next upgrade spec?

helpimcrap

helpimcrap

helpimcrap

Soldato
Joined
13 Jan 2004
Posts
12,781
Location
Leicestershire
Currently have:
Athlon II propus 630 (2.8) @ 3.5ghz
2x 4gb skill 2133mhz DDR3
500gb hard drive
Biostar motherboard
LG Blu ray writer
650w PSU not a named brand
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 939/AM2/AM3/775/1155/1156/1366)
1gb Radeon 4350

thinking go the intel route -
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM
Asus P8Z68-V GEN3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard

Seems a bit pricey though...

So was thinking AMD - change motherboard for below and keep current CPU and OC it more so i can use the RAM?
Then get an SSD drive?

I don't really game tbh - play C&C occasionally?
 
Lets ask some questions first:)

• Is the HDD a SATA interface?
• What case do you have? does it take a ATX motherboard?
 
helpimcrap said:
500Gb Samsung Spinpoint F3 5400rpm S-ATAII 16MB Hard Drive.
Iris Black ATX Case - good case for £20!!
Click to expand...

Would be nice to get a SSD in the spec to give you a boost over that slower RPM drive.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £175.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard REV 1 £84.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £69.98
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £38.99
1 x Arctic Cooling MX-4 Thermal Compound (4g) £8.99
Total : £390.94 (includes shipping : £10.00).




• Install the OS onto the SSD, use the 500GB as a D: storage drive.
• New thermal paste to attach your heatsink.
 
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helpimcrap said:
what if i was to upgrade the card? wouldn't be going SLI/Xfire but what about these cards with 2 GPUs on them?
Click to expand...

Added more to my post:)

Cards with two GPU's on them GTX590/ATI6990 will need more like 650+watts
 
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cool cheers. current psu has taken everything i can throw at it. :)

Think its an ezcool one?

without taking side of case off....

GTX460 would be the next logical upgrade if i wanted to.
 
ok - noted (previous sysyems i've always sworn by enermax.

with regards to the 1155 - is this worth getting as 2011 is the newer one i gather?
 
helpimcrap said:
ok - noted (previous sysyems i've always sworn by enermax.

with regards to the 1155 - is this worth getting as 2011 is the newer one i gather?
Click to expand...

2011 is sandybridge-E. Check the prices of those i7 CPUs ;)

Ivybridge will be the sequel to sandybridge (1155). They are improving the IGP more than anything. If a mobo has PCI Express 3 printed on the box or spec sheet it will be ivybridge compatible. I would well imagine most 1155 mobos would take ivybridge with a BIOS update.

The 460 is a good card, overclocks well and adds cuda support....the 7800 AMD GPUs are due end of the month and the new nvidia GPUs cant be far behind now.

If you don't really game then upgrading the GPU is slightly pointless. You can use the SB IGP with quicksync in some software to really help with video encoding times (its actually better than cuda for this purpose).

Unless you are getting more serious about gaming or use other software that will make good use of cuda then i would put that GPU cash elsewhere buddy :)
 
How do AMD compare realistically though? Had a look at benchmarks and OC ability and the bulldozer chips seem better value?

Is this the case?

I was thinking:-
AMD Bulldozer FX-4 Quad Core 4170 Black Edition 4.20Ghz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail
£103.19
Asus M5A99X EVO AMD 990X (Socket AM3+) DDR3 PCI-Express ATX Motherboard
£96.00
Shipping :
£9.50
Total :
£210.5

as the intel 2500k would cost....

1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £175.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard REV 1 £84.98
Shipping
£9.50
£270.47.
 
helpimcrap said:
How do AMD compare realistically though? Had a look at benchmarks and OC ability and the bulldozer chips seem better value?

Is this the case?

I was thinking:-
AMD Bulldozer FX-4 Quad Core 4170 Black Edition 4.20Ghz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail
£103.19
Asus M5A99X EVO AMD 990X (Socket AM3+) DDR3 PCI-Express ATX Motherboard
£96.00
Shipping :
£9.50
Total :
£210.5
Click to expand...

No.

The FX 4 really only compares with the i3 2100.

Better than the FX 4

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £99.95
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard REV 1 £80.40
Total : £191.75 (includes shipping : £9.50).



Will you overclock it?
 
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interesting to know. isn't the 2500K a 4 core processor too?

the bulldozer runs nearly a ghz quicker at stock and will OC well acording to bit of limited research.

just when i thought i was understanding this lol.
 
helpimcrap said:
interesting to know. isn't the 2500K a 4 core processor too?

the bulldozer runs nearly a ghz quicker at stock and will OC well acording to bit of limited research.

just when i thought i was understanding this lol.
Click to expand...

OK,

The FX 4 is quite bad for a quad core. They used what they call "modules" and there are 2 cores per module. So the CPU has 2 Modules. 1 Module performs about as well as 1 Intel Core.

Example: AMDs Best CPU Vs Intels Mid range CPU

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/434?vs=288
 
AMD

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Bulldozer FX-8 Eight Core 8120@8150 Black Edition 3.60Ghz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail with FREE Deus Ex PC Game £143.99
1 x Asus M5A99X EVO AMD 990X (Socket AM3+) DDR3 PCI-Express ATX Motherboard £96.00
Total : £251.39 (includes shipping : £9.50).



YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68A-D3H-GEN3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £102.00
Total : £283.39 (includes shipping : £9.50).



With the AMD you can't upgrade.

With the Intel you can upgrade to Ivy Bridge.

Or a I7 2700K.
 
Couldn't he upgrade to the pile driver cored bulldozer successor then the steamroller cored one after that? Aren't they going to be on am3+, so that's the next 3 years covered.
 
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