Is it worth upgrading

geordie12

geordie12

geordie12

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12 Nov 2005
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It's been about 4 years since I last looked at an upgrade to my PC, so I was thinking it may be about time for a bit of a tech-refresh.

Current system is -

  • HIS HD 6950 IceQ X PLUS Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
  • Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor
  • Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
  • 2 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

Other than getting a bit long in the tooth it's actually working pretty well, the processor is over clocked and I get about 4.5GHz.

So will I gain much with an upgrade? If so what's worth keeping and whats worth junking?

Thanks in advance!
 
Just had a quick look, I bought the power supply maybe 6-7 years ago now and I think it's a Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2....I'll have to check it out when I get home if it's got 2 connectors.
 
As above really, I'd just change the graphics card for now. The rest of the system is still pretty good and can keep up with new hardware pretty well. The PSU should have two PCI-E connectors according to here:

http://www.corsair.com/en/hx620w

However not sure if it applies to all GeForce 970s but mine requires a 6 pin and an 8 pin PCI-E connector - on your PSU they may well both be 6 pin. If that is the case then you'll need a 6 to 8 pin adapter but the card you buy may end up coming with one anyway (my MSI card did).
 
Thanks chaps, even though it's been a few years it didn't seem that there was really a massive jump to be had in a new CPU. I'll have a look at the gfx card and may invest in the next couple of weeks!
 
Another vote for gpu. Although I would say why stop at a 970? Get a 980ti if you can afford it. Excellent card. If you really get the itch you could always drop a 3770k in your board (it may need a BIOS update and I recommend checking support just in case). That's what I did. The only real benefit was a better firestrike score tbh!
 
If you are aiming at 1080p just upgrade the GPU for another 12 months and then see whats out then

I picked up a used 290X on here and fitted an AIO cooler adaptor and Corsair H55 cooler to it and it runs nice and cool/quiet whilst running the latest games at 1080p very well
 
Devrij said:
Another vote for gpu. Although I would say why stop at a 970? Get a 980ti if you can afford it. Excellent card. If you really get the itch you could always drop a 3770k in your board (it may need a BIOS update and I recommend checking support just in case). That's what I did. The only real benefit was a better firestrike score tbh!
Click to expand...

That Gigabyte 970 GTX G1 Gaming OC can go toe to toe with a 980 GTX, it's the best pound for pound card you can buy imo, with a decent PSU you could SLi it in a year or 2.
 
geordie12 said:
Just had a quick look, I bought the power supply maybe 6-7 years ago now and I think it's a Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2....I'll have to check it out when I get home if it's got 2 connectors.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't take any short cuts with PSUs mate, this: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-203-AN&groupid=701&catid=123 will allow up to 2 of those 970 GTXs.

EDIT: These cards are huge, like 30cm so a new case(which are cheap but means more work) might be required.
 
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Definitely just upgrade your GPU to the best card you can afford. Another point though is that you don't mention if you have an SSD? If not, buy one immediately!
 
Brian18741 said:
Definitely just upgrade your GPU to the best card you can afford. Another point though is that you don't mention if you have an SSD? If not, buy one immediately!
Click to expand...

Agreed. 250GB are best value for money at the minute, the general rule is have Windows or whatever OS on the SSD and general applications and have the drives from your existing rig to use to install games.
 
Thanks for the input all!

Yeah I've got a 500GB SSD running the OS so I think I am good there. I originally also had a 2x600GB HDD's in RAID 0 that I use for program files and games, and 2 other separate disks (1 x 3TB and 1 x 2TB) storing photo's, music films etc etc.

I say originally as I tried installing Windows 10 last week and it completely killed one of the disks running in the RAID (maybe it was on it's way anyway?) so I am going to repurpose the 2TB disk as the disk for programs and remove the RAID.

Windows 10 also kicked up loads of errors with some of the Gigabyte MoBo utilities and seem to make the system pretty unstable at start up and shut down which was part of the reason I was thinking of maybe a new CPU and MoBo would work better.

But I'll start off with a PSU and GFX card and see how I get on with those....thanks for the input!
 
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