll see very little improvement in upgrading the CPU. Maybe a new monitor too? I'd consider changing out the PSU also, those Corsair units were always a little flaky. I have the same monitor and GPU and they murder anything I throw at them.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £1,286.26
(includes shipping: £12.30)



​
 
Thanks guys. I'll look at a PSU upgrade. Was looking at a 1080 so that's fit in quite well along with a ram upgrade.

Is the motherboard fine? Think I'll look at a case upgrade, as the case is quite cheap and only has one internal 2.5 bay.
 
the motherboard will be fine.

you didn't mention (unless I missed it) whether you have overclocked your CPU, and what cooler you have on it - if you still have the stock cooler, I'd upgrade that, and clock it to around 4.2-4.4 (think that's fairly attainable for haswell).
Also that's some fast RAM you have; make sure it's running at/near it's rated speeds, if it's not already (no idea how competent/confident you are with configuring this!)....same applies if you're going to 16GB

of the 2 PSUs listed above, I'd go for the superflower; I had the 650w version running 2 x 280X (essentially a 7970), flat out, 24/7, for several months without so much as a hiccup (this was mining cryptocurrencies if you were wondering!)

Final point I'd make, is that for a games SSD, I'd say 480/512GB is the lowest I'd go, as most modern games (or the good looking ones anyway) are getting to around 40-75GB install size!
if you play older games, or just play one or two at a time, 256GB may be enough

Slapping a GTX1080 in that build will make it feel like a whole new machine! my machine in sig plays everything I've tried at full, 2560x1440 with ease, and only bogs down when trying to encode+stream using the CPU as well :)
 
TrojanWhore said:
the motherboard will be fine.

you didn't mention (unless I missed it) whether you have overclocked your CPU, and what cooler you have on it - if you still have the stock cooler, I'd upgrade that, and clock it to around 4.2-4.4 (think that's fairly attainable for haswell).
Also that's some fast RAM you have; make sure it's running at/near it's rated speeds, if it's not already (no idea how competent/confident you are with configuring this!)....same applies if you're going to 16GB

of the 2 PSUs listed above, I'd go for the superflower; I had the 650w version running 2 x 280X (essentially a 7970), flat out, 24/7, for several months without so much as a hiccup (this was mining cryptocurrencies if you were wondering!)

Final point I'd make, is that for a games SSD, I'd say 480/512GB is the lowest I'd go, as most modern games (or the good looking ones anyway) are getting to around 40-75GB install size!
if you play older games, or just play one or two at a time, 256GB may be enough

Slapping a GTX1080 in that build will make it feel like a whole new machine! my machine in sig plays everything I've tried at full, 2560x1440 with ease, and only bogs down when trying to encode+stream using the CPU as well :)
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot Trojan.

Nothing is overclocked; so I think I'll need to look into the CPU. Going to upgrade the case and put another 4 fans in there. Going to upgrading to 16gb ram I think too.

I was looking at the GTX1080, but nearly every review said that the 1070 is almost as good and much better bang for buck :S
 
Jonno02 said:
I was looking at the GTX1080, but nearly every review said that the 1070 is almost as good and much better bang for buck :S
Click to expand...

Not any more. The prices for the GTX1080 have come down to a level that makes the 1070 poor value by comparison. Below is a comparison. I've chosen the cheapest 1070 with a non-reference cooler.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £846.48
(includes shipping: £10.50)



​

Here's a link to how the two compare - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1731?vs=1714

Is the 1080's performance gain worth the outlay to you? If not and you're happy with the 1070 then get one :)
 
ExRayTed said:
Not any more. The prices for the GTX1080 have come down to a level that makes the 1070 poor value by comparison. Below is a comparison. I've chosen the cheapest 1070 with a non-reference cooler.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £846.48
(includes shipping: £10.50)



​

Here's a link to how the two compare - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1731?vs=1714

Is the 1080's performance gain worth the outlay to you? If not and you're happy with the 1070 then get one :)
Click to expand...

Sorry I should have clarified, the reviews say the 1080 is overkill for 1080p gaming (which is what I'll be on).
 
But you have the budget for a 1440p monitor? If you're gaming at 1080 then yes, the 1070 will be ample. Don't discount the difference a decent monitor can make. I went from an older 1080p Samsung to my current Dell (the one I linked in my first reply) and the difference is night and day, especially with Gsync
 
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