System upgrade - budget of ~£350

[Kona*]

Hi GH,

I'm wanting to upgrade my system which I use mainly for gaming (BF4 & PS2) and also as a home lab (VM's, GNS). My current spec is:

i5-2500K (SB, LGA1155) - Overclocked to 4.6GHz
ASRock Extreme4 Gen3 (Z68, supports some IB processors - full list here: http://bit.ly/19UF4Aq, supports memory speeds 2133(OC), 1866(OC), 1600, 1333, 1066)
Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600MHz (2x4GB)
MSI GeForce GTX 570 OC Twin FrozR III PE (1.2GB)
Asus Xonar DX 7.1 PCI-Express
Antec TruePower Modular 750W PSU
Samsung 830 SSD (128GB)
Seagate Constellation ES 2.5" HDD (500GB)
NZXT Phantom (1st edition)
Waterblock: EK Supreme HF (1st edition)
Res/Pump: EK DCP 4.0 Combo
Rad: XSPC EX240

The stuff I have put in bold are what I'm expecting I'll need to upgrade, the rest I'm happy to keep and reuse. I'll sort out a new WC block if necessary

I'm happy to switch to AMD if it's any more cost effective and I have no preference on GPU manufacturer - whatever gives me the best bang for my buck at the moment!

Thanks for looking, all suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Kona*

 

[ShivP]

Tbh that build is pretty decent, you won't get much of a performance boost from going from the 2nd gen i5 to say a 4th gen i5 - I'd keep that CPU and motherboard. Maybe sell that GTX 570 of yours and maybe buy a GTX 780

 

[RJC]

Unless you find the 2500k struggling I would probably keep that, i just come up with a new GPU and 16gb memory.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus Radeon R9 270X DirectCUII TOP 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £161.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLD316G2133HC11ADC01) £129.95
Total : £301.54 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 

[Kona*]

I thought the 4th Gen i5's were much, much faster - thanks for putting me right! I'm glad to here it's still a decent enough build, I'm not finding it slow usually, it's just BF4/PS2 are taxing it quite a lot! Plus VM's love memory

I'll check out both the 270X and 780 - the memory is a steal at £129!

 

[Kona*]

RJC, looking through the 270X section there are loads on this week only - is the Asus the best one to go with out of the lot? Some have faster or slower turbo clock speeds, and the MSI (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-226-MS) is £5 cheaper. Is it just down to personal preference?