CPU etc upgrade advise

Pilgrim57 · 7 Jun 2010 at 11:45

Hello - My brother wants to upgrade his ageing +4400x2 AMD rig.
Budget £500 max for CPU, Ram + HSF & mobo.
I was thinking of a i5 750, Corsair ram but unsure which motherboard.
Have read that some will slow graphics PCIE x16 to get max through put on USB3 &/or 6GB/s hdd. Would like to avoid that issue.

Have used ASUS or Gigabyte in past.
He is not a gamer, apart from Civilization, but runs BOINC.
Not looking for max o/c as the room is rarely below 22C so would like to run not too hot.Current rig is almost 5 years old so would want replacement to get close to that.
All to fit, be kept cool, in Akasa Xone case.

Any & all suggestions welcome. Thanks

Pilgrim57 · 7 Jun 2010 at 12:06

Thanks for that, Mr Krugga, esp. about throttling.
Won't the 750 have hyperthreading to give 8 virtual cores?
I very much doubt he will use Sli or xfire

Pilgrim57 · 7 Jun 2010 at 12:23

double post with error

Pilgrim57 · 7 Jun 2010 at 12:23

Thanks for the clarification. An 920/930 would be overkill & the 850 take too much of the budget.

Pilgrim57 · 7 Jun 2010 at 15:36

Thanks for the replies.
Biffa - after a lot of searching I can get to £180-95 + free delivery for an i7 920 :confused:

Obviously your knowledge & search skills are better than mine

What with the DDR3 & 6gb to boot it seems that the i7 route is the better choice.
OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 (1600MHz) is £132.99 here; seems worth the extra tenner.