got £120 to spend on upgrade

utajoker

utajoker

utajoker

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Joined
13 Jan 2006
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Wigan
Hi

ive got £120 to look at spending on my pc but i'm not sure what i can get to make a worthwhile upgrade.

Spec is:

Asus ROG Maximus VI HERO mobo
i74770k @ stock
stock cpu cooler
Powercolor R290X PCS+
16gb Corsair Vengance 2133 MHz
2 X Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO in Raid 0
Corsair HX850 PSU
benq xl2420t monitor

i did consider an all in one watercooler for cpu but im not that bothered about overclocking it, so it would only be to silence it, and since i broke one of the blades off a fan on my R290X, it wont make a difference as that thing is loud now.

Any ideas?

Might just bank it for a full upgrade in the future.
 
Personally I don't think £120 would create a justifiable improvement, particularly if you are not worried about overclocking.

The only thing I'd even consider is selling your 290X and then upgrading the GPU, but to be honest anything that would be a real upgrade would cost more than the resale value of the 290X + £120.
 
Going to assume the warranty has expired on the 290X. If so, you could open a Wanted thread in the MM and see if anyone has the Powercolor cooler that they no longer use.

The rest of your system looks great, save your money.
 
Changing the fan, or cooler on the GPU might be possible, and worth a shot. Like an Arctic accelero, or if you are lucky a straight fan replacement. Nothing too fancy, not worth spending a lot of money on that card. If the fan rattles, wondering how the card would work on two fans only. Might not be that bad.

BTW, just go with quiet air cooling. It's cheaper, and actually quieter than those compromised AOI. If you have the case and low profile memory clearance.
 
I would look to change the GPU cooling to an Accelero Hybrid 120 (£61) as that will quieten your GPU down nicely and allow it to run much cooler - I never see higher than 63C when running only one GPU in a game.

I'd also spend £30 on a new air CPU cooler partially to have the CPU run cooler but mostly because the stock air cooler looks so weedy and pathetic. :D

Also, if you've got a case with a window, have you considered an NZXT Hue+? Got mine a few weeks ago to replace an older NZXT Hue and LOVE the new one.
 
Yep, get that GPU cooler replaced if you can and then dump the stock CPU cooler for something better and quieter. No need to go water, a decent air cooler is all you need if you aren't much interested in OC.
 
Confused Stu said:
I would look to change the GPU cooling to an Accelero Hybrid 120 (£61) as that will quieten your GPU down nicely and allow it to run much cooler - I never see higher than 63C when running only one GPU in a game.

I'd also spend £30 on a new air CPU cooler partially to have the CPU run cooler but mostly because the stock air cooler looks so weedy and pathetic. :D

Also, if you've got a case with a window, have you considered an NZXT Hue+? Got mine a few weeks ago to replace an older NZXT Hue and LOVE the new one.
Click to expand...

Did you put any additional heatsinks on your VRAM?

got any pics of your card with it installed?

looks like ocuk don't stock the Accelero Hybrid 120 any more, shall have to get from else ware.

Any cpu cooler reccomendations? Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo ?
 
utajoker said:
Did you put any additional heatsinks on your VRAM?

got any pics of your card with it installed?

looks like ocuk don't stock the Accelero Hybrid 120 any more, shall have to get from else ware.

Any cpu cooler reccomendations? Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo ?
Click to expand...

I added the "Gelid Enhancement Kit for 290" to my cards just in case as they were pretty cheap (less than £5 each) but they're difficult to find these days. Not sure the cards really need them, but I'd rather be safe than sorry, so tend to be a little overprotective of my stuff. The VRM coolers are product code CL-R290-01-A which should help if you Google them, but I can't tell you where I bought them from as they're a competitor, so I have to keep Quiet about where I bought this particular PC part. ;)

Haven't got any recent pictures of my PC online, but here's the ones I took when I first installed the coolers:
http://s1328.photobucket.com/user/Confused_Stu/library/Accelero Hybrid II?sort=3&page=1
My case isn't really suited to any more than 1 x 120mm radiator unless I want to start replacing the nice quiet 180mm fans in the floor, which I don't, so the second rad isn't ideally placed. For a single GPU, or a different case, the Accelero is fine.

Sure you won't have problems finding somewhere that still stocks the Accelero Hybrid 120. Shame OcUK doesn't anymore, but I do understand it's a bit of a niche part. The other AIO GPU watercooling options may work well too, but I've only used the Accelero so can't compare to the HG10 + AIO or other solutions.
 
I put a decent cooler on an AMD APU chip, slight overclock, the difference between stock cooler and dedicated one was immense. Silent yet ran the chip faster. Win Win
 
I'd personally save the money for a future upgrade as you're not going gain much by spending that £120 on any single part of your rig. Maybe get a nice mechanical keyboard or a CPU cooler that you can keep for years? Or a new case maybe?
 
It's surprising how much noise fans make when one fun is broken! ;) Yeah, get that replaced and Cpu cooler, Dark Rock Pro or Noxtua D14/15 which should last you years and a few Cpu changes.
 
 
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