New build or upgrade?

Schmaleop

Schmaleop

Schmaleop

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Joined
16 Apr 2012
Posts
12
Hi all, long time lurker, first time poster.

I'm currently debating whether to upgrade my system with some components or go for a new build.
A friend just built a new system around the i5-2500, which i've noticed it is highly recommended around here, and I must say it is damn impressive how quickly it all runs.

I built my current setup just over 2 years ago so I feel I already know what you experienced guys are going to say.
Here is the core of it:
  • Palit GeForce GTS 250 Green 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card
  • OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3P1333LV4GK)
  • AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3) - Retail
  • Asus M4A77TD Pro AMD 770 (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard
  • OCZ StealthXStream 500w Silent Power Supply
  • Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS)
  • Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black
  • Viewsonic 22" vx2260wm FullHD monitor
  • Windows 7 Ultimate edition

My main concern for an upgrade is gaming, in particular the soon to be released Diablo 3 and potentially Guild Wars 2. While I believe D3 will run, i'm looking to play it on max or close to max visual settings. I also dabble in other games via Steam.

Would a new graphics card be enough or will the rest of my system bottleneck any improvement?
All of this is running at stock settings I believe as i've got no clue how to overclock safely.

Any more info needed feel free to ask,

Thanks in advance.
 
New graphics card is probably a good idea to start with, the 6850 above is a great price and should run well with your system.

What sort of budget do you have for this upgrade?
 
+1 for the above suggestions

A HD 6850 will offer you a nice performance jump over the GTS 250 green and should allow you to play most modern games very well at 1080p res, definitely the first upgrade to go for.

As for the RAM, it may help a bit and the price is certainly very low these days.

You may even want to try this OCUK 8GB kit for £24. It should be fully compatible with your motherboard and it is covered by a lifetime warranty.

I would also agree that trying to unlock your CPU to a triple or quad core is a good idea. These Phenom II X2 CPUs are actually quad cores with half the cores disabled, either due to one or both of the other ones being faulty or simply to make up numbers (ie. both cores could be fully functional, but locked). Looking here, your motherboard does support core unlocking. Getting a successful unlock is not guaranteed, but is well worth trying.

Also, it would be worth investing in a decent value CPU cooler that is compatible with multiple CPU sockets and cools well (like this one).This will allow you to unlock and overclock your CPUs for years to come while keeping their temperatures within safe levels.

If you can't unlock any extra cores then you may want to consider either upgrading the CPU to a second-hand quad core (like the Phenom II X4 955BE) or selling up the motherboard and CPU and upgrading to a new intel CPU and motherboard.
 
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Haven't really set aside a budget.

Just trying to guage what the weak parts of my system are. If they turn out to be too many then I'd go with a new build.
I'd say if it went over a couple of hundred pounds then i'd rather look to a new build, unfortunately I can't afford the £800 or so i'd like to do a decent new build yet.

Sorry if that all sounds a bit vague and thanks for the early reponses.

Edit: Purchase was with the intention to unlock the cores but I remember it was unstable. Again I feel I can build pc's but i'm pretty bad at optimising them for performance so it's stock cooler for CPU and largely stock settings for components. Largely stumped if my comp crashes as to what may of caused it.
 
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Well the 6850 and OCUK 8GB RAM kit suggested by cmndr_andi is a good upgrade for ~£100 and these are things you could keep if you decided to do a full build later on, but should offer the power you require cheaply. Take a look at cmndr_andi's suggestions about your CPU :)
 
May as well get a used i5 2500k or a new one. Ivy Bridge is only 5% better than Sandy Bridge but will likely cost £20-30 more for the equivalent CPU.
 
A 960T is <£100 and good clocking potential. It's a quad core that is likely to unlock to six core.

Although yeah, you'd have to stretch your budget a bit to get that and the graphics card and ram.
 
