Overdraft Upgrade

gradyhawks

gradyhawks

gradyhawks

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19 Nov 2011
Posts
1,572
Hello Chaps,

First the formalities, I have almost sorted out getting my Student overdraft sorted (all it took was my dad to threaten to close his business account) so its time to spend some money on what looks like the last PC upgrade of my time as a student and will be limited to things like more ram or some cooling as an upgrade instead of parts and what not.

Anyway I have around £390 that I can spend as I still need to get a basic laptop and a new BMX as it got stolen ... >_>. Right here is my spec list of what I currently have, and in red is what I plan to upgrade it with.

MB - TA 790 GX 128M --> ASRock 970 Extreme3 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) £65
CPU - AMD Athlon X2 7750 --> AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition £95
GPU - 512 MB Radeon HD 4830 --> Two Options:
  • Cross Fired up (either HIS, MSI or Sapphire? Whats the difference?) ATI 6850 1024MB (£220)
    [*]XFX ATI 6850 1024MB (£190) OR XFX ATI 6950 2048MB (£209)
PSU - 650w OCZ Modular
RAM - 4GB Corsair 400Mhz DDR2 --> Corsair Vengeance 8GB £40
CASE - Thermaltake Element G
HDD - F3 Samsung 1TB

What I mainly do with my PC is game on it, but I will be doing some light CAD work on it, but anything heavy will be done on the super PC's at university.

Now here are the questions. What differences are there with a motherboard that is £70 and one that is £120? Aside from things like USb ports, SATA connections and the like, what do I get for more money? I'm pretty wise with GPU's and CPU's and all there numbers, but stuff on MB's just confuse me.

I can't really go over budget but I am happy to see what you guys suggest. As I wont be able to upgrade in a while, overclocking the CPU is a relativly big thing that needs to be posible. What I want to know is depending on what graphics card I choose, what will be the bottleneck? Since I will be spending the most on the GPU I dont want that slowing everything else down.

Also, I plan to get the MB today or tomorrow depending on what and wondered can I put my old CPU on it with the ram and graphics card or is it best to get it all together?

Thanks guys,

Grady
 
over budget but will last you longer than the amd suggestion

i2500k £168
gigabyte z68ap-d3 £85
kingston hyperx genesis grey 4gb pc3-12800 mhz £20 add more later
gelid tranquilo £26 can get this later
his 6950 icq x turbo £200
 
fowler002 said:
over budget but will last you longer than the amd suggestion

i2500k £168
gigabyte z68ap-d3 £85
kingston hyperx genesis grey 4gb pc3-12800 mhz £20 add more later
gelid tranquilo £26 can get this later
his 6950 icq x turbo £200
Click to expand...

:(... is a good £100 over budget and I can't stretch that far. What would the 2500k give me over the 955 when both tied with say a 6950? As far as I have read, the 955 won't bottleneck the 6950 at all, so why the need for the extra horsepower?
 
Still £45 that needs to be spend elsewhere... Whats stopping me from getting a cheaper MB? Why should I spend £85 when I could spend say £65?

What about...

i2500k set up with a single 6870? How would that do gamewise? Then later down the line add in another 6870 so I get some decent performance later on as well?
 
you can't overclock with a £65 motherboard, the z68ap-d3 was £74 for one day the other week. the motherbord isn't really suited to xfire as the 2nd pci-e x16 slot is really only x4 which wil cripple the performance.
 
Not sure if you saw my post before or not, I think we were maybe typing at the same time

Also what you are saying about a cheaper motherboard then wanting to go crossfire ... some motherboards will not allow this, with some cheaper boards you cannot do crossfire/SLI


EDIT: Looks like fowler beat me to it
 
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Ah I see. Thanks then chaps.

Is the gigabyte z68ap xfire enabled? Would I be better to go down the 2500k with a 6850 (read that the 6870 isn't worth the cost over the 6850) then crossfire down the line? This way the price comes to £400 and then see if I can get some money later down the line for another..?
 
I guess you didn't understand my last post fully so I'll repeat

the z68ap-d3 isn't really suited to xfire as the 2nd pci-e x16 slot is really only x4 which wil cripple the performance.

I would say get the 6870 not the 6850.
 
fowler002 said:
I guess you didn't understand my last post fully so I'll repeat

the z68ap-d3 isn't really suited to xfire as the 2nd pci-e x16 slot is really only x4 which wil cripple the performance.

I would say get the 6870 not the 6850.
Click to expand...

Aaaah, that makes more sense. Okay 6870 > 6850. If I go down the 2500k route, what MB is alright for overclocking and xfire thats not going to break the bank? Just looked at the benchmarks with a 2500k to a 955 and thats kinda sold me.

thanks again
 
Okay so hows this lot then:

pcspecs.png


If I can get hold of £30 more before I get it all (or prices change) I will get the 6870. Will get the cooler later on along side either another 6850 or 6870. Last question, I promise! Whats the difference with the makes of graphics cards? Like the 6850 has 3 different makes... who makes the best?

Thanks allot.
 
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gradyhawks said:
Okay so hows this lot then:

GVEG8r2i.png

http://lookpic.com/O/i2/957/GVEG8r2i.png

If I can get hold of £30 more before I get it all (or prices change) I will get the 6870. Will get the cooler later on along side either another 6850 or 6870. Last question, I promise! Whats the difference with the makes of graphics cards? Like the 6850 has 3 different makes... who makes the best?

Thanks allot.
Click to expand...

Can't see that picture. It isn't working (well, it isn't working for me anyway. Can anyone else see it?)

Sorry, I can't answer your question about the different makes of gfx card, but glad I could help in changing your mind to get a 2500K instead of the 955 :p
 
gradyhawks said:
Heck if I'm being a traitor to AMD with the CPU I don't mind Nvidia, just have no idea about them at all.
Click to expand...

Hmmmm well, let me rephrase what I said earlier from "I don't know much about ATI" to "I don't know much about graphics cards" lol, graphics cards in general is my knowledge weak spot.

When building my system I asked people what card I should get for my uses (really NOT a lot of gaming, just general use, college work, programming, watching HD movies and I wanted the ability to be able to play a game or two) I was told to get the GTX 460. Slightly higher price than the GFX card you have specced.

I would wait for someone else to comment about the graphics card, because like I said, that's my weak spot :p

EDIT: My exact card (if you're interested) is a PNY GeForce GTX 460 1024MB, enthusiast edition. It was on the OcUK site as a refurbished card, so came without a box or drivers etc, it came with a 1 year warranty and they said that there is nothing wrong with the workings of it, which is true, it works perfectly and I got the drivers from the Nvidia site :D Only cost me £98.52 including shipping and VAT :D :D :D
 
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