Sorry, another upgrade/build question...

northwestdakota

northwestdakota

northwestdakota

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Joined
23 May 2006
Posts
346
Afternoon all,


I have come here the last 3 times I built my own PC to get parts advice and never been let down. So I am back :)

I currently have a Core 2 Duo (E4600) running at 3Ghz, 4 GB of RAM, a P5Q PRO motherboard and a 4850 video card.

I have around 500 pounds to spend on upgrading. But, for 500 quid i'd want to see a BIG difference in games (running on a 22" TFT 1600X1050) if you do not think that is possible for 500 quid please say, i'd rather keep my cash and wait another 6 months to a year if that is the case. I would really like to go to 8 gig of RAM, I do a fair bit of photoshop stuff.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
 
A big difference in gaming is much more likely to be achieved by upgrading the graphics card, above any other component. Seeing as Barts (6800 series) was released recently it shouldn't be too long before Cayman (6900 series) is released. Seeing as Barts are all below £300, Cayman will probably be around that mark and give fantastic performance, with reasonable power consumption, noise levels and temps, if they're anything like the other cards that AMD/ATI have released in the last year.

Only spending ~300-400 pounds on a graphics card would leave plenty of money to get 4GB of RAM, altho buying DDR2 (I assume your motherboard uses DDR2) is not really a wise investment as DDR3 is pretty much mainstream by now.

Games are moving beyond dual core CPUs slowly, if you were buying a new CPU today it would almost not be an option to get less than a triple core if you had the funds. But if you already have one, then IMO it makes less sense to replace it unless you plan to keep the motherboard an extremely long time. Or if the games you are playing are extremely core dependant.

I think investing in a graphics card only is the best course because it will improve game performance and it could be transferred to a new build (new CPU, mobo & RAM), when you do that, especially if it's a high end one like a 6900 card would be.
 
OcUK Value GeForce GTX 470 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with MAFIA 2 £159.99
(£187.99) £159.99
(£187.99)
Intel Core i5 760 2.80GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail £123.39
(£144.98) £123.39
(£144.98)
MSI P55A-G55 Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £76.59
(£89.99) £76.59
(£89.99)
Corsair Dominator 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMD4GX3M2A1600C9) £64.67
(£75.99) £64.67
(£75.99)
Sub Total : £424.64
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £75.97
Total : £510.11

you could have course get this but i would hold on for 4-6 months because by then sandybridge will be released and gpu prices will have dropped
 
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