Can someone help with this, just to check it?

leightonr25

leightonr25

leightonr25

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Joined
4 Dec 2012
Posts
146
Hello all, thanks for viewing.

My current setup is this:
Mars Blue Case
Corsair Builders Series 500w
AMD Athlon II x2 250 processor
KFA2 Geforce GTX 660
500GB Hard Drive
LG Optical Drive
2x2gb 667mhz Kingston Memory
Stock Cooling Heatsink


Within a year I want to go to this:
Zalman z11 Plus Case
Corsair Builders Series 500w
Intel i5 3570k
KFA2 Geforce GTX 660
256GB SSD + 2TB HDD 6GB/s
LG Optical Drive
2x4GB Corsair Vengeance 1600mhz Low Profile
Zalman CNPS 11X Cooling Heatsink


Will this all run on a 500w Power Supply, I would upgrade to a 750w Corsair Builders Series as I know the Builders Series are solid power supply's from personal experience and reviews I have read, but I am tight on money, and have worked out that I will only be able to buy the CPU, Motherboard, Memory, Case, Heatsink by the end of the year, the SSD + HDD will have to wait, and if I need a new power supply, so will all of the rest of the components. I have worked it out to be 350w~ power consumption, but I don't trust myself. Just want to be reassured, or put right, so I know. Thanks in advance, Leighton.
 
I would personally go with a XFX 550w PSU..Corsair builder series is not that solid if I am honest :p

Also 750w would definitely be more than necessary..how old is your current PSU? If a few years then you can just keep it
 
Change the PSU for an XFX, 660 for a 670/680 or 7950 and the RAM for some Samsung 1600 instead.

Corsair PSU's are not amazing, they are easily blown, XFX/Seasonic are the number 1
660 is out-dated, the 670 can be overclocked to a 680 the 7950 is the best value for money
Corsair RAM is ok, but the samsung uses 30nm chips which save power and will overclock to 2400mhz+ Also, make sure you get a Gigabyte motherboard, you get UK RMA.
 
@dacads
I currently have the Corsair CX (Builders Series) 500, I have had it 3 months now, has been solid for me, but can't return it :(

@snips86x
I don't have the money for a new GPU, the 660 is only 3 months old and is enough for me just purely gaming, and maybe streaming only a little, but can't stream with my internet anyway, I would get a better GPU if I could afford, but I can only buy what I can afford, I shopped around and found out that I can afford all new upgrades I listed for around £425, and that should be achieved very slowly since I don't have much spare money.

I would happily change the PSU for an XFX, and the RAM for some Samsung 1600 instead though.
 
If I was you bud I'd get a sataIII SSD now and upgrade your case if you dislike what you have. I prefer the Z9 U3 to the Z11 but each to their own.

Your PSU will be ok. Obviously a mobo bundle upgrade isn't cheap. You might as well reap the SSD speeds now and save your spondoolies for a Haswell setup once it releases around June.
 
 
@honosuseri
My current motherboard will make no use of SATAIII so there is no point in getting it until I have upgraded my computer, and I think I will save some cash and wait until later in the year and get the Haswell setup, unless I find a setup that I insanely like, and I will find the money and buy it.

@Incrauze
I don't plan to crossfire/SLI however if for some reason I had some spare money lying around, as if there is a chance in that, I would buy another GPU and crossfire/SLI, however highly unlikely. And I do like that build, and that case is nicer, I guess honosuseri was right about the z9, but I don't know whether to scrounge the money from somewhere to get that. However favorite build I have been showed up to now to be honest.
 
Yes but the SSD even at SataII will be faster than the HDD, I know I've upgraded laptops without sataIII with SSDs. No point getting a sataII SSD as once you upgrade the mobo you unlock the full potential. Infact you can buy the "budget" SSDs like the standard samsung 840 (rather than the faster 840 Pro) as the speed difference makes no odds to you currently.

If I wanted to do an upgrade on a budget now......

