My next upgrade

LiamJ

LiamJ

LiamJ

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Joined
19 Dec 2010
Posts
1,394
Hello everyone!

I am looking to upgrade my PC soon after Christmas, maybe as far as Easter. My GTS250 is starting to struggle keeping up with the latest games, and all I want is a small performance boost. I was thinking of a new CPU, GPU and case.

I'm only looking to spend about £200 - £250. Maybe up to £300 if I want to take advantage of a limited time offer or something.

My specs are in my sig. What upgrade would you go for next, and what would be the most beneficial? I don't need a new HDD or monitor or peripherals as I already have enough of them. I use my PC for gaming, web-browsing and occasional photoshop and video editing.

Thanks for the help.
 
I can get a 6850 on another site for £130. Better choice than the GTX460?

The PII 955 was actually what I had in mind. However, I think my plan is this. I will buy the GPU, and see how much the 550 is bottlenecking. Proceed to PROPERLY overclock the CPU and then see how much performance is being lost. Then make the decision on the CPU.

Regarding the case, I was looking at the CM 690-II Lite, or the Xigmatek Midgard for a little less?
 
Keep current CPU, its fine still, put in this gfx card, case is personal choice but Id recomend something like one of these

Zalman Z7 Plus Midi Tower Case - Black £42.99
Silverstone SST-PS03B Precision Midi Tower Case - Black £42.99
Silverstone PS02B Precision Midi Case - Black £39.99
Coolermaster Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black £37.99
 
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The problem is that while gaming, my CPU often runs at close to 90%, give or take a few depending on the game.

Now, the HD6850 must be at least 50% more powerful after looking through the benchmark results. This seems like it would bottleneck quite badly. and I would only see a small performance increase.

Thank you for the case recommendations too, I'll have a look at some reviews.
 
CoD4, which is not CPU intensive runs my CPU at 75% or so when OC'ed. Fallout New Vegas runs it at about 90%. BF:BC2 runs it very close to 100%.
 
Update your BIOS and see if you can unlock the CPU cores. 'Version FD' apparently will work best.

Then if you get a quadcore for free, you can spend the money elsewhere, spending it on the GPU will wield best results.. You might have to upgrade your PSU if you went for a 570 or something.
 
Si105 said:
Update your BIOS and see if you can unlock the CPU cores. 'Version FD' apparently will work best.

Then if you get a quadcore for free, you can spend the money elsewhere, spending it on the GPU will wield best results.. You might have to upgrade your PSU if you went for a 570 or something.
Click to expand...

Ahh, I forgot to mention this. My current BIOS version FB allowed me to unlock cores already using the ACC feature. However, when I did try to unlock, only 3 cores appeared in CPU-Z, and it wasn't very stable at all, even running 1.475V through it.
 
id go for this, forget the 460, the 5850 is a better card and cheaper. then the 955 and get a cpu cooler mayb h50 and overclock!

Click!

buildy.png
 
Christ, is the 5850 that cheap now? Buy buy buy.

For god's sake don't spend £60 on a cooler for a £100 processor, especially when a £20 cooler will do the job just as well- the H50 has a price premium because it's watercooling, not because it works better. The X4 955 is probably your best choice for an upgrade at this point, though- together with that dishy 5850.
 
It looks tempting, and I would see a brilliant performance boost. However, both my case and PSU would not hold out well.

My corsair CX430 only has one PCI-E 6-pin power cable, and when running with a quad like that, I doubt it will be able to draw enough power consistently.

My case is also quite small and the cable management is non-existent. This creates very poor airflow. If not for my decent GPU cooler, I expect it would be much too hot already.

I will consider the H50 for my next upgrade though. Unless I can get cheaper air cooling that does just as good a job? CM Hyper 212+?
 
Thank you Dane. That is a very good setup it seems.

What about the cooler? Performance/noise? It doesn't have to cool extremely well, but I'd like it to be relatively quiet.

I think that my current needs point to space and not just performance, in which case (no pun intended :)), I would prefer to buy the case with my first set of purchases, to make upgrading an easier process.
 
do NOT buy a coolermaster GX PSU, theyre awful
You'll still see very little if any performance boost changing you CPU, at 1920x1080 which is the res youre using I asssume on a 22" monitor, the game is massively GPU dependant, even at lower res the perfrmance boost is only around 10%, at higher res this gets less and less
The 5850 is a nice step up from the 460 (still not a massive one) but theyre not in stock atm, Id dbl check with shop before ordering if you plan to go this route as Ive had experience in past with this where you order but they oversubscribe the orders and you don get the product, dont forget its EOL so there wont be too many more coming in
gfx comparison
 
the 5850 is a pre release special price, its talked about in the graphics section the release date for the gpu on the ocuk shop is the 24th, so there wont be a long wait, and i believe the stock is 500.
 
I am actually gaming at a res of 1680x1050.

I still believe that upgrading a x2 500 to a x4 955 would let me get the best out of my new card, be it a HD6850 or a GTX460.
 
Some pictures for you!

What I started with:
dsc00100ol.jpg


Everything laid out after uninstallation:
dsc00101hu.jpg


Everything ready to go back in:
dsc00102ft.jpg


Powercolor branded HD 6850:
dsc00103.jpg


New Coolermaster case (it's quite big!):
dsc00104dp.jpg


Motherboard installed easily:
dsc00106xaz.jpg


Everything else installed and working at the first power up:
dsc00107v.jpg


This motherboard is not cable management friendly, but it's the best I could do! Also, top fans are held on by zip ties as the top screw holes for the 120mm fans are an irregular shape.
dsc00108ey.jpg


Back in it's rightful place on the desk:
dsc00109dv.jpg
 
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