PC Upgrade (Just the main bits)

[[Damien]]

Hi,

I'm looking to upgrade my current gaming pc:

Antec P182
Athlon 64 X2 6400+
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
Geforce 8800GTX (agp)
4gb Corsair DDR400
Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty
3x Maxtor 300gb SATA HDDs
Dell 2405 FPW
Zalman Reserator 1 V2 (cooling CPU & gfx card)

Not too shabby when I built it but it's showing its age now. I can re-use most of that but I definitely need a new mobo, cpu, gfx card and ram (and maybe new waterblocks for the reserator).

Can anyone give me an idea as to what to get? I've been out of the loop for a while so I don't know who's on top nowadays. I'd prefer an ATI gfx card, and I'm happy to do some bios flashing if it comes to it, but I have no preference on the rest.
My budget is about £350 (maybe £400 at a push) but I'd like to be able to save some of that cash for getting new parts for the watercooling.

Any ideas?

 

[Reaper 392]

something like this should do you fine:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2400 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £139.99
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £119.99
1 x MSI H67MA-E35 Intel H67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro-ATX Motherboard - (Sandybridge) **B3 REVISION** *WITH FREE MSI GRENADE* £59.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £29.99
Total : £361.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).

you cant overclock the processor, but its way better than anything AMD can come up with right now no matter what clock you reach:

 

[Plec]

Nearly hitting your max but would get you a K series chip:

• 2500K OEM £160
• MSI P67A C45 £90
• XMS3 4Gb £30
• OcUK 460 Value £100

Total ~£390 including shipping

 

[[Damien]]

Thanks for the replies guys. Are the K series that much better?

 

[Plec]

Thanks for the replies guys. Are the K series that much better?

Yes, in that they can easily be clocked to 4.5GHz (from 3.3GHz) so lots of extra speed for free (you would need the p67 or Z68 MB to clock).

And they really are very easy to clock - a few seconds in the BIOS and your usually sorted.

Additional: Although for a clock over 4GHz you would need a third party cooler.

 

[[Damien]]

Yes, in that they can easily be clocked to 4.5GHz (from 3.3GHz) so lots of extra speed for free (you would need the p67 or Z68 MB to clock).

And they really are very easy to clock - a few seconds in the BIOS and your usually sorted.

Additional: Although for a clock over 4GHz you would need a third party cooler.

Nice. I'm going to be re-using my reserator so once I've got a new waterblock for it (and probably a new pump because it's been struggling lately) I should be fine for cooling.

2500k it is

 

[Reaper 392]

in that case ignore my spec. you'll want a P67 or Z68 motherboard so you can overclock

 

[[Damien]]

in that case ignore my spec. you'll want a P67 or Z68 motherboard so you can overclock

Thanks. What's the difference between the two?

 

[Plec]

Thanks. What's the difference between the two?

With your budget you'll have to get the P67 - but you won't be missing out on anything you could use.

I'll add list of the differences...

 

[Plec]

I'm going to quote a very well informed forum friend to save me writing out the added Z68 features compared to the P67:

The main benefits of Z68 are:

-You can use video output from the IGP which is on the sandy bridge CPU (not all Z68 boards support this)
- You can use Intel Quick Sync technology to transcode certain videos types very quickly and in high quality (again, requires a Z68 board which can access the IGP)
- Allows overclocking and the IGP features mentioned above (CPU overclocking not possible on the earlier H67 chipset)
- Using Lucid virtu you can make use of Intel Quick sync even if you have a discrete graphics card installed (with H67 you needed to use the onboard graphics output for this tech to work)
- SSD caching (great to use a small/cheap SSD to speed up the performance of a mechanical primary HDD - more info here, however if you can afford to buy an SSD 60GB or larger then I would ignore this caching technology and just uses the SSD as the primary drive)

If nothing leaps out at you then stiick with the P67.

 

[Cairnsey]

Geforce 8800GTX (agp)

Really?

Don't forget you can sell your old parts to contribute towards your upgrade. That's what I always do.

 

[[Damien]]

Really?

It's either the GT or the GTX, I can't remember off the top of my head but yeah. I'll have a look when I get home from work.

Edit: That's not a bad idea actually (selling the parts). It's a shame I've lost the original cooler from the gfx card.

 

[olivier renault]

You can get a GTX 460 OC / GTX 460 / 5830. If your budget is stretched.

Kinda scales with the prices, so whatever your budget allows.

 

[Plec]

I should add you would need the retail CPU rather than the OEM - if you haven't got a cooler/intend to get one.

 

[[Damien]]

You can get a GTX 460 OC / GTX 460 / 5830. If your budget is stretched.

Kinda scales with the prices, so whatever your budget allows.

Yeah the more I browse the more I feel the itch to stretch the budget. I might have to do some thinking and see if I can go a bit higher. After reading the 6950 flashing thread I've got my heart set on one of those now...

Curse you OCUK!!!

Edit: There's a finance option!! Nooooooo!!!!!!!

 

[Plec]

Yeah the more I browse the more I feel the itch to stretch the budget. I might have to do some thinking and see if I can go a bit higher. After reading the 6950 flashing thread I've got my heart set on one of those now...

Curse you OCUK!!!

The jump from an 8800 to a overclocked 460 will be dramatic - especially coupled with the 2500K clocked to ~4.4GHz.

If money is tight i think you'll be more than impressed with a 460 sat in the above setup.

 

[Plec]

You could always consider the MSI P67A GD53 link at £104 on a this week special.

Supports sli so you could add anoth 460 when you have more funds.

I'll dig out a link that i used earlier to show performance

EDIT: 460 sli v 6950 - link

 

[[Damien]]

The jump from an 8800 to a overclocked 460 will be dramatic - especially coupled with the 2500K clocked to ~4.4GHz.

If money is tight i think you'll be more than impressed with a 460 sat in the above setup.

I don't doubt it

I do reckon I'm going to go with your setup tbh. I might get a higher spec card if my budget stretches that far (I'm terrible at sticking to budget) but it looks like a solid spec all round.

Thanks for the advice.