Progressive Upgrade

[divebod]

Hello,

As you can see from my sig, my system is a tad out of date, but has been fine up until recently. I've noticed a distinct slowdown in playing games and in general, so am looking for an upgrade.

I play WoW and Eve Online almost exclusively, but am looking to pick up GTA V when it is released. Outside that I use the machine mainly for office work, particularly large Excel spreadsheets.

So, I'm looking to move onto an upgrade path, but over time. My first step is to move onto socket 1150. I'm looking at mATX and have already sourced the lovely Parvum S2.0 as a case.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Parvum Systems S2.0 MicroATX Case - White with Black £129.95
Total : £138.65 (includes shipping : £7.25).



I have a 24" Dell monitor (2407WFP) at 1920x1200 resolution. I have purchased a new 128gb SK Hynix SSD which will be the main drive and I have HDD's as needed for storage. Keyboard and mouse are covered too. OS will be Win 8.1 and is covered. I would prefer a modular PSU. My current one is an Antec 500 and is over 7 years old.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z97M-D3H Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £79.99
1 x SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 650W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - White £74.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2400HC11CDC01) £59.99
1 x Intel Pentium K Anniversary G3258 Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £53.99
Total : £278.56 (includes shipping : £8.00).



I'd look to O/C the G3258 on the stock cooler as I've seen good increases even at stock.

One area that I have no clues about at all is fans. The case does not come with any so was considering 2x120mm in the front and 1x120mm in the back, perhaps these by Parvum?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Three Fan Bundle - Parvum Systems F1.0 Performance Fan - White £28.99
Total : £38.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Over time I would like to upgrade the stock cooler to an AIO and then to an i5/i7 as well as replacing the graphics card. I've always run a single card system, but would consider SLI/Crossfire. I'm interested in folding too. I'm not interested in 4K, but would look to purchase a second 1080p/1440p monitor in the future.

Am I taking the right course?

Budget is, as always as little as possible, but spreading the cost over 18-24 months with progressive upgrades will help.

My current system has lasted me over 7 years, with graphics card changes and I think upgrading in this way should set me up for the next few years.

Thanks and kind regards

 

[William-Mathew]

I'd look to O/C the G3258 on the stock cooler as I've seen good increases even at stock.

Stock coolers are terrible. If you wanted to overclock you would have to buy an after market one

 

[Doomedspeed]

Stock coolers are terrible. If you wanted to overclock you would have to buy an after market one

Generally true, but for that pentium K, it does REALLY well on the stock cooler, as it uses such little power..

@OP:

I like your idea but i think its a little strung out. Especially with GTA V on the horizon.

We all know WOW and EVE are CPU based(and single threaded). So the pentuim will do pretty well (for the money). What i think is you may aswell just bite the bullet and drop an extra £100ish and get the CPU you WANT..

Bare in mind (in this spec) some items are out of stock (i was just showing you colour options) but they may be back in stock soon.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £188.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97M-DS3H Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £68.99
1 x Avexir Core White Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17200C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U21331104G-2CIW) - White Light £65.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £49.99
Total : £383.56 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Even though you won't be able to OC the 4690k itll be a great starting point, as all you need to do from there is add a CPU cooler and a GPU.. Easy.

I changed the PSU too, as 550w is enough.. I know its not modular but it won't matter in that case, theres LOADS of PSU room.

What do you think?

 

[AthlonXP1800]

I think it could be better to wait a few weeks as Rockstar Games confirmed last week in FAQ they will announce PC system requirments in the next few weeks before you order items.

 

[Doomedspeed]

I think it could be better to wait a few weeks as Rockstar Games confirmed last week in FAQ they will announce PC system requirments in the next few weeks before you order items.

No need, its a little pointless waiting for those are they are approximations, due to people perceptions of 'decent' & 'excellent' performance. This also doesn't take into account monitor resultuons or any sort of AA settings etc..

They also tend to be on the HIGH side (especially the recconended specs) to cover a broader range, as it also applies to laptop (mobile CPUs) which have less cores speed (and normally less threads than their desktop namesakes.

An i5 and a 970 will easily handle GTA V 1080p on high settings..

 

[AthlonXP1800]

No need, its a little pointless waiting for those are they are approximations, due to people perceptions of 'decent' & 'excellent' performance. This also doesn't take into account monitor resultuons or any sort of AA settings etc..

