Have £400 to upgrade current build, reccomendations appreciated.

Keenage

Keenage

Keenage

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Hey all, I've recentely decided to upgrade my current build and have £400 to upgrade the build. I've been thinking of a few possible combinations of upgrades such as a new case and ram with a possible GPU upgrade but I thought I'd post my specs here and see if you guys can reccomend a possible upgrade here, Thanks :)

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.3GHz

RAM: I had 2x4 Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz but one of the sticks corrupted so I'm fairly sure I'm gonna have to buy some new ram

GPU: 1gb ASUS HD 6850 Direct CU

Case: Coolermaster Elite 334U

Motherboard: Asus P8Z68-V LX

PSU: 650w Powercool, 80 plus ( I know that it's quite a bad PSU :( )

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64
 
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I'd definitely upgrade the PSU first! I'd recommend a Seasonic, Corsair or XFX power supply.

Then I'd either get an aftermarket cooler and overclock that 2500k & pair it with either a crossfired 6850 or get a 7950 as an upgrade.

Or, get a nice 128GB SSD in the system!
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7950 Windforce 3X 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £239.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Case - Black £64.99
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £43.99
Total : £413.06 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Something like this is what I'd suggest.
Then, when you have some more money buy a aftermarket cooler and overclock that CPU. :)
 
the first thing you do is ditch that psu.

get some new ram if you have a corrupted stick or get it replaced under warranty?

aftermarket cooler for the cpu and oc it

ssd

look at your budget after this and see what you have left. personally i wouldn't get a 2nd gpu for xfire, you're still going to be limited to the 1gb vram. look maybe at selling the 6850 on, put what you get towards the remaining budget and see what 2gb cards are available
 
 
i know twice now you've been specced a 7950 3gb gpu that wipes out half your budget straight away.

but ask yourself this first though, does your current gpu struggle?

if not then that is a low priority change out.

personally, as i already said, i'd replace psu and ram first. stick in an ssd and after market cooler.

look see what's left in the kitty and go from there.
 
Run memtest86 and check to make sure you have a faulty stick, if so RMA the ram and get it replaced.
You have not mentioned if your card is struggling or what resolution you play at. If you are still happy with it`s performance, hang on to it and replace it when it can no lomger play your games at decent settings. To xfire the 6850, you would need to replace the mobo to get full performance, as your board only does x8 x4 .
Look at getting a decent case and a 500W+ Psu Also a cooler to OC the Cpu and a nice ssd to enhance performance. All for about £260.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Plextor M5 Pro 128GB Extreme Series Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5P) £99.95
1 x Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Case - Black £64.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020059-UK) £49.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 612S CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £32.99
Total : £262.02 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
I play at 1920x1080 and at times I can have some problems when playing some new games at medium/high, I'm not really sure to get a 7950 or a 7850. However, I'm fairly sure I might need a GPU upgrade.
 
This is what I'd upgrade too, keeping it around the £300 quid mark -

YOUR BASKET
1 x Corsair Force GT 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CSSD-F120GBGT-BK) £105.98
1 x Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Windowed Case - Black £69.98
1 x XFX Pro Series 650W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £69.98
1 x Noctua NH-D14-2011 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler with PWM Fans (Socket LGA2011) £59.99
Total : £320.04 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Or..

YOUR BASKET
1 x Corsair Force GT 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CSSD-F120GBGT-BK) £105.98
1 x Antec P280 Super Midi Tower Case - Gun Metal Black £99.98
1 x XFX Pro Series 850W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £89.99
1 x Noctua NH-D14-2011 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler with PWM Fans (Socket LGA2011) £59.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1333C9DC) £39.95
Total : £410.89 (includes shipping : £12.50).



Adding in a super nice case & the fact that the memory might be okay -

YOUR BASKET
1 x BitFenix Shinobi XL Full Tower Gaming Case - White £114.98
1 x Corsair Force GT 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CSSD-F120GBGT-BK) £105.98
1 x Corsair Hydro H100i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £95.95
1 x XFX Pro Series 850W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £89.99
Total : £423.41 (includes shipping : £13.75).

 
Thanks for the suggestions! I'm thinking of just saving up slightly more to maybe reach the £500-£600 mark to just purchase a few of the suggestions with a GPU :).
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7950 Windforce 3X 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £239.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TD120BW) £83.99
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 620W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £64.99
1 x Avexir Blitz Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (AVD3U16000904G-2GW) £39.95
Total : £440.92 (includes shipping : £10.00).



Then maybe sell the replaced card, PSU and 1 stick of ram. Then you could get a new case and PSU heatsink.
 
I'd personally grab a new PSU, new stick(s) of RAM (if you cannot return your existing ones), a aftermarket cooler to overclock your processor (you can get quite a bit higher on a 2500K) a SSD and use the left over funds on a graphics card.
 
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