Newcomer looking to "refresh" current PC :)

m4rt

m4rt

m4rt

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Joined
27 Dec 2012
Posts
22
Hi all,

I'm looking to refresh my PC at home, it gets used for the odd game, photography, general office stuff when working from home and general internet browsing / streaming / music.. the norm :)

The case is fine, as is the PSU, I think it's 500W, but I can double check that.

Currently it has:
Asus P7P55D-E Rev 1 (Bios up to date)
Intel Core i5 760 - 2.8Ghz
4GB RAM (2x2GB)
ATI Radeon 6800 Series
64GB OCZ-VERTEX2 - Main OS
500GB Data Drive SATA2

Running Window 8 Pro

Dell U2410

I don't have a massive budget, but just looking to freshen up, make it a bit "nippier"

Would I be needing to upgrade the motherboard, or can I still get components to go in this board? Maybe the CPU and Memory, a budget graphics card that is better than what I have?

I was thinking whether I could crossfire? Can you still get a card that will crossfire with what I have?

Many thanks in advance and festive season greetings :)
 
Hello and welcome to the forum :)

Do you know what the make of the psu is ?

At the moment I don't think its worth changing the motherboard or CPU, A gpu upgrade and perhaps 8 gb ram would be ok.
 
Do you know exactly what your GPU is? 6800 Series is fairly broad :)

Your board does support Xfire (x8/x8) so thats an option though your PSU may not like it..
 
Just whipped the side off, it's an OCZ 600W

I did take a look at the CPU's available and feared there weren't any, but wasn't mega sure, I'm a bit of touch, hence coming here :)
 
Doomedspeed said:
Do you know exactly what your GPU is? 6800 Series is fairly broad :)

Your board does support Xfire (x8/x8) so thats an option though your PSU may not like it..
Click to expand...

I'll stick my head in, that's what Device Manager and BelArc tell me it is. I was naughty and chucked the box out. But it might on the card, gimme a mo.
 
It's badges up Radeon HD 6850 with a picture of a sword on it?
Black casing all round the card, Red fan. Blue-ish sticker with sword.

Excaliber?

Bearing in mind I'm on my bum squeezing into a tight gap by my desk :)
 
should have asked while you were there, but can you pooke your head in and see what PSU you have?

There is no software for seeing that..

Basically your looking for a brand name and a Wattage... :)
 
New GPU and RAM

So what are you looking at spending?

I'm thinking a nice 7850 and 8GB RAM should provide a decent upgrade:

Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £35.99

Asus HD 7850 DirectCU II V2 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ FARCRY3 & Sleeping Dogs PC Games £149.99
 
Your PSU will be ok, I use a OCZ in my spare system, do you any sort of budget.

As mentioned in my previous post I dont think it worth changing the mobo and cpu.
 
Heh nice, 3 quotes for the price of 1 :)

£250 is ok, I didn't want to go massively into cost, a freshen up will be fine. I did have a nasty thought that I might be out of luck with a better CPU, if I recall Intel went from 1156 to 1155 about 4 weeks after I bought my system from OC :(

Thank you all very much for your help people :)
 
m4rt said:
Heh nice, 3 quotes for the price of 1 :)

£250 is ok, I didn't want to go massively into cost, a freshen up will be fine. I did have a nasty thought that I might be out of luck with a better CPU, if I recall Intel went from 1156 to 1155 about 4 weeks after I bought my system from OC :(

Thank you all very much for your help people :)
Click to expand...

If £250 is OK then go with the 7950 as RJC suggests.

There's not a HUGE leap for gaming from the i5 760 to justify the mobo + CPU upgrade - you should overclock it though! Should be able to get to 3.8Ghz on it if you have an aftermarket cooler. Change the CPU + mobo in a year or so I say :) ENJOY !
 
Have you thought about overclocking your processor? If you have a decent cooler (you can pick one up for £30 if not) then you could get a lot of extra performance from your cpu for free that way. That chip should hit 4GHz so you could get over 30% extra performance.

Combine that with a new gfx card and you'd be set for another year or so.
 
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