How best to spend £700 on upgrading my rig?

Jenkinio

Jenkinio

Jenkinio

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As in the title, I plan to spend up to £700 on upgrading my rig to maximise gaming performance, so seeking your thoughts...

My current rig:
i3 3220
HD 7950
Corsair builder series 500W
Gigabyte MOBO (can't remember the exact one but it has 1 x PCIe x16 and 1 x4.
Corsair 8gb RAM (2 x 4gb)

I would like a new case, so planning to allocate £100 - £110 on that.
Obviously the CPU and GPU are asymetric, so I was planning on getting an i5 3570k and an aftermarket cooler. I was then thinking about upgrading the psu and xfiring the 7950.

Is this sensible or is there a better way to spend use this money for the upgrade?

Ta
 
Ahh, going Xfire isn't really an Option..

Is your 7950 Struggling?

Best option would be to get a 3570k and a new case...

Otherwise you could (spend more money):

Get a 4570k + Z87 Motherboard, a 750W PSU, a second 7950 and an aftermarket cooler and sell you Z77 D3H and 3220 (and PSU). :)

That will cost more though.
 
Last edited:
mickyflinn said:
Could go this route and sell your cpu and mobo to get a new psu

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £259.99
1 x HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H795QC3G2M) £239.99
1 x Gigabyte X79-UD3 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £161.99
Total : £673.37 (includes shipping : £9.50).

Click to expand...

I'm yet to be sold on the i7. From what I've read, for gaming purposes it offers little benefit over something like the i5 3570k. Perhaps developers will start taking advantage of HT more in future??
 
3570k so that you don't have to swap out the motherboard. Otherwise, you could wait until Haswell next week and get a nice bundle from Overclockers.
 
Can someone tell me if my mobo precludes x-firing 2 x 7950s?

Perhaps an i5 3570k, 750w psu, cooler, 7950 & a new mobo is in order (plus a bit more budget).

Is that going to offer a distinct gaming performance versus just i5, cooler and psu?

I want to be able to get ultra settings and decent frame rate with whatever I throw at it.

Sorry for all the noob questions!
 
 
Jenkinio said:
Can someone tell me if my mobo precludes x-firing 2 x 7950s?

Perhaps an i5 3570k, 750w psu, cooler, 7950 & a new mobo is in order (plus a bit more budget).

Is that going to offer a distinct gaming performance versus just i5, cooler and psu?

I want to be able to get ultra settings and decent frame rate with whatever I throw at it.

Sorry for all the noob questions!
Click to expand...

All I can say is that you're going the wrong way about this. Get a nicely balanced system, before thinking of crossfire and all that stuff. Especially with a i3.
 
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