PC upgrade time

Buttkicker · 30 May 2012 at 15:27

Right guys
I am completly out of touch with upgrading my PC 5 years old but am having serious issues with it locking up and playing silly beggars
stuff I have that will be used in a new build
Nvidia 7600GTX video card
OXZ vertex2 SSD 60gb as the boot hard drive
Blu Ray writer
Case Lian Li
got a 600wt power supply new a while back but never installed it in another machine

I am not a gamer and have no interest in overclocking
what I want is a good solid board that has USB 3 and plenty of room for Ram as I am big into imaging so a reccomendation for good large amounts of ram 12gb would do the job nicely

so in essence a good value solid board and compatible CPU along with memory that is known to be hopefully problem free
must add I use win 7 64bt ultimate

my current pc is giving me some really serious issues and have now had enough and am clueless as to what to be looking at and what works well together
if I have a budget of about £300 what should I be looking at with a slightly flexible budget
thanks

mp260767 · 30 May 2012 at 17:52

spec below is under budget, you could take it a touch over your original £300 if you wanted to change the processor to a quad core like the i5 2300/2400, depending on what sort of image work you do it might be worth while, but if you've been working on a 5 yr old pc then the 2120 should be a nice boost in itself.

The motherboard only has 2 memory slots but spec'd 16gb so that shouldn't be an issue, but you'd prefer room to expand that then you'd need to look at other mobo's.

Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £94.99 (£79.16)

Corsair XMS3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX16GX3M2A1600C11) £94.99 (£79.16)

Gigabyte H61MA-D3V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £47.99
(£39.99)

Sub Total : £198.31
Shipping : £9.50
VAT : £41.56
Total : £249.37

cats_five · 30 May 2012 at 18:32

What software are you using for imaging? AFAIK Photoshop makes good use of extra cores, so i5 might work better than i3 for you.

Buttkicker · 30 May 2012 at 22:27

I use CS5 and some rather large file sizes

Buttkicker · 30 May 2012 at 22:42

Thanks for your input... quite a good selection you have put forward
my only reservation would possibly be that my current pc is a DDR2 P4 dual core 2.4mz
and the CPU suggested has me wondering if it would be much of a noticeable step up from what I have all ready (bar the problems)

but I have had a couple of Gigabyte boards in the past and both were easy to set up and both were rock solid

and 16 gig of ram suggested also sounds good.. would this ram work with an Intel I5 and I7 board ???

mp260767 said:
Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £94.99 (£79.16)

Corsair XMS3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX16GX3M2A1600C11) £94.99 (£79.16)

Gigabyte H61MA-D3V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £47.99
(£39.99)

Sub Total : £198.31
Shipping : £9.50
VAT : £41.56
Total : £249.37

beejjacobs · 30 May 2012 at 23:02

The i3 is a very good dual core:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/94?vs=289

Yes that RAM will work with an i5/i7 board and that board will take an i5/i7 (though you can't overclock).

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £185.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX16GX3M2A1600C11) £94.99
1 x MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £77.38
Total : £369.76 (includes shipping : £9.50).

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3450 3.10GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £149.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX16GX3M2A1600C11) £94.99
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D3V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £47.99
Total : £304.37 (includes shipping : £9.50).

First option with overclocking, second without!

You may considering looking for a second hand i5 2500K?

Buttkicker · 31 May 2012 at 16:22

Thanks for the great suggestions here guys after further reading and help here
I have a couple of questions
if I bought this
Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) it apparently has HD4000 integregated graphics

am I right in thinking that with that I would not need my Nvidia 7600gt graphic card which does fine for me but is now aging and if this HD4000 is in the same ball park as my current graphic card
but the spanner in the works could be that I also have my PC hooked via VGA to my large flatscreen LCD Monitor downstairs

but I want to use HDMI from PC to TV as well as my lcd here in the pc room
in view of the above
my shopping list based on the reccomendations and reading this forum and from this thread are
Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) HD4000 graphics (definite)
cannot make my mind up about 8gb of this
Samsung Green (MV-3V4G3D/US) 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit [MV-3V4G3D/US]
as opposed to 16gb of the Corsair XMS3 mentioned in this thread

and the motherboard options are confusing me a little with not needing crossfire SLI etc
which I know very little about
the MSI B75A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard [B75A-G43] looks pretty decent for the money