Potential upgrade advice please

PixelChef

PixelChef

PixelChef

Soldato
Joined
8 Oct 2007
Posts
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Hi,

I thinking about upgrading a few components, with a budget of around £400-500.

I need: Motherboard, CPU and Graphics Card.

The reasons being;

1. My motherboard won't run more than 1 stick of RAM (I get BSOD with 2 sticks), and I have 4gbx2 of RAM, so I want to be able to run 8gb RAM. My CPU is socket 1156 and I've tried to get a replacement 1156 MB but I can't find any.

2. If I'm getting a new motherboard, I'll need a new CPU with the same socket.

3. My graphics card is old and gets hot (and noisy) under load, I also get driver crash errors frequently.

So, is now I good time to upgrade these components? I don't mind waiting a few months if it's worth it.

Here's what I came up with, but I'm sure you guys can do better:

ASUS GeForce GTX 660TI Direct CU II 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel Core i5-3330 3.00GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail
ASRock Z77 Fatal1ty Performance Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard

Usage will be gaming only, and I have no intention of overclocking. About the motherboard, all I need really is something which will run all my components, not sure how much difference the newer chipsets make? I would also like several SATA 6gb/s connections. I would like all of the components to be future proof for several years.

Here is my current spec:

Win7 64bit
i5 760
8(4)GB DDR3 1600MHz
GTX 470
Samsung 128GB 830
ASUS Xonar D2
ASUS P7P59D-E
OCZ ZS Series 650W '80 Plus Bronze'

Questions I have are,

- How much of a difference will the new CPU make compared to my old one?

- It seems like socket 1155 has been around for a long time, is a new socket due to be taking over soon? I think that's what happened when I got my 1156 motherboard, it was replaced by a new socket almost immediately.

So, suggestions welcome :) Thanks.
 
The new socket Haswell is released in 2 weeks so you'd be better off waiting and getting that instead of 1155. CPU will make a huge difference, the new 4670k is what you want to get along with a AMD 78xx/79xx graphics card.
 
A little over budget, but you do get free shipping.
I would also wait for haswell, as there are bound to be plenty of 3570k`s up for sale in the MM and you could get yourself a good bargain.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7950 Twin Frozr III Boost Edition 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **NEW REVISION** £239.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £175.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
Total : £518.87 (includes shipping : £10.75).

 
ThaReaperGuy said:
The new socket Haswell is released in 2 weeks so you'd be better off waiting and getting that instead of 1155. CPU will make a huge difference, the new 4670k is what you want to get along with a AMD 78xx/79xx graphics card.
Click to expand...

Idleman said:
A little over budget, but you do get free shipping.
I would also wait for haswell, as there are bound to be plenty of 3570k`s up for sale in the MM and you could get yourself a good bargain.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7950 Twin Frozr III Boost Edition 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **NEW REVISION** £239.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £175.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
Total : £518.87 (includes shipping : £10.75).

Click to expand...

Thanks both, I have free shipping Idleman so yeah it would be just in budget :) Suggestions look good thanks.

I think I will wait for the new haswell socket and see how that does then.

Also I've always gone for Nvidia cards, are AMD the ones to go for at the moment? Better bang for buck?

If someone could let me know briefly the difference between chipsets on CPU (Ivybridge/Sandybridge) and Motherboards (Z77/HZZ), I would appreciate it also :) Obviously it's just newer tech, but what difference does this make in reality?
 
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