New Bargain Upgrades....

Diesel · 13 Oct 2011 at 15:59

I've recently realised that besides adding an extra HDD I've not upgraded my PC in 6 years! I'm currently running an AMD Athlon 64 x2 4400, with some MSI socket 939 mobo, 4gb of random DDR RAM I've acquired and an ATI X1800XT. It is time to go cap in hand to the wife and get approval for an upgrade! :eek:

I don't game on my PC these days (although wouldn't mind the option to be able to) and mostly use it for surfing the web and downloading/transcoding MKV's that stream to my PS3 and messing about editing photos sometimes.

I was thinking about getting something along the lines of:

AMD Phenom II x4 955
Accompanying AM3 mobo
4/8gb DDR RAM (depending on price)
Suitable GPU (really out of the loop in graphics cards)

Also, will I need a new PSU? Currently I have an old Hiper Type-R 480W. I quite fancy a modular one.

What say you!?

stulid · 13 Oct 2011 at 16:05

You will need a new PSU, the other issue maybe your drives, are they IDE or SATA?

Is there a budget?

What case do you have?

alchemistkevin · 13 Oct 2011 at 16:06

erm, that's a new PC isn't it

as opposed to bargain upgrades

What case do you have? don't the modular PSU's take up more space?

I'd say 8GB. If nothing, that and a good CPU will help transcoding

Diesel · 13 Oct 2011 at 23:03

It started out as upgrades, then I realised I needed upgrade pretty much everything!

I've got a Thermaltake Soprano.

I didn't include drives because optical drives are much of a muchness and I've got 2 SATA HDD's.

I haven't really got budget in mind, but by bargain I mean I don't really want to spend £150+on an i5 when a Phenom is half the price, I don't want to spend loads on a MOBO if a £50 one will be fine.

stulid · 13 Oct 2011 at 23:10

Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Asus GeForce GTX 560 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Supplied with FREE Batman: Arkham City PC game** £137.99
(£114.99) £137.99
(£114.99)
Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £89.99
(£74.99) £89.99
(£74.99)
MSI H67MA-E35 Intel H67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro-ATX Motherboard - (Sandybridge) **B3 REVISION** £61.99
(£51.66) £61.99
(£51.66)
OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.98
(£41.65) £49.98
(£41.65)
Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £23.99
(£19.99) £23.99
(£19.99)
Sub Total : £303.28
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £63.01
Total : £378.04

Hows that?

Add a SATA DVD burner also.

I3 vs Phenom955be,
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/289?vs=88
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i3-2120-2100_5.html#sect0

The motherboard features SATA3.0 and USB3.0, but to overclock a Sandybridge setup you need a "K" CPU and either a P67 or Z68 motherboard.

The GTX560 maybe a bit OTT for what you said, a 6850 is cheaper and still competent - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-041-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1866

stulid · 13 Oct 2011 at 23:17

Actually , taking into account that you would like a modular PSU and 8GB of RAM ( the motherboard only has two dimm slots so get 8GB now, otherwise upgrading in the future will mean removing a 4GB set)

Diesel · 14 Oct 2011 at 00:04

Thanks stulid, that certainly gives me something to go off!