They also tend to be on the HIGH side (especially the recconended specs) to cover a broader range, as it also applies to laptop (mobile CPUs) which have less cores speed (and normally less threads than their desktop namesakes.

An i5 and a 970 will easily handle GTA V 1080p on high settings..

You will have to think about minimum spec PCs many people have low end dual core CPUs like G3258. Looked what happened with Assassin's Creed: Unity! That game required quad core as minimum, it did not worked with all dual core CPUs excepted Core i3 because of hyperthreading which worked like quad core.

What if GTA V required 8 core or 4 core with HT as minimum? Then people who owned Core i5 CPUs without HT like i5-4670K and i5-4690K will be screwed!

This is the reason why we have to wait a few weeks to see official PC system requirements before GTA V PC release on 27 Jan 2015.

 

[William-Mathew]

What if GTA V required 8 core or 4 core with HT as minimum? Then people who owned Core i5 CPUs without HT like i5-4670K and i5-4690K will be screwed!

No way is GTA V going to require 8 cores or 4 core with hyper threading. They are not going to design a game that only people with i7's can play as they wont get as many sales

 

[divebod]

Thanks for all your replies. Lots to think about - partly about which games are more important to me. Had G3258 in mind and then broadwell i5/i7 if the rumours of same socket become true. I'm still in two minds (or is it three!) about this. Need to do some calcs and see what how to make this all work.

I agree that it's unlikely Rockstar would set min specs at too high, but who knows.....

 

[Doomedspeed]

You will have to think about minimum spec PCs many people have low end dual core CPUs like G3258. Looked what happened with Assassin's Creed: Unity! That game required quad core as minimum, it did not worked with all dual core CPUs excepted Core i3 because of hyperthreading which worked like quad core.

True, though it did WORK with dual core CPU's though not very well, 30-50FPS on low settings isn't really great.

Though ACU (i'm not referring to 'Auckland City university') is known for being badly coded but it does stick a premature nail in the coffin of daul core CPU gaming.

What if GTA V required 8 core or 4 core with HT as minimum? Then people who owned Core i5 CPUs without HT like i5-4670K and i5-4690K will be screwed!

The fact is GTA V is probably going to be a 'tweaked' port from the PS4/XBONE so it will NO WAY need HT or 8 Cores. When you get upto 4 cores (i mean 4 proper cores, like the i5 and the 8320/8350 [it's not a true 8 core]) the benchmarks tend to be very close in gaming. High end Gaming is still Very GPU limited, so whether you have an i5 or an i7 (or even a 8320 for that matter) [as long as the game is coded properly] its the GPU that will make the difference.

No way is GTA V going to require 8 cores or 4 core with hyper threading. They are not going to design a game that only people with i7's can play as they wont get as many sales

Though that won't [can't] stop them listing it as a 'required' spec.. a lot of publishers do.

Thanks for all your replies. Lots to think about - partly about which games are more important to me. Had G3258 in mind and then broadwell i5/i7 if the rumours of same socket become true. I'm still in two minds (or is it three!) about this. Need to do some calcs and see what how to make this all work.

Do you see my point of view though? (i saw where you were coming from).

If you were to get the pentium K, you'd spending £50+ (depending on the braodwell CPU release price [that's even to say its is Z97 compatible]) more than you would just jumping to the i5 now (spending more in the first instance).

If i does mean (personal) incurring any repayment charges or defaulting on rent/whatever it may be, by all means go about it the way that suits what you can spend..

Let us know what you decide, then come back and we'll try to sort it for you.

 

[divebod]

Thanks for all your points - had a think and I think I've worked the way to do it for me and it is to go the i5 route.

This is what I've got and not sure on fans and ultimately I will need an after market cooler that's less than 152mm high to fit in the Parvum case.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z97MX Gaming 5 - Devil's Canyon i5 4690K CPU & Micro ATX Motherboard Bundle **£10 Saving** £281.94
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 650W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £61.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2400HC11CDC01) £59.99
2 x Parvum Systems F1.0 Performance Pressure Optimised Fan - White £9.95 (£19.90)
1 x Arctic F8 PWM Case Fan - 80mm £2.99
Total : £436.40 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Thoughts?