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £179.99
1 x Zalman Z9 USB 3.0 Midi Tower Case - Black £54.98
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte Z68A-D3H-GEN3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 (MB-380-GI) £52.00
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-15000C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV38G186C9K) £41.99
1 x OcUK Tech Labs - Corsair H60 Performance Intel Liquid Cooling Solution (Socket 1155 / 1156 / 1366) £39.95
- 1 x No Fan Required £0.00
- 1 x No Fan Required £0.00
- 1 x Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound (8g) £8.99
Total : £391.99 (includes shipping : £11.75).



I've added plenty of good paste incase you didn't have any. The U3 has three case fans, you can use the two LED ones on the radiator. You can change them for static pressure ones later on for better performance. You don't have to use the CLC cooler, just though it would look good through the window ;) The retail CPUs come with a heatsink you can start on, had I gone with the OEM which is a tad cheaper it comes with no heatsink and 2 years less warranty

Mobo is B grade but still decent. It can have the BIOS updated to UEFI. It does do dual GPUs not that your PSU could hack it. At £50 it's £30 cheaper than a decent entry level Z77 for single GPUs.

RAM overclocks well and isn't really that tall. Has a good low CAS rating and at 1866Mhz it's priced amongst 1600mhz kits available. No brainer really. ALthough as you said you probably will end up looking at Haswell anyway I thought I'd just show what can be done with a tight budget in mind :)

If you stay active on the forum you can work towards the free P&P and then doing upgrades individually makes even more sense. You can grab stuff on offer P&P free :)
 
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@honosuseri
I can tell that until the haswells are released, there will be no other choice but the i5 3570k, and the z9 U3 case is really growing on me. The motherboard I don't really like. I would prefer to get one that isn't a B grade, sorry. The ram is the best priced ram I have seen for 1866mhz, and I wouldn't mind going down the route of water cooling.
 
a lot of it is personal preference.

The Z chassis has it's quirks. Mount the PSU "fan up", it looks nice through the window and the case vents for the PSU although filtered aren't great so it gives you an excuse to show off by going "fan up". It isn't the perfect chassis but you do get soooo much stuff with it, I own the Z9 Plus myself and am more than happy with it for the price.

The B grade mobo is offering what the Asrock does for half the price. It also has 90 days with OCuk then whatever is left for GB to cover.....they offer a UK based 3 year warranty by the way. The Z77-D3H is a good choice new, if you want new I won't complain. I'm not a lover of the all blue look myself either but if you run with the theme it can look very nice. I've used the Z77-D3H in a Z9 U3 along with the Corsair Cerulean Blue coloured RAM which matches exactly with the mobo heatsinks. With the blue leds from the fans, peeking through the window it all looks very tidy.

I still think getting say a 128GB SSD first would make the most sense. For £80ish it will make a noticable improvement and it will carry over with you as you upgrade. The 60GB SSDs are £60ish and poor value to be quite honest.
 
@honosuseri

I will look into an SSD for the meantime, and then have a look at the haswell series when they come out, I am pretty sure on this now, and unless I see a mind blowing rig, I don't think I will be changing my mind anytime soon, I heard the haswell series it released 2nd June, so I will be on the look out for those, or might hold off and see if prices drop on them. Thanks everyone for helping and all the suggestions, really appreciate it^^
 
Depends on you and the budget pal. In truth an SSD will improve any system.

What mobo do you have by the way? What CPUs can it take? Even a Phenom 955 would be a step up. On par with the i3 for gaming but it hands video encoding tasks well too, it does use more power though than intel obviously.

Last time I saw them stocked here they were £60, so a second hand bargain might be found. Haswell is rumoured to use the same heatsinks as 1155. So you can buy a heatsink to OC the 955, as long as it also fits the 1155 socket you should be good to carry it over when you do a serious mobo upgrade.

I still keep a phenom 555BE (@4.1ghz) in service for a HTPC/Console killer. Paired to a (oc'd) 1GB 460 it still games pretty well to be honest. The CPU unlocks to become a 955 basically but that ups the power draw so I left it as a dual core. Games like BF3 like to have the extra cores but pretty much everything else I have running happily as a dual core
 
Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2P is my motherboard, so I don't think it will run anything decent, I would rather spend all the money on what I want to achieve at the end, since it shouldn't be that long before I get 95% of it, will still be this year
 
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