Overdue Upgrade – Advice Needed

Eggy Pumps · 17 Mar 2015 at 12:54

I hope some kind soul(s) can help me out as I’m in need of some advice for upgrade options. I’ve always built systems for myself friends and family but nothing recently – as a result I’m frankly just out of date and unable to determine how to achieve good value, bang-for-buck without any obvious bottleneck issues. Reliant on your help as I just don’t have the time to get up-to-speed researching it inside-out.

My requirements are hopefully quite simple, this upgrade is for my tired work-horse, so nothing very taxing although I need something that will handle VOIP as well as possible. I do a lot of multi-tasking with multiple browsers, browser tabs, MS Outlook, Word, Excel, Access, Skype, Skype MP3 call recorder etc. I use 2 monitors, a Philips 234E5QHAW (HDMI) and a 19” Dell (DVI / VGA) but I’d like to add the 27” version of the Philips within a year – possibly sooner – in place of or as well as the Dell. I currently have 4gb RAM which is regularly reporting usage warnings.

I have an adequate 600W PSU (alpha a power ATX-600L), DVDRW, SSD and running windows 7 Ultimate (retail not OEM so hopefully can retain this).

So far I’ve narrowed down some AMD based options as below:

AM3+ based…

Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-502-AS&groupid=701&catid=1903

AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-338-AM&groupid=701&catid=1967

Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-195-KS

GPU - £40 to £50? 2048MB / R7 240 maybe?

-Or-

FM2+ Based (with integrated graphics)

Asus A88XM-PLUS AMD A88X (Socket FM2+) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-595-AS&tool=3

Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-195-KS

CPU – Either:
• AMD A10 7700K Black
• AMD APU A10 6800K Black
• AMD A10 7800 Kaveri

I’d like to keep the cost to under £250 if possible. I’m clueless about:
• Which of the above would be the best option?
• Should I go for faster RAM?
• How would an equivalent Intel based option compare?

Any and all help, guidance, advice, direction you can provide would be very well received.

Many thanks in advance!

tamzzy · 17 Mar 2015 at 12:56

Eggy Pumps said:
I have an adequate 600W PSU (alpha a power ATX-600L)

errr. stop right there...

Eggy Pumps · 17 Mar 2015 at 13:05

tamzzy said:
errr. stop right there...

I was hoping without a power hungry GPU I could get away with that?

thebennyboy · 17 Mar 2015 at 13:10

Eggy Pumps said:
I was hoping without a power hungry GPU I could get away with that?

It will cost you a lot of money in the long run, if it dies it WILL kill your components. I learnt that the hard way when i cheaped out on a PSU.

This is the best i could come up with for £15 over £250.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-4 Quad Core 4300 3.80GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £59.99
1 x MSI 970A-G46 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £58.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD38G1600HC11DC01) £47.99
1 x Sapphire Radeon R7 240 Boost 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Card £44.99
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £43.99
Total : £265.55 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Andreas.96 · 17 Mar 2015 at 13:12

What is your budget and current spec?

Ronald · 17 Mar 2015 at 13:14

Eggy Pumps said:
I was hoping without a power hungry GPU I could get away with that?

You might, but it sounds like an aging PSU of debatable quality...

Would you spend £42* on a suitable, efficient, quiet PSU to make sure it won't blow up and take your almost new system with it?

* Or slightly less

Eggy Pumps · 17 Mar 2015 at 13:14

thebennyboy said:
It will cost you a lot of money in the long run, if it dies it WILL kill your components. I learnt that the hard way when i cheaped out on a PSU.

Fair enough, what should I budget for a suitable PSU?

Eggy Pumps · 17 Mar 2015 at 13:16

Ronald said:
You might, but it sounds like an aging PSU of debatable quality...

Would you spend £42* on a suitable, efficient, quiet PSU to make sure it won't blow up and take your almost new system with it?

* Or slightly less

Yes, I don't want to cut corners, just thought I'd have got away with it. Valuable advice and that's why I'm posting. Thanks for the heads-up.

Ronald · 17 Mar 2015 at 13:20

Lets take a punt:

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Kaveri 7850K 12 Compute Core APU w/ Radeon R7 Graphics (4 CPU + 8 GPU Compute Cores) - Retail £119.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A88XM-HD3 AMD A88X (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £49.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Savage Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX324C11SRK2/8) £46.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 350W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £41.99
Total : £268.56 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Mainboard has D-SUB, DVI-D and HDMI Output, so with a bit of luck you can use all 3 at the same time (Gigabyte doesn't mention any limitations on that)
Kavari likes it's memory as fast as possible, as the iGPU benefits from it.
PSU is very high quality and very efficient as well, saving you a wee bit of noise and power use.

Eggy Pumps · 17 Mar 2015 at 13:24

Andreas.96 said:
What is your budget and current spec?

