Spec me an upgrade :)

100%scottish

100%scottish

100%scottish

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Joined
9 Jan 2012
Posts
279
Location
Largs, Scotland
as the title says I am looking for an upgrade but dont know what needs done more I have a budget of £200 - £250, my main spec is as follows

asus p5g41tm - lx (worst oc ever)
Q6600 @2.8Ghz watercooled
8Gb Kingston 1333
Asus ENGTS450 TOP 1Gb ddr5
2 x 500gb WD sata 2 drives
NZXT Phantom full tower

Thanks in advance guys!
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £86.39
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x OCZ Agility 3 60GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-60G) £55.99
1 x G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL ) £39.95
Total : £278.71 (includes shipping : £9.50).



Slightly over budget, but quite a decent upgrade :)

Not sure if your motherboard supports DDR3, but if it does you could take out the RAM and you'd be back within your budget
 
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100%scottish said:
ocz stealth x stream 500w, I have AUX into a hifi amp with wharfadale diamonds
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YOUR BASKET
1 x vtx3d hd 7850 2048mb gddr5 pci-express graphics card with free dirt3 pc game £179.99
1 x asus xonar dsx 7.1 pci express 1.0 sound card retail £43.99
total : £235.38 (includes shipping : £9.50).




changing your cpu wont give you a gaming performance boost, swapping the gts450 for a faster/low power ati 7850 will:)

this is a stock q6600 vs a i3 2100 - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/53?vs=289

this shows a 7850 and there is a gts450 way down at the bottom - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/amd/hd_7850_hd_7870/26.html
 
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Not that much of a performance boost there, plus the Q6600 would bottleneck the 7850.

I'd say get a current motherboard and processor, at least that way you'll be up to date and futureproofed. The SSD will be a huge performance leap for you too
 
Shashman said:
Not that much of a performance boost there, plus the Q6600 would bottleneck the 7850.

I'd say get a current motherboard and processor, at least that way you'll be up to date and futureproofed. The SSD will be a huge performance leap for you too
Click to expand...

His Q6600 is overclocked.

Also OCZ Agility3 SSD's are utter rubbish, a Crucial M4 is a much better choice.
 
100%scottish said:
dont think going from a quad to a dual is sensible even if it is skt 1155 :\ will the sound card make much difference stulid ? thanks for help !
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Sure will, your motherboard comes from a time gone by when the onboard audio was like a Spectrum loading.

That Sound card is PCI-E and you have a PCi-E 1X slot at the very top of the board, it also has a optical output (via an adapter)
 
100%scottish said:
dont think going from a quad to a dual is sensible even if it is skt 1155 :\ will the sound card make much difference stulid ? thanks for help !
Click to expand...

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/53?vs=289

Yes it's a stock speed Q6600, and the i3 used there is the 2100, not the 2120, but even a quick glance at the results should show you the improvement.

A new sound card won't improve performance, and even if it does, it'll be marginal. You'll enjoy better sound quality, but I wouldn't really regard it as a sensible upgrade for your rig.
 
Shashman said:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/53?vs=289

Yes it's a stock speed Q6600, and the i3 used there is the 2100, not the 2120, but even a quick glance at the results should show you the improvement.

A new sound card won't improve performance, and even if it does, it'll be marginal. You'll enjoy better sound quality, but I wouldn't really regard it as a sensible upgrade for your rig.
Click to expand...

I've already linked to that in an earlier post.

A sound card wont improve gaming performance, but the 7850 certainly will:D
 
100%scottish said:
how about


http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-005-VX

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-008-CR

sound card isnt abso vital as my sound quality isnt bad, as for 1155 id rather spend a bit extra n get an i5 tbh.
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That will work, the SSD will be held back by your SATAII ports, but come upgrade time you will get another boost from it when you connect it to SATAIII ports.

Remember to do a fresh install, set the SATA controller from IDE to AHCi (if you have this option) and run the windows experience index (if using Vista/Win7) or making sure disk defrag is disabled.
 
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