C2D to i5?

Kaiju

Kaiju

Kaiju

Soldato
Joined
27 Jan 2005
Posts
3,655
Location
Expat in HK
E4300@3Ghz
P5N-E
9800GTX+
74GB Raptor
2GB OCZ Platinum
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i5 750
P55 UD3R
GTX460
80GB X25-M
4GB OCZ Reaper

Is this the best bang for buck upgrade for me with a 500 quid budget?

Alternatives i've looked into are AMD's offerings, but apprehensive as I haven't had an AMD processor for a while.

I would probably SLI the GTX460 in the future, but would be bottlednecked by the 8x SLI PCI-e slots. This is probably my biggest concern.

I've looked at the i7 920, X58 and 6GB Tri-Channel upgrade, but can't justify the price increase.

Is it a question of waiting?

My needs are predominantly gaming at 1920x1080 on a 22" monitor. I also want a more responsive machine and be able to open up more programs without load times and freezing.
 
I would say so, especially the gtx460, destroys ati cards of that price at that res :)
 
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How desperate are you to do the full upgrade? If you can wait a bit I'd suggest getting the new graphics card + SSD now and waiting a bit for the rest as it's less than half a year until the new AMD + Intel releases now (in theory) which should shake things up a bit. :)

edit - slightly unusual suggestion here, but if you want a bit more speed you might want to also considering picking up an e8400 for around 60 and try clocking it to 4GHz. I would usually suggest Q6600 ofc but your board is god awful at clocking quads. You should be able to quite happily resell the e8400 in 6-12 months without losing much money.
 
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Mind, its unusual to see anything of this sort to be brung forward, so I wouldn't bet on it, mind it would be better to get an E8400, and maybe SSD, as the new GPU's are out at christmas :D
 
OP: 8x pci makes no difference at all (2-3% on a 5870). If you want two 8x lanes though you have to spend more £ on a better motherboard - My UD3R has one 8x and one 4x slot, but I don't intend to use two graphics cards so to me it doesn't matter.
 
Ryan-3 said:
Mind, its unusual to see anything of this sort to be brung forward, so I wouldn't bet on it, mind it would be better to get an E8400, and maybe SSD, as the new GPU's are out at christmas :D
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Sorry to but in, but what GPU's are coming out at Xmas?
 
the X25-M is really nice, but bang for bucks, I'd go with the Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB. 64 GB is enough for a system drive (I have a Vertex 2E 60GB, 37gig free). Save yourself £60 :) Incidently, that gives you a budget for a PSU, or tri-channel memory.
 
I really would'nt build a new rig based around Intel with Sandybridge now being launched this year. Pointless going from one dead socket to another. Second hand Q6600 and a new graphics card would be a good move for now. It's not as if you would lose any money on the Q6600 if you came to sell it in six months as they are in great demand.
 
Firstly, thank you for the quick responses.

Okay, i'm not desperate, but I don't want to hold out on a good thing.

I'm not really looking for a stop gap, if I do buy, I want to buy something which will last me a good 2-3 years.

From what's being said, I think the SSD would be the best bet first, followed by the GPU.

Having mulled it over for a day, I think I will wait till the i7 920 and X58 comes down in price and then get me a Tri-Channel set too.

I have a Corsair HX620W PSU, but luckily found another guy over on another forum with the same PSU. He's amidst testing if it will SLI 2x GTX460's. Should be okay.

I guess my mind has been made. I get the SSD now, followed by the GPU if given the all clear.

I'm not sure of the power draw of the GTX480 compared to the GTX460 in SLI mode, so will await confirmation before I choose a GPU.

I've had ATi before, but can't stand the CCC. The 5850 has been on my mind for a while though.

Anyway, thanks for the brainstorming guys, really helps chucking ideas out there.
 
For future reference the Gigabyte P55 UD3R doesn't do SLI, so would have to opt for the UD4 or Asus alternative.
 
mglover070588 said:
It can have two cards but one of the pcie lanes is at 4x.
It may not even be SLI, I didn't check really. The only features important to me were USB/Sata 3 and good overclocking features.
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It only does Crossfire support. You'd have to get the UD4 or above for SLI.
 
I went from an e8500 to an i5 750 and I'm very happy with it. However, I upgraded 6-7 months ago and got quite a bit of money for my old stuff plus the i5 and RAM was quite a bit cheaper then as well.
 
burrell said:
Sorry to but in, but what GPU's are coming out at Xmas?
Click to expand...

Supposidly, the 6000Ati series stuff will be here at christmas, and before easter, nvidia's new stuff, what I'd guess to be GTX500 series, though they could be GTX600,700.... :)
 
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