Ideas for upgrade to AMD Phenom II X4 965 based system?

Temrael

Temrael

Temrael

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Joined
22 May 2007
Posts
20
Hi guys,

Complete noob at this but have been frustrated by my PC's performance lately. It's ended up stupidly unbalanced through me giving better bits to the kids PCs (as they tend to game a bit more than I do, lucky buggers!).

Ok, so current spec...

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 (recently OC'd very slightly)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-770T-USB3
RAM: 4Gb (2 x Cheap 2gb DDR3 1333)
Graphics: ATI Radeon x1950

I was considering keeping the CPU and mobo and buying...

RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Graphics: GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 650 Ti OC 2GB GDDR5


How does that look in terms of bang for buck? My aim is to give it a new lease of life for around £200. I know it's not going to suddenly become cutting edge at that sort of money but should allow me to game pretty happily, turning detail down on some newer games.

Ideally I'd have a bit of money left over as the airflow and cooling isn't great and I should probably look at a larger case and better CPU fan at the same time.

Any constructive thoughts on the above would be very welcome indeed. Any other hardware I should be considering? :)

Cheers,

Tem
 
Cheers for that Jay, there only seems to be about £8 in it between 8Gb of 12800 vs 10666 so probably not worth worrying too much.

The 7950 looks great but is about £80 more. I guess the dilema is whether to spend more now to make it last longer or spend a bit less and then do a bigger upgrade later. Decisions decisions. ;)

Tem
 
Yeah, I think I might actually push the boat out and up the gpu to an AMD 7950. It's only money, right? ;)

For the case I might scrimp a bit though and go for the CoolerMaster Elite 430, will still be loads better than the case I have at the moment.

Any recomendations for a good cooler for the AMD Phenom II X4 965? The Zalman I have on at the moment runs pretty loud.

Tem
 
Thanks both, lots of great info there! :)

I'm slightly embarrassed to say I'm now not sure I necessarily need a case! I just re-did the thermal paste on my current cooler (Zalman CNPS10X Quiet) and experimented with rotating it round 180 degrees so that instead of blowing on the GPU (duh!) it blows at the intake fan for the PSU.

Seems to have dropped temps by about 8 degrees under load! :eek:

Tem
 
Cheers guys, I went ahead and splashed out on the 7950 and upped the RAM to 8GB. I'm finally able to play Borderlands 2 and got Bioshock Infinite and Crysis 3 as freebies which is awesome. :D

I'm sure I'm not going to be able to get away without investing in a new case and maybe some additional fans before too long though. My idle CPU temp is about 39 degrees and my GPU temp is 46 degrees. More of an annoyance though is the fan noise during games. :(

Probably best to show you a picture of the case...

img2099lj.jpg


Not a great pic, and things have changed a bit since then, but it gives you an idea of how crowded everything is I guess. The "little" graphics card shown here, has of course been replaced with the monster 7950 (fans blowing downward obviously) and I've rotated the CPU fan to blow upward into the 500w PSU. I needed to move the HDD down to accomodate the 7950 too.

Annoyingly, the clip on the Zalman CPU cooler only doesn't allow it to be orientated to blow towards the rear of the case (which I guess would be preferable), only up or down.

Basically whats the least amount of money I can spend to get this hardware cooler and quieter. I'm not really into designer cases with blingy lights, after something simple and understated (but effective obviously).

That Xigmatek Asgard Pro case that honosuseri posted looks like good value. Will that make a big difference on it's own, or would it be wise to look at a different CPU cooler at the same time? One that can be rotated to face the rear of the case?

Would I need any additional case fans or could I reuse the current Zalman case fan (see pic)?

In these newer (PSU at the bottom) cases won't that mean there will be hot air from the GPU blowing through the PSU? Which risky says isn't ideal?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks a lot to those who have helped so far.

Cheers,

Tem
 
Thanks for that. :)

Ok so the new case arrived and temps idle temps have dropped like 10 degrees, which is great. Also marvelous is that under load (in games) the fan noise no longer gets deafening. The fans and extra airflow are obviously keeping everything in check even when the system is busy.

The only minor niggle now is that, at idle, the fan noise is fairly noticeable/intrusive, I'm sure it's the two stock 120mm fans at the front and rear of the case. It's not awful, just a bit annoying. I don't think there is a way of throttling these 3pin fans back without a fan controller is there?

Failing that, presumably I could replace them with quieter 120mm fans? What's a really quiet, good value 120mm fan? No neon lights required. :)

Cheers,

Tem
 
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