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Needs some guidance.

bigdave2k9

bigdave2k9

bigdave2k9

Associate
Joined
10 Nov 2009
Posts
118
Location
Doncaster
Its been a whille since my last visit, life issues have been causing problems, but now thats past, ive forseen it to be upgrade time.

The problem im currently seeing is i dont know where to head anymore.
Yes to be straight up im a AMD fanboy, been using AMD for over 10 years and never had an issue with them.

At present im using the following:

AMD Phenom II x4 965 AM2 (Clocked only when needed)
Gigabyte mobo (Cant even give you a model without going in the loft, my cooler covers it up)
4Gb of 1066mhz Corsair Dominator DDR2 RAM (i would be happy with 4 more GB but i aint paying £60 - £80 for it second hand off ebay, as i cant buy it anywhere)
Crutial M4 120gb SSD
850watt OCZ PSU
Gigabyte 450 OC graphics card
Corsair A70 CPU Cooler.

Im looking at upgrading the bare bones, the mobo, cpu and ram.
Given a respectable budget of £600 including i believe i priced up £100 worth of watercooling parts i need for my build, what options would you suggest.

I would prefer to stay with AMD, but the force of the darkside (Intel) is strong.
The rig would be used for gaming, just got MoH today, not installed it yet, but it ran BF3 very well on up'd settings.

I shall now leave the floor open to opinions. Just be honest with me, it takes a lot of insult me.
 
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If your board can take a Piledriver, get a Piledriver, if it can't, go Intel.
Although I'd take a 7970 over a GTX670, then make back an extra 50 quid from selling the games.
 
For your usage and budget, I honestly think you'd best just get a i5 3570K, a £25-£35 CPU cooler, Z77 board and 8GB DDR3 1600MHz ram for around £300 ish, and then use the remaining budget on a 7950.
 
Marine-RX179 said:
For your usage and budget, I honestly think you'd best just get a i5 3570K, a £25-£35 CPU cooler, Z77 board and 8GB DDR3 1600MHz ram for around £300 ish, and then use the remaining budget on a 7950.
Click to expand...

Would you mind linking me the board and chip you have in mind, as i aint got my head around intel parts yet.
 
i3570K, Gigabyte motherboard, any old ram (I prefer Samsung Green), still got money left for a good GPU. Your CPU cooler should support 1156 which is the same mount size as 1155.

i3570K is so easy to overclock, you would love it. Very stable and powerful CPU. :)

I would love to buy AMD I really wanted to but after reading up on it, Intel was the best investment. Seems to have better power efficiency too. I'm disappointed by their new Piledriver.

i3570K is on offer this week, as is the 2500K both are good choices though i3570K has the PCI 3.0 and is newer.
 
Had a little luck, i think i can scrap together a few more pennys but ive kept it to £500 for the base 3 pieces still.
This is what i have come up with.

552357_10151245132266066_564849114_n.jpg
 
Overkill on the motherboard and RAM there. There is practically zero benefit from faster than DDR-1333 or greater RAM in anything other than benchmarks. Spending £500 is a waste when you can get a motherboard for half the cost, 8GB of RAM for £30 and spend the rest on a £150 HD7850, which will give you the majority of any fps increase you get even without upgrading your old CPU.
 
BrianB said:
I recommend Gigabyte UP4-TH if you have that kind of money to spend, has very good power components, very good chokes they run at low temps, also has thunderbolt. That ram is a ripoff imo, also over 8GB is overkill for gaming at the moment.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-405-GI

Overclocks like a beast and with latest BIOS is even better.
Click to expand...

A good old trust Gigabyte, got 3 of there mobos in use now and never had an issue.

16gb ram, the amount of times i run out of ram is unreal, so i think the term is "be prepared" lmao
 
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bigdave2k9 said:
A good old trust Gigabyte, got 3 of there mobos in use now and never had an issue.

16gb ram, the amount of times i run out of ram is unreal, so i think the term is "be prepared" lmao
Click to expand...

I've yet to find out a way I can run out of 8GB. I'll reiterate, if you get this motherboard:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-391-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2261

and this RAM:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-094-KS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=

You can afford this graphics card:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-052-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411

It will give double the FPS compared to your GT450, if not greater. I doubt your GT450 can game at 1080p in BF3 to a comfortable degree.
 
The only game that I can think of using more than 6GB of RAM is BF3 at Ultra with high res. So 8GB will be defientley enough. And in a few years put another 8GB in if you need more?
 
GX-275-AS_44581_350.jpg


Ill take a guess... over kill? Least it would last me some years before the next needed upgrade.

Edited this post instead of making another one.

Just installed MoH War Fighter, and well it spat out Ultra, and im suprised but its struggling with High settings..... Defo time for a new card aswell.

Budget is now £700 after doing some number crunching.
 
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YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus HD 7950 DirectCU II V2 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE FARCRY3, Hitman Absolution, Sleeping Dogs & 20% off MOH Warfighter PC Games £257.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-UP4 TH Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £167.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £167.99
1 x Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E CPU Cooler (Socket LGA 2011/1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3/FM1) £58.79
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £25.99
Total : £690.74 (includes shipping : £10.00).



YUM YUM YUM! No need to spend this much on a motherboard, but it's a lovely board no doubt, I love mine and at the price range I wouldn't really consider much else other than http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-219-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2261 because it look's so sweet.

I think the Asus is a bit expensive for a 7950, but I like it thanks to the Asus backplate it comes with, the DirectCUII is a pretty good cooler too. Triple slot though like my Accelero cooler.

I have 8Gb ram, playing BF3 it never reaches anywhere near 8Gb, and that's with a 1Gb RAMDisk running my pagefile and caches.

2nd build with 7970:

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7970 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE FARCRY3, Hitman Absolution, Sleeping Dogs & 20% off MOH Warfighter PC Games £311.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £167.99
1 x MSI Z77 MPower Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £149.99
1 x Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E CPU Cooler (Socket LGA 2011/1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3/FM1) £58.79
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £25.99
Total : £726.74 (includes shipping : £10.00).



With cooler you can usually easily reach 4.4-4.5GHz with 3570K, though tbh your cooler you have now should take it to 4.0-4.2GHz without much voltage increase at all, if any.
 
I take back what I said about the MSI board, it look's nice but it isn't anything special.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/Z77_MPower/1.html

Still Gigabyte for me. :)

Better value build:

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7970 IceQ X² Turbo 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H797QMT3G2M) with FREE FARCRY3, Hitman Absolution, Sleeping Dogs & 20% off MOH Warfighter PC Games £329.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £108.98
1 x Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E CPU Cooler (Socket LGA 2011/1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3/FM1) £58.79
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £25.99
Total : £703.74 (includes shipping : £10.00).

 
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