I've been putting off upgrading for a really long time, my current specs -
AMD Athlon64 X2 Dual Core 5000+ 2.6GHz (stock cooler)
Gigabyte GA-M57SLi-S4
2 x 2Gb Corsair XMS2 DDR2
GeForce 9600GT
GeForce 8400GS
Antec case (not sure of the model, it's old but I'm really happy with it)
2 x 120mm case fans (noisy)
New Corsair PSU, see below
I've added hard drives over the years, currently running 4 sata, 1x300Gb, 2x500Gb, 1x2Tb and I run between 2 and 4 monitors.
It's noisy, hot, and no longer does what I need it to. Also, bits are starting to fail, the PSU went a few months back and in a fit of stupidity I bought a cheap replacement locally. It didn't have a GPU connector so I temporarily dumped the 9600 and a couple of monitors. Then more recently my main monitor died, the only one I paid money for so I was sad. Got a great deal on a replacement from OC, only to find out the dvi output on the 8400 is dead. Time to get serious, I ordered a Corsair TX750M, got the 9600 back in and I'm back up to 3 monitors.
What does it not do that I want it to?
Apart from not overheat and run 4 monitors, mainly gaming, but I also do a bit of video editing. Either of these things can overheat it to the point of shut down. It either struggles with most games or just won't play them at all. In particular I'm looking at pCars and rFactor2, and I want to max out GTR2 and RBR, I only really play racing games. It would be nice to be able to run several VMs at once, for work reasons, hence 16Gb ram in the spec below.
I was planning on staging this upgrade but there seems no point now.
I'm looking to replace the CPU, motherboard, RAM and GPU (just 1 for now), adding an SSD, and keeping the case, other hard drives, PSU and OS (Win7).
The chances of me wanting to overclock are pretty slim, but I may water cool it at some point, and I may further upgrade the graphics for triple screen gaming.
Oh, and the new monitor is a 27" Iiyama, 1980 by 1080, this is the one I'll be gaming on.
What I have so far -
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £197.99
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 760 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £184.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Pro Blue 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CMY16GX3M2A1600C9B) £129.95
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £127.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £84.95
Total : £737.27 (includes shipping : £9.50).
My questions are -
Can you see anything wrong with these choices?
Any improvements?
Would quad channel memory be better?
Can you recommend a couple of quiet 120mm case fans?
Would it be worth upgrading the CPU cooler, if so can you recommend a quiet one?
I don't want to wait too long before doing this, but anything new coming out it might be worth waiting for?
My total budget is around £800, but really what I'm looking for is the price/performance sweet point. Places where the extra money really is worth it, and where I could save without noticing much difference.
Thanks for reading, sorry for writing so much, any advice gratefully received
AMD Athlon64 X2 Dual Core 5000+ 2.6GHz (stock cooler)
Gigabyte GA-M57SLi-S4
2 x 2Gb Corsair XMS2 DDR2
GeForce 9600GT
GeForce 8400GS
Antec case (not sure of the model, it's old but I'm really happy with it)
2 x 120mm case fans (noisy)
New Corsair PSU, see below
I've added hard drives over the years, currently running 4 sata, 1x300Gb, 2x500Gb, 1x2Tb and I run between 2 and 4 monitors.
It's noisy, hot, and no longer does what I need it to. Also, bits are starting to fail, the PSU went a few months back and in a fit of stupidity I bought a cheap replacement locally. It didn't have a GPU connector so I temporarily dumped the 9600 and a couple of monitors. Then more recently my main monitor died, the only one I paid money for so I was sad. Got a great deal on a replacement from OC, only to find out the dvi output on the 8400 is dead. Time to get serious, I ordered a Corsair TX750M, got the 9600 back in and I'm back up to 3 monitors.
What does it not do that I want it to?
Apart from not overheat and run 4 monitors, mainly gaming, but I also do a bit of video editing. Either of these things can overheat it to the point of shut down. It either struggles with most games or just won't play them at all. In particular I'm looking at pCars and rFactor2, and I want to max out GTR2 and RBR, I only really play racing games. It would be nice to be able to run several VMs at once, for work reasons, hence 16Gb ram in the spec below.
I was planning on staging this upgrade but there seems no point now.
I'm looking to replace the CPU, motherboard, RAM and GPU (just 1 for now), adding an SSD, and keeping the case, other hard drives, PSU and OS (Win7).
The chances of me wanting to overclock are pretty slim, but I may water cool it at some point, and I may further upgrade the graphics for triple screen gaming.
Oh, and the new monitor is a 27" Iiyama, 1980 by 1080, this is the one I'll be gaming on.
What I have so far -
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £197.99
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 760 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £184.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Pro Blue 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CMY16GX3M2A1600C9B) £129.95
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £127.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £84.95
Total : £737.27 (includes shipping : £9.50).
My questions are -
Can you see anything wrong with these choices?
Any improvements?
Would quad channel memory be better?
Can you recommend a couple of quiet 120mm case fans?
Would it be worth upgrading the CPU cooler, if so can you recommend a quiet one?
I don't want to wait too long before doing this, but anything new coming out it might be worth waiting for?
My total budget is around £800, but really what I'm looking for is the price/performance sweet point. Places where the extra money really is worth it, and where I could save without noticing much difference.
Thanks for reading, sorry for writing so much, any advice gratefully received
