Budget upgrade help

Delta Charlie

Delta Charlie

Delta Charlie

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Joined
23 Sep 2009
Posts
37
Hi, I currently have the following set up

Asus GeForce GTS 250 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card

AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3)

Patriot G Series AMD 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-10666 1333MHz Dual Channel

Asus M4A785TD-V Evo AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard

And I am looking at the following options to upgrade on a limited budget:

1) upgrade the gfx card to a
OcUK ATI Radeon HD 6850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card for £99 and buy a new quad core and processor for about £100 ( Looking for advice for best processor as close to £100)

Or

2) Buy A gfx card only similar to Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card [11179-09-20G] £143.

Will be using it for Swtor and maybe BF3 and looking to run at mid range settings. Any advice would be appreciated on what is the best option (or another option)

Thanks
 
What PSU do you have bro?

Tried unlocking extra cores from your CPU if the board supports this feature?
 
Currently have a 500w seasonic S12, but it's about 5 years old and I am going to replace it with something around the 550/600w mark. I have set aside max £70 for this.

Have not unlocked any cores and don't really know if it's suitable or how to go about it.
 
Last edited:
Delta Charlie said:
Have not unlocked any cores and don't really know if it's suitable or how to go about it.
Click to expand...

Most Asus motherboards have 'core unlocker' built into the BIOS.

When you see your start-up screen (motherboard name) It should have (along the bottom), Press '4' to unlock cores. It certainly has this on my motherboard and yours is a newer version than mine.

Its not a harmful process atall.
 
Been looking up this unlocking business and it seems easy enough and the way to go. A couple of questions I can't find the answers to if any one can help:

If I unlock the cores but can't get them to run stable , can I re-lock them?

Will the stock cooler that came with processor be enough or will I need a new one?

And how much of a performance difference is there between the gfx cards in the op? ( if it is not much I will go with the cheaper card and the unlock)

Thanks again
 
Google phenom core unlocking, you'll find plenty of info.

In short it's not guaranteed. Also as stulid pointed out it will need a cooler suitable for quadcores. There will be "manual" settings you can change in the bios, sometimes it's necessary to up the Vcore to get the cores all stable. Double check the expected safe voltage before tweaking.

Considering it's essentially going to make your CPU a 955 (£100ish) it's worth looking into. I'll add a link so you can compare the GPUs as requested

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/291?vs=290
 
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