PC "refresh"

Associate
Joined
20 Aug 2007
Posts
96
Location
Cambridge
Hi,

My wife and I are looking to upgrade our computers over the next few weeks.
Ideally we'd like to spend as little as possible and focus on the upgrades that will give us the best performance for the time being (will be upgrading more in the future). £400-500 overall would probably be all we could push to at best.

Both PCs are fairly similar in spec (bar some additional ram and gpu) - both have Asus P7P55D-E Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 motherboard. PC2 is in dire need of a new case, so suggestions on that front would be appreciated - not overly fussed on looks, but something of a decent quality that isn't too huge would be grand. PC1 has an SSD, and I will be picking one up for PC2 also.

PC1
Intel® Core™ i5 CPU 760 @ 2.80GHz
12.88 GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470

PC2
Intel® Core™ i5 CPU 760 @ 2.80GHz
4.29 GB
ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series

I know what I would like, but as I said above, I just can't justify the spend ATM.
We're both casual gamers so being able to play some of the latest titles would be ideal, but more importantly we're after a stable performance in WoW (specifically with PC2 which fails miserably in 25 man raids).
 
For that budget your probably looking at a couple of 270x gpu's and some more RAM for the 4gb system provided you have got a 64bit operating system. If you could stretch your budget slightly could get a couple of small capacity SSD's for the os and wow
 
what are the exact specs on both computers?
also do you actually need 12gb ram on pc1?
have you thought about overclocking the cpu?
 
Definitely a 270/270x each and at least 4gb more ram for pc2. In terms of a case any of the lower end bitfenix or xigmatech cases are very good.
 
what are the exact specs on both computers?
also do you actually need 12gb ram on pc1?
have you thought about overclocking the cpu?

Part of the plan was to normalise the ram across the two, 8 a pop.

How much of a bottleneck is the CPU likely to be with a 270x in the mix?

Intel® Core™ i5 CPU 760 @ 2.80GHz
Asus P7P55D-E Intel P55 (Socket 1156)
Corsair XMS 1600MHz, 9-9-9-24, 1.65V (originally 2x2gb each, PC1 has an additional 2x 4gb)
Not certain of the two PSUs now - were originally Corsair 550 modular but have since been replaced
 
Last edited:
ah, sensible. 8gb per pc is more than sufficient.
if the 760 is overclocked, then it would be a very decent match to the 270x

recommend getting a ssd for each pc
 
Overclock CPU, maybe invest in an aftermarket cooler for each, something like a coolermaster hyper 212 if you're on stock cooling.

Stock cooling ATM, but do have a couple Cooler Master Hyper 612S's boxed in the garage.

Am I right in summarising the general consensus as normalising the ram across the two, fitting the CPU cooler and OC'ing the CPU, fitting PC2 with an SSD and picking up two 270x's?

Any recommendations for the graphics card?

PC1 already has a Samsung SSD that i picked up about a year ago, SSD's seem dirt cheap in comparison now a days too.
 
Looks good to me, then if the cpu is holding you back (unlikely with a good oc) an upgrade to an i7 and selling your i5's probably wouldnt be too much of an expense.
 
Back
Top Bottom