Sorry for hi-jacking this thread, but where can I get a cheap AMD Phenom on all the websites they are so expensive, but they are good for gaming and video work.
Thanks
 
I believe the Phenom II CPUs are end-of-life now so the prices at retail are rather high (since there won't be many more coming in). Therefore if you want one of these CPUs and you don't find a good deal on a new one then your best bet is to look second hand.
 
I still use the phenom II 555BE in my HTPC with a nvidia 460.

It's certainly worth trying to unlock the extra cores however you will need a better heatsink if you are successful. If that fails and you have the 550BE (black edition) you can easily overclock by upping the multiplier in the bios, although again you will be limited by the stock heatsink if that's what you have.

My HTPC can run the witcher 2, Shogun 2, BF3 on high quite happily. Yes even as a dual core, I would (and did) opt for the 460 over the 6850. Yes it's slightly more money but it adds cuda support to assist your X2 CPU with video encoding and it performs better than the 6850.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/542?vs=539

Remember the 460 in that benchmark is running at stock 675mhz. The 460s you can buy here at OCuk are clocked much much higher so they would perform even better. I have OC'd my 460 SC further to 900mhz.

If your budget could allow it adding a SSD aswell would help. The OS would boot much faster, the games would load the levels quicker. I would sooner add an SSD than pay for an already outdated X4 CPU. If you upgrade the mobo bundle later you can still take that SSD with you into the next build ;)
 
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Thanks for the suggestions so far guys, I appreciate them.

I started by getting some monitoring utilities and cleaning the dust out (again) to see how it performs currently.
When I opened the pc up i was reminded of the awful cable layout. PSU cables arent very long and MB is powered from the top (PSU mounted at bottom) therefore a large cpu heatsink like the one suggested by cmndr_andi will have no chance of fitting in.

Regarding the SSD, would that work on my board? I believe I have SATA II, would have thought SATA III was needed for SSD but wouldn't be surprised if i'm wrong.

If I were to mess about with the core unlock/OC do I test them with prime95 and temp monitoring software?
 
Yep that's the best way to test. I use HWMonitor for temps.

There are sata II and sata iii drives and sata III drives work on sata II, but up to the limit of the sata II interface, so about half maximum speed. a sata III drive would be the best buy as it'll be more useful in the future.
 
Well so far i've settled on a basket containing what was originally suggested (6850 + 4gb OCZ ram) and the Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) as i've seen a lot of recommednations around here for it.
Bit disappointed that the graphics card has increased in price though as it didn't suggest it was on a limited time offer :(

One point, would the OCUK ram cmndr_andi suggested work alongside what I already have (ie. in the 2 spare slots) or would I have to remove the original RAM?

Final point. A big dust clean out of my system showed much better temps. I ran prime95 last night along with HW Monitor, in under 10mins it showed 80+ degreees for my CPU ( :O ) and graphics stayed at 77 degrees. Now the CPU hasn't gone above 39 degrees after an hour and a half and graphics peaked at 55 while gaming this afternoon.
 
Schmaleop said:
Bit disappointed that the graphics card has increased in price though as it didn't suggest it was on a limited time offer :(
Click to expand...

Yea, it is a shame about the GPU price going up, I think it went down to that £85 price because someone found a competitor selling the same card for £90 and the guys at OCUK matched that price and took a further £5 off - making it exceptional value. However, I guess the price on the competing site may have changed, causing the end of the offer at OCUK.

Though you may should have a look at this card, it seems to be effectively the same card and has a three year warranty with OCUK.

Schmaleop said:
One point, would the OCUK ram cmndr_andi suggested work alongside what I already have (ie. in the 2 spare slots) or would I have to remove the original RAM?
Click to expand...

I can't guarantee it, as it's from a different manufacturer and has slightly different specs - though I would say that it is likely to work with your existing RAM.

One thing you may want to check is set your existing RAM to 1333MHz, 9-9-9-24-2N timings and a DRAM voltage of 1.5V (ie the same specs as the OCUK RAM). If your current sticks run fine with these settings then it is VERY likely that the OCUK 8GB kit will work fine with your existing RAM - and give you a total of 12GB RAM running in dual channel mode.

