Long overdue upgrade

K-Holed

K-Holed

K-Holed

Associate
Joined
28 Feb 2014
Posts
6
Hi

I'm looking to upgrade my gaming rig in the near future and it's been some time since it's had a full overhaul. I'm completely out of the loop when it comes to current CPUs and MBs and would like to hear people's views.

My current setup is as follows:

Case - Antec P180
PSU - Antec NeoPower 650 Blue
Motherboard - ASUS P5Q3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP @n
CPU - Intel Core2 Quad CPU [email protected] Ghz
GFX Card - Gigabyte HD7870 2GB
RAM - 8GB Corsair Vengeance 1600 DDR3
Hard Drives - Samsung SSD 840 Pro 128gb (for OS) plus one 1TB HD and 2 500gb HDs
Monitor - Dell 2209WA

I'm thinking that my bottleneck is my processor and this is where I'd ideally be looking to focus on the next upgrade. I'm not firmly in favour of Intel or AMD and will consider either. I'm looking to spend maybe £300 on a new MB and processor (although I'd be happy to spend less!). Is now a good time to upgrade, or is there something on the horizon worth waiting a few months for?

Also, I'm looking in to Eyefinity somewhere down the line too. Would I be best served buying another 7870 (circa £150) and putting them in crossfire or upgrading to a single, better card?

As stated, I use my PC mainly for gaming but it is also my TV and film outlet and I do a little video/sound editing from time to time.

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

James
 
Last edited:
Hi.

A few questions,

Do you have any older IDE (ribbon cbale) drives?

Do you have an aftermarket heatsink?
 
Hi stulid

All the drives are SATA (as of the last upgrade) and yes, the heatsink is an aftermarket one (Akasa something or other. Big and blue)
 
@stulid TBH, from what I recall, the cooler wasn't all that expensive. So if I need to replace that, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I'm not sure of the fittings.

@mickyflinn Thanks for speccing that for me, I'll have a look at the components you suggested. What in your opinion is the benefit of the Intel over AMD? and would I notice an appreciable performance boost from the faster RAM?
 
Depending on what speed your ram is then it wont be a massive increase in performance. Maybe a few frames per second more in gaming.
 
Do you know or can you somehow measure what the maximum cooler height would fit inside that case?

In fact if you can find the model of your current Akasas then the dimensions of that should be on the internet somewhere.

You get a stock heatsink provided with retail CPU's, but an aftermarket one will be quieter and allow cooler temps should you overclock.
 
I believe it is akasa blue aurora

Weight (with fan): 750g
Size (with fan): 165mm(H) x 127mm(W) x 116mm(H) D
Fan Size: 120mm
Fan Speed: 500-1700RPM
Airflow: 16.87-57.33 CFM
Noise Level: 12.67 - 27.18dBa
Warranty: One year standard warranty
Supported Motherboards: Intel LGA 775 ONLY
 
If that Akasa really is 165mm tall and it fits in your case and you can get the side panel on without issue then that's really good, means you can pick from a wide range of heatsinks that will fit socket1150.
 
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