Budget is circa £250

I Currently have:
Foxconn 6150M2Ma-KRSh GeForce 6150 AM2
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ 2.30 Ghz
4x1GB 800Mhz/PC2-6400 RAM
128 SSD (plenty as I use NAS)
Nvidia GeForce 7900 / GT/GTO

Don't laugh, apart from the SSD upgrade, I built it in 2008. I told you it was overdue!

thebennyboy · 17 Mar 2015 at 13:39

thebennyboy said:
This is the best i could come up with for £15 over £250.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-4 Quad Core 4300 3.80GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £59.99
1 x MSI 970A-G46 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £58.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD38G1600HC11DC01) £47.99
1 x Sapphire Radeon R7 240 Boost 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Card £44.99
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £43.99
Total : £265.55 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Eggy Pumps · 17 Mar 2015 at 15:42

Great, thanks to thebennyboy & Ronald for the packages you've put together. Can I ask if there's much to choose between them, pros & cons etc?

cats_five · 17 Mar 2015 at 15:48

Are you planning reusing the HDDs? If you are, are they SATA? Do you have a Retail copy of Windows you can use? Windows 7 preferably? And do you have a SATA DVD drive?

Eggy Pumps · 17 Mar 2015 at 15:58

Ronald said:
Lets take a punt:

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Kaveri 7850K 12 Compute Core APU w/ Radeon R7 Graphics (4 CPU + 8 GPU Compute Cores) - Retail £119.99
1 x Gigabyte F2A88XM-HD3 AMD A88X (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £49.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Savage Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX324C11SRK2/8) £46.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 350W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £41.99
Total : £268.56 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Mainboard has D-SUB, DVI-D and HDMI Output, so with a bit of luck you can use all 3 at the same time (Gigabyte doesn't mention any limitations on that)
Kavari likes it's memory as fast as possible, as the iGPU benefits from it.
PSU is very high quality and very efficient as well, saving you a wee bit of noise and power use.

thebennyboy said:
It will cost you a lot of money in the long run, if it dies it WILL kill your components. I learnt that the hard way when i cheaped out on a PSU.

This is the best i could come up with for £15 over £250.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-4 Quad Core 4300 3.80GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £59.99
1 x MSI 970A-G46 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £58.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD38G1600HC11DC01) £47.99
1 x Sapphire Radeon R7 240 Boost 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Card £44.99
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £43.99
Total : £265.55 (includes shipping : £8.00).

cats_five said:
Are you planning reusing the HDDs? If you are, are they SATA? Do you have a Retail copy of Windows you can use? Windows 7 preferably? And do you have a SATA DVD drive?

Hi cats_five,
Yes, I'm reusing the SSD HDD which is sata
No, the DVD drive isn't SATA I've just checked... thanks for pointing that out. Poo!
Yes, I have retail version of Windows 7 Ultimate.

MrMD · 17 Mar 2015 at 16:02

Gonna throw in a 3rd option comes £20 over budget tho.

Overall its a fair bit better than the other builds imo.Could get by with IGP unless you want to do gaming

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus H81M-K Intel Core i5 DIY Micro ATX Motherboard, CPU & RAM Bundle £228.97
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 350W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £41.99
Total : £280.56 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Eggy Pumps · 17 Mar 2015 at 16:12

MrMD said:
Gonna throw in a 3rd option comes £20 over budget tho.

Overall its a fair bit better than the other builds imo.Could get by with IGP unless you want to do gaming

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus H81M-K Intel Core i5 DIY Micro ATX Motherboard, CPU & RAM Bundle £228.97
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 350W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £41.99
Total : £280.56 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Thanks MrMD, That's doable. I'm happy to spend a little more now than save a little and regret it. But, I realise the line has to be drawn somewhere. Am I right in thinking that the Intel based option would be preferable from a future-proof upgradeability point of view?

MrMD · 17 Mar 2015 at 16:33

Eggy Pumps said:
Thanks MrMD, That's doable. I'm happy to spend a little more now than save a little and regret it. But, I realise the line has to be drawn somewhere. Am I right in thinking that the Intel based option would be preferable from a future-proof upgradeability point of view?

Compared to an am3+ build the motherboard chipset has a fair few more modern features. the FM2+ chipset isnt too dissimilr from the H81 chipset for features however.

As far as futureproof? well that all relative lol

But yea it is,the only AM3+ cpus that can compete with a mid range I5 are overclocked 8core FX's.Im not too familr with Kavri CPU performance,but again as far as im aware their is no FM2 socket CPU that can match the mid range I5's.

The mobo in the intel bundle could support an I7 in future should you need/want it.

That being said,for your uses an AMD based build would be fine,the Intel is better however for only a fraction more.

Ronald · 17 Mar 2015 at 18:30

Eggy Pumps said:
Am I right in thinking that the Intel based option would be preferable from a future-proof upgradeability point of view?

Intel solution: More CPU power, less GPU power.

Intel's iGPU is sufficient unless you want to do proper gaming.

Upgradability would be poor on either. DDR3 is at its end. H81 will only support up to 4th gen Intel core, and there is/won't be anything worth upgrading to from the suggested bundle, other than a dedicated GPU...

Likewise FM2... It has been around a long time.

deano-5 · 17 Mar 2015 at 21:13

DDR3 is still fine

Eggy Pumps · 17 Mar 2015 at 23:00

I'm leaning towards the Intel option then. Any tweaks to swap out of the bundle worthwhile like faster ram etc?