My first post, be gentle 
The time has come to upgrade! I got hold of BF4 and the old 5870 workhorse just isn't up to it any more. Instead of going all-out and doing a full system replacement, I thought upgrading the GPU and seeing how it goes might yield cheaper, but effective results.
Current Spec:
Case: Coolermaster CM 690 ll
PSU: 850W CORSAIR CMPSU-850HXUK
CPU: Intel Corei7 920 D0 @ 3.4
Cooler: CORSAIR H50 CWCH50-1
RAM: Corsair 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1600
Mobo: GBYTE GA-X58A UD3R
Graphics: 1GB XFX HD5870
Other: Blu-Ray, Keyboard, Mouse, 24” Monitor, etc.
Everything I’ve seen leans towards keeping this setup (except the GPU) as the I7 920 lends itself to being a very good chip. Incidentally, no matter how much tweaking I do, I can’t seem to get it stable with good temps above 3.4ghz, but anyway….
So graphics cards – looking at the 290 or 290x and I do wonder if it’s total overkill as I game at 1900x1200. A bigger monitor/higher resolution isn't on the cards for at least another year, but it might be an option later on.
If I throw caution to the wind and decided to do a CPU, cooler, Motherboard, RAM & GPU replacement, what would be a good spec to go for? Budget cap is £1000. A beefy HD and a larger SSD wouldn't go amiss either, but can make do with what I have for now. I have a copy of Win7 Ultimate OEM which I used on my current build; don’t suppose I can use that for this build? (never taken the time to figure out windows licensing
)
Note that I want to keep the case, PSU (if appropriate), also, don’t need keyboard/mouse/monitor.
Cheers
The time has come to upgrade! I got hold of BF4 and the old 5870 workhorse just isn't up to it any more. Instead of going all-out and doing a full system replacement, I thought upgrading the GPU and seeing how it goes might yield cheaper, but effective results.
Current Spec:
Case: Coolermaster CM 690 ll
PSU: 850W CORSAIR CMPSU-850HXUK
CPU: Intel Corei7 920 D0 @ 3.4
Cooler: CORSAIR H50 CWCH50-1
RAM: Corsair 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1600
Mobo: GBYTE GA-X58A UD3R
Graphics: 1GB XFX HD5870
Other: Blu-Ray, Keyboard, Mouse, 24” Monitor, etc.
Everything I’ve seen leans towards keeping this setup (except the GPU) as the I7 920 lends itself to being a very good chip. Incidentally, no matter how much tweaking I do, I can’t seem to get it stable with good temps above 3.4ghz, but anyway….
So graphics cards – looking at the 290 or 290x and I do wonder if it’s total overkill as I game at 1900x1200. A bigger monitor/higher resolution isn't on the cards for at least another year, but it might be an option later on.
If I throw caution to the wind and decided to do a CPU, cooler, Motherboard, RAM & GPU replacement, what would be a good spec to go for? Budget cap is £1000. A beefy HD and a larger SSD wouldn't go amiss either, but can make do with what I have for now. I have a copy of Win7 Ultimate OEM which I used on my current build; don’t suppose I can use that for this build? (never taken the time to figure out windows licensing
)Note that I want to keep the case, PSU (if appropriate), also, don’t need keyboard/mouse/monitor.
Cheers