An upgrade or a new PC?

colinchen70

colinchen70

colinchen70

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12 Dec 2006
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Hope everyone survived Xmas ok! I'm an infrequent user of the forum, but a loyal OC customer and need some help in deciding whether to splash out on a new pc or to upgrade the old one.

I last bought a PC in 2011 with the spec as follows:

Titan 8200i Spinosaur" Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30GHz with 4GB ram, a replaced SSD of 256GB and the existing graphics card. HIS ATI Radeon HD 6970 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express. The motherboard is the ASUS P8P67PRO and I use a 24" Dell monitor at 1900 x 1200.

I'm a casual gamer ...mainly shooters and have noticed that the PC is struggling with Crysis 3 on max settings :-( ! I am thinking of upgrading it. What should I go for? Should I buy more RAM, another graphics card..a better processor etc?

I am fairly flexible on budget. If I were to buy a new PC, it would be for the base unit only and so a budget would be around £1000.

I welcome your advice...
 
No need for an upgrade for the CPU, it's quite good as it is :D
You could add 4GB more RAM making it 8GB, and get a good GFX card
 
You won't see any appreciable difference with a processor upgrade, the 2500k is still very good. Get yourself a decent cooler (if you don't have one already) and overclock. Get yourself another 4gb of ram too, 8gb should really be considered a gaming minimum nowadays

You'll get more of an upgrade from a new graphics card and with your budget this screams R9 290 to me. Pre-order this

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 OC WindForce 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-R929OC-4GD) £389.99
Total : £399.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
Id go with something like this

Gainward GeForce GTX 780Ti Phantom 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £551.99

Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £245.99

TeamGroup Elite Black 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED316GM1600HC11DC01)
£107.99

Do you plan to overclock?

You still need a motherboard but you can get a basic Z87 board and still come in under £1000
 
Shivy011 said:
No need for an upgrade for the CPU, it's quite good as it is :D
You could add 4GB more RAM making it 8GB, and get a good GFX card
Click to expand...

I agree with this to a point but games are starting to make use of more than 4 threads now.

If the budget was £500 id say RAM and new card only but its £1000 so lets spend it all :)
 
Tbh by getting a 4770k like you suggested is just a waste of money if he has a 2500k already - why upgrade when it's not really needed? :P A great GPU and more RAM would do the trick.
 
sgoaty said:
Id go with something like this

Gainward GeForce GTX 780Ti Phantom 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £551.99

Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £245.99

TeamGroup Elite Black 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED316GM1600HC11DC01)
£107.99

Do you plan to overclock?

You still need a motherboard but you can get a basic Z87 board and still come in under £1000
Click to expand...

Whilst there is no doubt that games will start taking advantage of more cores, they aren't doing this routinely yet. To advise an i7 when the OP wants more performance in Crysis 3 is not a prudent move financially and will offer negligible improvements.

Also 16gb of RAM is a waste. 8gb of fast ram is more than enough now and into the future Link

I can't agree with the GPU choice either. With Mantle coming and the massive difference in cost between the 290 and 780Ti you'd have to be slightly mad to recommend the 780Ti, especially considering the performance difference between the two Link
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the good advice. I think the R9 290 sounds like a great option. I'm not sure I can wait for the pre-order though ...what about the other models which are currently in stock? Nice to get this in time for the new year!

Any recommendations for a good cooler? I just have the one that came with the PC. I also get a "CPU Fan Error" at startup so I assume it has failed or else a bios setting is wrong.
 
http://maldotex.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/hyperthreading-and-real-custom-graphics.html

Even if this isnt correct im sure the op will play more than just Crysis 3. Bf4 for instance does take advantage of HT as will plenty of future titles thats not to say the 2500k isnt a good CPU but if the budget is there then why not.

A year ago people were saying any more than 2 GB of V Ram was overkill again whats the harm in 16GB of RAM if he has the budget Id certainly chose 16GB over 8GB if I was doing a new build despite it not being a requirement YET.

As for the GPU you may have a point there but Ive read of so many problems with the 290s im a bit hesitant to reccomend them. Im not a Nvidia fan boy either look at my sig :)
 
The existing 290s have reference coolers and as such, are a little loud and prone to heat issues. I'd advise waiting for the third party cooler equipped cards to appear. You could always fit an aftermarket cooler yourself but you'd be invalidating the warranty by doing so.

For coolers you'd need to check your case clearance first, but the ones below are well regarded.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E CPU Cooler £57.98
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler £49.99
1 x Thermalright True Spirit 140 CPU Cooler £34.99
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler £29.99
1 x Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler £17.99
1 x Raijintek Aidos Direct Contact CPU Cooler £14.99
Total : £215.53 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
sgoaty said:
http://maldotex.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/hyperthreading-and-real-custom-graphics.html

Even if this isnt correct im sure the op will play more than just Crysis 3. Bf4 for instance does take advantage of HT as will plenty of future titles thats not to say the 2500k isnt a good CPU but if the budget is there then why not.

A year ago people were saying any more than 2 GB of V Ram was overkill again whats the harm in 16GB of RAM if he has the budget Id certainly chose 16GB over 8GB if I was doing a new build despite it not being a requirement YET.

As for the GPU you may have a point there but Ive read of so many problems with the 290s im a bit hesitant to reccomend them. Im not a Nvidia fan boy either look at my sig :)
Click to expand...

The idea when speccing is to offer the best bang-per-buck you're able to. Advising 16gb of ram just because he has the money to spend isn't good advice. He can buy more if and when it is required.

The same goes for the CPU really. Will he be getting £250 (approx) worth of extra performance by upgrading his 2500K? No, clearly not. He'll get a boost just from overclocking at the cost of a new cooler. Much better to put the money aside than needlessly spend it. I understand that this is my opinion and others may not agree, but unless you're made of money, why buy upgrades that offer little / no upgrade?
 
ExRayTed said:
The idea when speccing is to offer the best bang-per-buck you're able to. Advising 16gb of ram just because he has the money to spend isn't good advice. He can buy more if and when it is required.

The same goes for the CPU really. Will he be getting £250 (approx) worth of extra performance by upgrading his 2500K? No, clearly not. He'll get a boost just from overclocking at the cost of a new cooler. Much better to put the money aside than needlessly spend it. I understand that this is my opinion and others may not agree, but unless you're made of money, why buy upgrades that offer little / no upgrade?
Click to expand...

I read it as getting the best PC he can for £1k which is why i specified what I did. I see your point that he can get 80% + of the performance for 50% of the cost but thats not what was asked.

If the budget was halfed I would certainly agree with you :D
 
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