**Help needed for new upgrades** PSU, GPU..Thanks

Reedweaver

Reedweaver

Reedweaver

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Location
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I need some help in deciding what to do with my rig. I'm a keen gamer playing mostly Crysis 2, Dragonage 2, Battlefield 2, FPSs mainly.

I want to upgrade my monitor to something along the lines of a Hanns.G HZ281HPB 27.5", my budget is around £250.

I also need a new PSU as I want to crossfire my 2x 4870's. The PSU I have is a Storm 700W 25A on the rails, which may be upto the task. I may upgrade to a 2gb 6950 (Will I see any performance gains over the 4870's CF)

I will need a new CPU in order to crossfire, so something like the i5 760 will be OK. (It cant have integrated graphics due to motherboard restrictions)

So the questions are:

1) Do I buy an i5 760 and crossfire my 2x 4870's (PSU may not be good enough)- Cost £175 + £150 new PSU
2) Buy a 2gb 6950 and hope my PSU will be OK.- Cost £220 (£150 PSU?)

What would you do?

Cheers
 
I'd ask what monitor you currently have first. Can you stick with it any longer?

To play the latest games on 1920x1200 which is what the Hans supports you really want a Quad CPU AND a better graphics card.

If you can bear you current monitor then i'd get an i5-760 (maybe second hand) & a 6950. Your Jeantech PSU should hold up, but i'd swap that out as your next upgrade.

So your monitor budget is £250 and your component upgrade budget is £300ish?

or have i got that wrong?
 
My current monitor set up is 2x phillips 19" 19x5(Very old) Desktop extended in Windows. I use just the one to play games on 1024x768.

I have around £500 to spend but could stretch a bit more.

I can sell any surplus components on the bay. CPU's, monitors gpu's etc

I shouldnt have bought the H57 motherboard and i3 cpu in the first place!!!

I was going to use the xbox for gaming...but the PC just kept calling me back!
 
I all honest I would try and sell almost all of it. Except the RAM, that stuffs good and we can reuse it!
That way you will have a bigger budget (hopefully £700ish) and we'll only have to get you:
Monitor,
CPU,
Mobo,
Graphics Card,
PSU.

Much more managable under that kind of budget to get you what you need!!
 
Wont the RAM restrict what motherboard/CPU I can get as its 4x 2gb sticks dual channel.

Wouldnt it be best to get tri-channel?

I'm beggining to think that all I will keep is the Antec P182 case!!!
 
With a new budget we'd look at speccing you a sandy bridge build, which uses Dual Channel RAM just like the prvious 1156 chips, only the 1366 sockets use tri-channel.

Keep the RAM and the case, remove the rest from your life :)!!
 
I recon I can get the following to spend on Ocuk.

Patriot 8gb 2000 Sector 5 RAM - £120
Asus P7H57D-V Evo -£50
Core i3 540 -£50
2x 4870 1gb Toxic -£100
700w Jeantech Storm -£30 if I'm lucky
2x 19" monitors -£50

That gives £400 or so...if I put £300 in = £700 to spend.....
I'll spec a system and put it here....Cheers
 
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By asuscooluk at 2011-03-25

Crap...Over budget...
 
Something on these lines might suit you:

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
XFX ATI Radeon 6950 XXX 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £179.99
(£149.99) £179.99
(£149.99)
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE Shogun 2 Game £173.99
(£144.99) £173.99
(£144.99)
BenQ G2420HDBL 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £161.99
(£134.99) £161.99
(£134.99)
Gigabyte P67A-UD3-B3 Intel P67 Chipset (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £104.98
(£87.48) £104.98
(£87.48)
Antec TruePower New Modular 750W Power Supply - With FREE 3D Mark 2011 Advance £84.98
(£70.82) £84.98
(£70.82)
Sub Total : £588.27
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £120.00
Total : £720.02

If your going to be overclocking at somepoint then you will need a better cooler. but the PSU will handle another card if you want to add on down the line.
 
Thing with Sandy Bridge chips are that if you don't buy a "K" chip (i5-2500K / i7-2600K) you won't be able to overclock them.
So it worth keeping that in mind if down the line you think you'll tinker with them.
You will also want to make sure you buy a P67 board which is labeled **B3 Revision** as the older boards have a slight issue which may degrader your SATA II ports over time.

Just a few things to keep in mind.
 
BenQ G2420HDBL 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £161.99
(£134.99) £161.99

VS

Hanns.G HH251DPB 25" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black [HH251DPB] £143.99
 
Yes your cooler will be fine on the new socket, the fittings are the same!

With the monitor, i doubt you will notice a lot of difference between a 24" and a 25". They run at the same resolution, but the 25" will stretch is over a larger area.
Its up to you though. Try and keep the 6950 though as it will last you longer.
 
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