Schmaleop said:
Final point. A big dust clean out of my system showed much better temps. I ran prime95 last night along with HW Monitor, in under 10mins it showed 80+ degreees for my CPU ( :O ) and graphics stayed at 77 degrees. Now the CPU hasn't gone above 39 degrees after an hour and a half and graphics peaked at 55 while gaming this afternoon.
Click to expand...

Those are some pretty high temps for this CPU. If you run the same stress test now (after the clean) what temp is your CPU getting to?

I would strongly suggest you go for a new CPU cooler, even if it is one of the cheaper ones like this - as it will not only be much cooler but also much quieter than your existing one.
 
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cmndr_andi said:
Yea, it is a shame about the GPU price going up, I think it went down to that £85 price because someone found a competitor selling the same card for £90 and the guys at OCUK matched that price and took a further £5 off - making it exceptional value. However, I guess the price on the competing site may have changed, causing the end of the offer at OCUK.

Though you may should have a look at this card, it seems to be effectively the same card and has a three year warranty with OCUK.
Click to expand...

It's strange if thats the case as I've found this card cheaper on another site also (i'm not allowed to mention the site if i understand the rules correctly), so there is also that option depending on delivery costs.



cmndr_andi said:
I can't guarantee it, as it's from a different manufacturer and has slightly different specs - though I would say that it is likely to work with your existing RAM.

One thing you may want to check is set your existing RAM to 1333MHz, 9-9-9-24-2N timings and a DRAM voltage of 1.5V (ie the same specs as the OCUK RAM). If your current sticks run fine with these settings then it is VERY likely that the OCUK 8GB kit will work fine with your existing RAM - and give you a total of 12GB RAM running in dual channel mode.
Click to expand...

I may look into that.


cmndr_andi said:
Those are some pretty high temps for this CPU. If you run the same stress test now (after the clean) what temp is your CPU getting to?

I would strongly suggest you go for a new CPU cooler, even if it is one of the cheaper ones like this - as it will not only be much cooler but also much quieter than your existing one.
Click to expand...

The CPU never went above 39degrees after the clean and I left the test running for 1hr and half and also had Iplayer going aswell for a bit. Thinking the initial test may have been a bit erroneous.

It's not a case of price etc. more that my PSU has very short cables and the one to power the motherboard runs directly from bottom(PSU mounting) to top (motherboard pins) with no way to go around the side of the mother board. I'm worried a much larger heatsink would mean the cable being in constant contact thus potentially damaging said cable.

I'm also apprehensive to meddle with e CPU regarding cleaning/reapplying thermal paste etc as I dont want to damage it. Not sure how best to clean it.

Again thank you for your help.
 
You could buy an extension cable for the PSU.

I personally use this one on my rig, also this one for the 20/24 pin is available if you need to extend that.

For re-doing the paste/mounting on the CPU, the best way to do it is:

- turn off PC at the PSU
- remove CPU cooler
- clean off the old thermal paste from the CPU and heatsink using paper towels/loo roll and some isopropyl alcohol or a kit like this.
- After removing the paste use a lint-free cloth (and perhaps a touch of the cleaning liquid from the previous set) to make sure both surfaces are clean and dry
- At this stage it is a good point to make sure the heatsink is nice and clean - perhaps flush the dust out of it with a few blasts of compressed air
- apply new thermal paste (personally I would use this stuff) by applying a rice-grain sized blob onto the centre of the CPU's heatspreader (the metal bit of the CPU that faces up)
- re-attach the CPU cooler, so the pressure of the cooler spreads the paste
- ensure the CPU heatsink is securely fitted
- connect the fan power connection to the correct header on the motherboard
- turn back on PSU
 
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Little update:

Put the 6850 and RAM in last weekend and it's been working a treat.

This week I bought the Crucial m4 128gb and i'll be installing that and the new cpu cooler this weekend. It'll be tedious reinstalling all the programs but I think i'm going be very happy once it's all sorted!

Once again thank you to all those that offered advice it is very much appreciated.
 
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