£650 Desktop Upgrade?

Aod

Aod

Aod

Soldato
Joined
7 Oct 2004
Posts
8,662
Location
London
Hi guys, I'm looking to upgrade my elderly desktop, revitalising it with some fresh components.

Its an Antec P182 case with a Corsair HX-620 PSU, I have Three HDDs and a DVD-RW drive, as well as an Asus Xonar D1.

Currently, it's running an Intel Q6600 clocked to 3GHz, 4GB of OCZ platinum DDR2, an nVidia GTX460 and a Gigabyte P35-DS3R

To that end, I'd like to replace the Motherboard, CPU, RAM and Graphics card.
I'm not planning on anything beyond a very mild overclock for the sake of it, but would still like a fairly high-end cooler so that it's nice and quiet all the time.

I use the computer, primarily, for general-purpose things, an open web-browser with 15 to 50 open tabs, usually with a media file playing on the other screen, possibly with minecraft running too.

I do play games, such as Skyrim and such, so I still want a fairly high-end graphics card.

I'd like 32GB of ram, but 16 would probably be okay if you guys think that spending that money on the CPU/Mobo/GFX would be a better idea.

I can stretch to £700 if that includes the CPU-HSF and some quiet 120mm case-fans :)

So, the fun part; Suggest away! :D
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7950 IceQ X² BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H795QMC3G2M) with Crysis 3 & Bioshock PC Games £259.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £187.99
1 x MSI Z77 MPower Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 ATX Motherboard with FREE F1 RC Car & MSI HDD Enclosure £149.99
1 x Avexir MPower Yellow Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16000904G-2CM) £37.99
1 x Thermalright Macho 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £29.99
2 x Be Quiet! Silent Wings Fan Pure - 120mm £9.98 (£19.96)
Total : £685.92 (includes shipping : FREE).



There are cheaper mobos but this can Xfire/SLi (Your PSU cant hack that for 7950s though), it does include wifi and bluetooth with some other nice bundled freebies to help "Justify" the cash. 8GB of RAM is plenty really for your needs, it's on offer and matches the mobo. Heatsink is good and doesn't break the bank the TR120 is a little cheaper if you'd prefer to pocket some cash.

There are plenty of 7950s to choose from the windforce is good as well with a longer warranty. Check the max length your case can take GPU wise, hopefully you wont have to remove a HDD cage you need.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7950 Windforce 3X 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Crysis 3 & Bioshock PC Games £259.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £187.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £112.99
2 x Avexir Core Blue Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16000904G-2CW) - Blue Light £37.99 (£75.98)
1 x Thermalright True Spirit 120 REV A (BW) Performance CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £24.98
2 x Be Quiet! Silent Wings Fan Pure - 120mm £9.98 (£19.96)
Total : £681.91 (includes shipping : FREE).



16GB of RAM without going over your max budget.
 
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Looks pretty reasonable! Case can take a 12" graphics card with ease, it used to house an nVidia 8800GTX which was massive!

I've just remembered that I already have a PCI-E Wifi card, an Intel 6300 Ultimate-N card in an adapter so I'm set for that, not that I use WiFi anyway as I'm on 1000BASE-T :D
 
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Sounds like the 2nd option would be best then. Shame the retail i5K is at a silly price currently. If I'd used that it's 3 year warranty on CPU,Mobo & GPU, the RAM will be lifetime (limited) warranty.
 
I also very much like the look of honos second spec.

Another idea is to save £70 and go with a 7850, it will still be more then good enough for your needs and you can put the money saved to an ssd.

Just another idea, if an SSD doesn't float your boat , stick with hono's spec.
 
what's the difference, performance-wise, between an i5-3570 and an i5-3570k? As far as I can tell only the integrated GPU is different?

Oh, unlocked multipliers? Is FSB overclocking not the done thing these days?
 
Aod said:
what's the difference, performance-wise, between an i5-3570 and an i5-3570k? As far as I can tell only the integrated GPU is different?

Oh, unlocked multipliers? Is FSB overclocking not the done thing these days?
Click to expand...
K series CPU allows you to overclock
 
Aod said:
what's the difference, performance-wise, between an i5-3570 and an i5-3570k? As far as I can tell only the integrated GPU is different?

Oh, unlocked multipliers? Is FSB overclocking not the done thing these days?
Click to expand...

Multiplier has become the way to over clock as (I read somewhere) that the BLCK is linked to the onboard graphics, do changing this is hit and miss. Some people can raise there's as high as 105+ though others can't even get 100.5 without it BSOD.

Multiplier is easier.

The non-k won't give you the multiplier option.
 
I think you can overclock a bit with the i5-3570. Intel allows you to increase the multiplier six bins past the maximum turbo clock (3.8GHz) which means 4.4GHz should be attainable.
 
Multiplier is locked on the chips, you won't be able to get anywhere near 4.4 on a locked chip. The highest you can go is 3.8 by using the turbo feature on one core.
 
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