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Partial upgrade, need advice!

Ritsugamesh

Ritsugamesh

Ritsugamesh

Associate
Joined
3 Sep 2009
Posts
419
Location
Nottingham
Okay so I've had my system for about 3 years now and it's done me proud but X-Mas is coming up and I've been noticing my processor struggling a fair bit with recent games like Skyrim etc.

I'm looking to get a new CPU, Mobo and RAM; unfortunately I just cannot get myself back in the know-how with all these new AMD and Intel offerings.

I am seeking to spend about £250 (£300 at a stretch if the performance jump is worthwhile) on the lot (cpu, mobo, ram) but all I ever see is that it's 2500k or the highway for pure gaming application so I'm having trouble locking myself down to a specific chip as the 2500k is well out of my price range.

I just want a nice cpu which won't choke me on Skyrim, SWTOR and some other games.

Overclocking is not a problem, so if there's a chip that only blossoms with some TLC that is fine too :p

Cheer guys! (Also I know there's mobo and ram discussion but the cpu is the big kicker, hence why I posted in here!)
 
I don't entirely see how the 2500k is out of your budget?
You can get them for around 155, that leaves like 145 for a Z68 board and then RAM, which is easy manageable.
 
Ah, sorry I will need a custom cpu cooler (air) to boot... That usually pushes the price to about £350 from my attempts.

It's possible too that when I have a browse I'm picking Motherboards that are too £££ as I had bad experiences with my last mobo whilst attempting to make a build on the cheap.

I'd appreciate it if you could show me some decent/affordable builds within this price range as the prospect of actually getting a 2500k is very exciting!
 
I guess this shows to you how uninformed I am on the current market if nothing else!

I guess I'll go take another look at the prices and see what I can muster up.

Thanks for the quick response, if anybody does have any build suggestions I'd be thankful. I'll also post my findings here to see what people think.

Cheers.
 
I'd deff recommend the 2500K if you can stretch your budget a little.

My old E6750 @ 3.6ghz really started to struggle with some of the latest games, both cores constantly at 99% load.

It was like night and day after the upgrade, these Sandy Bridge are cracking Cpu's for the money.
 
Thanks guys, I think I might just be able to stretch that extra £15 for the sake of getting that chip!

Anybody had any experience with that mobo? I always worry with the budget boards about their overclocking performance.

Thanks again.
 
Ritsugamesh said:
Thanks guys, I think I might just be able to stretch that extra £15 for the sake of getting that chip!

Anybody had any experience with that mobo? I always worry with the budget boards about their overclocking performance.

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

The bottom line is GIGABYTE’s Z68AP-D3 stands out as a great value for money offering. Those who just need a Z68 motherboard that performs great for a low cost should consider the D3, you will be hard pushed to find something for such a low cost.
 
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