Christmas upgrade plans

Manboat · 21 Nov 2011 at 12:34

Hi guys - first off, just wanted to say thanks - I came here on my first ever build a few years back, and the advice you gave me helped me build a great low-budget rig, had absolutely no problems with it - and thanks doesn't get said enough around here.

While still solid, my PC is getting on a bit now - so I thought I'd drop a bit of cash this Christmas on upgrading a few components. I'll just pop the old spec below in a quote for reference.

Radeon HD 4870 512mb ("dark knight")
Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L Intel P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 M0otherboard
Intel pentium Dual-core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2 2.5ghz (clocked@3ghz)
Antext Earthwatts 500W PSU
Antec 300 case
Western Digital Cavier Blue 640GB SATA-II 16mv cache OEM Harddrive
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Duel Channel Vista Gold series DDR2 RAM
Artic Cooling Freezer 7 pro CPU cooler
DVD writer, soundcard etc

I'm thinking of dropping about £200 quid (with a fair amount of leeway) on upgrades, so I was hoping you'd be able to recommend what my money would be best spent on. Putting the graphics card aside (most likely I'll upgrade that later) I was thinking of picking up a new Mobo and CPU (possibly alongside a new PSU if you think i'll need the extra power).

So - can you suggest some components along those lines, and am I looking in the right direction?

kristmace · 21 Nov 2011 at 12:44

Hi,

IMO:
1) Q6600 ~£50
2) 120GB SSD ~ £130

If you must upgrade the Mobo then it could be more than £200 as you'll need a new CPU and RAM too. You might want to hang on to that mobo a bit longer cos I personally think theres some mileage left in it. If you can pick up a second hand Q6600 (Quad core, 2.4Ghz stock, overclocks to around 3.0Ghz) then that would make quite a bit of difference. I'd then be having a look into an SSD which will make your whole system feel faster.

PSU should be fine unless you plan to buy a monster graphics card (eg. GTX 580)

Manboat · 21 Nov 2011 at 14:09

Thanks for the reply. Glad to hear it about the PSU - sounds like I could get some fairly good performance increases without replacing every component, which is nice.

So I'd use the SSD for the OS and keep the old HD for extra storage? I know they're supposed to be fantastic for boot times.

One last thing - is it worth picking up a couple more sticks of ram, or would the performance increase be basically negligible?

mp260767 · 21 Nov 2011 at 14:37

do you use applications that use large amounts of memory ?, or run a number of memory hungry apps at the same time , if not then no real point of getting extra memory.

kristmace · 21 Nov 2011 at 15:19

I've just upgraded from 4GB to 8GB. Makes a little bit of difference if you've got several heavy programs open and you task switch, other than that, it's not a biggy.

The SSD you'll absolutely love. If you stick the OS on then all the essential programs and drivers that you use every day it will make everything you do seem instantaneous. The only down side is that you'll hate any computer without one!

shadow_boxer · 21 Nov 2011 at 18:55

I would either go second hand Q6600 and overclock it + SSD or graphics card

OR

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £95.99
(£79.99) £95.99
(£79.99)
Asus P8Z68-V LX Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard Asus P8Z68-V LX Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £81.98
(£68.32) £81.98
(£68.32)
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £19.98
(£16.65) £19.98
(£16.65)
Sub Total : £164.96
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £34.89
Total : £209.35

And as you say upgrade graphics card at a later date.