Some general advice required please :)

Peperami · 8 Mar 2013 at 13:31

Hiya guys…..

Ok some noob advice required please

I am going to be upgrading my PC soon, been about 3 or 4 years now since its last overhaul, so I wondered please if anyone could help out on a few questions?

I have a really good gaming tower brought at the time of the last major rebuild, I don’t really want to change it as it’s a great case, it’s the Antec 1200 not the V3 one, it’s a few years old now, but has all the bays you could ever want and its got lots of fans to keep everything cool, although somewhat noisy when every fan is on FULL lol

The Power Supply is the Enermax Revolution 85+ which is 850w

I am going to hopefully be getting the following components, expense versus performance was an issue for me, funds are limited, so hopefully this will be a fairly good spec for what I want to do, which is BF3, Cyris 3 when I get it lol, and video conversion for my iPad3 and daughters iPod4, I do other things, just not a lot of time at the moment

ASUS 3GB RADEON HD 7950 DIRECTCU II TOP Video Graphics Card GDDR5 Express HDMI

AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8350 Black Edition 4.00GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail

ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 Socket AM3+ Motherboard

I DO want to be able to overclock this, even if only a little, not sure what the setup will be like for that, but bearing the overclocking in mind………..

my questions are…..

1) What would be a suitable heatsink and fan combo for the the CPU?
2) What would you recommend for RAM, I would ideally like 32GB but for now 16 would suffice
3) Will my PSU need updating?
4) How will the above components fair if I want to overclock them?
5) Is there anything you would suggest or recommend?

Any help would be appreciated please guys :cool:

Best wishes

Chris

dacads · 8 Mar 2013 at 13:47

Hi Chris, have you had a look at the Intel i5 3570k? Without doubt it will be better for takin but I can see why you have chosen the FX-8350 due to your video converting tasks. In the end it comes down to what you will be doing more and which CPU will be more suitable. I take it your PSU is also a few years old? If so then yes it will be fine

As for the noisy case you could replace the fans for some quieter ones such as the Akasa FN058

How much are you looking to spend on CPU Cooler? For around £60 you can have one that will allow some great overclocks.

One thing I would recommend is a SSD as it will increase boot up time of windows and the general responsiveness which isn't essential but certainly a bonus so you can add it now or at a later time

That is a high end motherboard so combined with a decent cooler you can expect serious overclocks

Peperami · 8 Mar 2013 at 14:15

Hiya mate and thanks for the reply

I looked at the Intel i5 3570k yes, and did a comparison

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/697?vs=701

some of the LOWER is better the FX came out on top, overclocked a little I would hope they would be better on the ones it lost out on but generally barr a couple, its a better CPU I THINK for what I would use it for, im not gaming 24/7 and its mainly BF3

The price between the two CPUs isnt too bad, but the 8 cores on the FX would be of great benefit when converting lol

I dont mind spending £60.00 in a heatsink and fan if its a decent one and keeps it all nice and cool and I can overclock it, I would rather spend the money on a decent fan and heatsink than risk damaging the CPU

Any advice on the ram? Ram is confusing, so many makes, timings, speeds, loads of numbers after the name, dont know where to start! Again, I dont mind paying a little bit as long as it does its job, I dont care what colour it is, only that it does what it says

Incrauze · 8 Mar 2013 at 14:37

AMD,

YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7950 Windforce 3X 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Sleeping Dogs PC Game £199.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8350 Black Edition 4.00GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £184.99
1 x Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £140.99
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £59.99
2 x Samsung Green (MV-3V4G3D/US) 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit £49.99 (£99.98)
Total : £697.94 (includes shipping : £10.00).

Intel,

YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7950 Windforce 3X 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Sleeping Dogs PC Game £199.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £187.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £59.99
2 x Samsung Green (MV-3V4G3D/US) 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit £49.99 (£99.98)
Total : £649.94 (includes shipping : £10.00).

Peperami · 8 Mar 2013 at 14:56

Thank you for that

Decent cooler by the looks of things

Yup the AM3+ MoBo I chose boost the price up, or it would have been the cheaper option, not much in the CPU price at all

Mhhhh choices choices lol

Peperami · 8 Mar 2013 at 15:00

Antec Kúhler H2O 920 Series 4 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (LGA1155 / LGA1156 / LGA1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM2+ / AM3+)

Would this be a good option?? Never tried water cooling before, might be a good time to try seeing as its marginally more expensive and I have a case big enough to hold it?

Incrauze · 8 Mar 2013 at 15:14

Alpenföhn K2 will be better than the Antec Kúhler H2O 920

dacads · 8 Mar 2013 at 15:24

Here are the coolers worth considering

YOUR BASKET
1 x Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU Cooler - Silver (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £66.98
1 x Noctua NH-D14 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £62.98
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £59.99
Total : £201.35 (includes shipping : £9.50).

Phanteks one is also available in other colours

Some cheaper motherboards with the same chipset:

YOUR BASKET
1 x ASRock 990FX Extreme4 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £127.99
1 x Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £113.99
1 x MSI 990FXA-GD65 AMD 990 FX (AMD AM3/AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £104.99
1 x ASRock 990FX Extreme3 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £88.99
Total : £447.96 (includes shipping : £10.00).