Final Spec Check (high end gaming upgrade)

[Robert1986]

I finally have the funds to spend money on new pc parts. I have been back and forth over what I should spend the £700 on.

Might buy another 5850 down the line..

Current Gaming PC Spec

ATI 4670
Dual Core 6600 @ 2.4ghz
4gb of ddr2 ram
420W Power Supply
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR Intel P45 (Socket 775) DDR2 Motherboard


Upgrading to...

Have I spent my money wisely these parts?

 

[Schizo]

the screen is blank ?

also ,ight be worth considering the funds your going to get from selling your old set up if you are going to sell it.

you could get a bit more if you sell.

 

[Robert1986]

the screen is blank ?

Its early morning. Mistakes happen.

fixed.

 

[stulid]

Can't see anything in your picture? Is it my mobile phone? Or is there really nothing there?

 

[stulid]

Be prepared for a lot of AMD suggestions.

 

[stulid]

Honestly people for once lets keep it to what he wants, intel i3.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The OP is wasting their money on the Core i3 bundle.

They should get a Q9550 and a decent cooler and overclock this instead!

They already have a decent motherboard and RAM.

Even at stock a 2.83GHZ Q9550 will trash a 3.33GHZ Core i5 661(an overclocked Core i3):

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=50&p2=117

The Q9550 is available for between £160 to £180 and you can easily get it to around 3.2GHZ+ AFAIK and hence it will still trash an overclocked Core i3 for gaming in most cases and the upgrade will work out cheaper.

 

[MonkeykingZX]

i'd either do what cat says and get a q9550 or if you must upgrade to a new platform get an i5 750

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Here is another AMD based upgrade option:

Phenom II X4 955BE ~ £122

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-244-AM

Asus M4A79XTD Evo ~ £86

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-366-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1481

This motherboard has an 8+2 phase VRM,VRM cooling,all solid capacitors and can do symmetrical Crossfire at PCI-E 2.0 8X

4GB 1600MHZ DDR3 ~ £83

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-026-PA&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517

Corsair H50-1 High-Performance CPU Watercooler ~ £64

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-002-CS

OR

Titan TTC-NK85TZ Fenrir CPU Cooler ~ £33

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-008-TI

HD5850 1GB ~ £219

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-215-SP

OR

2XHD5770 1GB ~ £234

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-014-C3

Antec TruePower New Modular 650W ~ £89

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-117-AN&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=

Has 4 PCI-E power connectors as you can then have a pair of HD5850 1GB cards in Crossfire.

Most of the cheaper units on OcUK only have a pair of PCI-E power connectors and remember that a high end card like an HD5850 1GB requires two PCI-E power connectors

A pair of HD5770 1GB cards in Crossfire though challenges an HD5870:

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=862&p=0

Even with the most expensive options the total comes to around £678 excluding postage!

If you do get a Q9550 and a decent cooler I would suggest getting the following PSU too:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-023-OC

The Q9550 upgrade path even with a new OCZ 600W PSU and an H50 aftermarket cooler will be around £300 and hence is simply the best value for money option IMHO.

The OCZ 600W can only power one HD5850 1GB but since the Gigabyte P45 motherboard cannot do Crossfire this should be fine.

 

[arknor]

722quid with free shipping , get an aftermarket cooler when you can afford it.

this way you dont upgrade to a dead end motherboard socket like i5 and socket 1366 will do dual channel perfectly fine.

 

[Robert1986]

Thanks for the replies. I didn't know the i3 was a bad choice.

I'll take those builds into consideration and think them over.

 

[Robert1986]

So, the x58 MB is the best MB (for my budget) to upgrade to?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-159-GI

Still not sure what cpu to go for... i7 920 D0 or a quad core... keep in mind, I probably won't overclock either.. thats why I wanted that bundle.

 

[arknor]

So, the x58 MB is the best MB (for my budget) to upgrade to?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-159-GI

Still not sure what cpu to go for... i7 920 D0 or a quad core... keep in mind, I probably won't overclock either.. thats why I wanted that bundle.

i7 920 is a 4 core monster that will chew up anything that you throw at it for a very long time to come, no game on the market will stress it and it would easily beat that overclocked bundle.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-332-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1283 is arguably a better motherboard based on the fact that is has 6 memory slots compared to the 4 on the gigabyte and its only 7 quid more

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If you want to stay with Intel get a Core i5 750.

Upgrades to socket 1366 will always be expensive and it is not worth the extra cost for a gaming computer IMHO over a socket 1156 or socket AM3 based build.

 

[Robert1986]

OK, well, unexpected things have happened and now I can only upgrade with £400. Will buy the rest in a few more weeks time.

I have decided to go with everyones advice on here and skip the bundle and get the parts separate.

Next upgrades will be, Memory, CPU Cooler and a Graphics Card.

For now, I can get by on my current 4gb giel ddr2 ram and cpu cooler.

 

[arknor]

If you want to stay with Intel get a Core i5 750.

Upgrades to socket 1366 will always be expensive and it is not worth the extra cost for a gaming computer IMHO over a socket 1156 or socket AM3 based build.

its only around 50 quid extra if you settle for dual channel but thats all you would get on a socket 1156 mobo anyway and its barely slower than triple channel

socket 1156 is dead intel wont give it 6 core cpus etc.

socket 1366 will get new cpus including 6core ones so it has some life left in it.

 

[Robert1986]

If you want to stay with Intel get a Core i5 750.

Upgrades to socket 1366 will always be expensive and it is not worth the extra cost for a gaming computer IMHO over a socket 1156 or socket AM3 based build.

lol, back to the drawing board then. I did take a look at your earlier post and the amd build looks tempting. I have till thursday to decide what I want, so, theres really no hurry in specing this out.

 

[Robert1986]

or go with this build... all I need after buying this is a GPU.

 

[bigjimmyauk]

i7 920 is a 4 core monster that will chew up anything that you throw at it for a very long time to come, no game on the market will stress it and it would easily beat that overclocked bundle.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-332-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1283 is arguably a better motherboard based on the fact that is has 6 memory slots compared to the 4 on the gigabyte and its only 7 quid more

are you a intel fanboi go visit toms hardware where in quite a few games the phenom 965BE outperforms the core i7 at 3.8GHZ

only noticable games at present where you will see major differences are Left for dead 2,far cry 2,gta,COD MW2

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

OK, well, unexpected things have happened and now I can only upgrade with £400. Will buy the rest in a few more weeks time.

I have decided to go with everyones advice on here and skip the bundle and get the parts separate.

Next upgrades will be, Memory, CPU Cooler and a Graphics Card.

For now, I can get by on my current 4gb giel ddr2 ram and cpu cooler.

You need DDR3 with both socket 1156 and socket 1366 motherboards.

The Phenom II will work with both DDR2 AM2+ motherboards and DDR3 AM3 motherboards.

With an AM2+ Phenom II build you could get a decent graphics card too and also gain a Crossfire capable motherboard for under £400.

What speed is your existing RAM and what model is the cooler?