Spec me an upgrade

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Hi All,

Can you please spec me an upgrade.

AMD Athlon II X3 450 (3.2ghz, Rana Core)
GA-880GM-UD2H
Xfx Radeon 6870 DDR5 1gb
Kingston 4gb RAM (2x2gb) DDR3
Corsair 650 Watt PSU
2x WD Hard drives (1x 500gb, 1x 80gb)

My Budget is No more than £250

I play BF3 mainly.

Thanks
 
Something like this would be great, you should be able to get the extra back by selling your current motherboard, CPU and RAM.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVI38G186C9K) £35.99
Total : £293.96 (includes shipping : FREE).




Further down the line you could upgrade your GPU, get an SSD, a new CPU cooler and overclock the i5.
 
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What speed and voltage is the RAM running at? As you may be able to reuse it.

Are the HDDs SATA?

Have you got an aftermarket CPU cooler?
 
CPU upgrade would be the best thing to get, a new graphics card would be bottlenecked by your current cpu. In your budget you would probably have to look at a non k cpu. Maybe something like this
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3330 3.00GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £131.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £29.99
Total : £263.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).

 
ConnorJoshua said:
CPU upgrade would be the best thing to get, a new graphics card would be bottlenecked by your current cpu. In your budget you would probably have to look at a non k cpu. Maybe something like this
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3330 3.00GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £131.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £29.99
Total : £263.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).

Click to expand...

Theres no point getting an i5 unless it is a 3570K imho. You would regret it further down the line.

Bacon? said:
Just over £260:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £161.99
1 x MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - FREE Alpenföhn Civetta Cooler!! £69.98
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £29.99
Total : £261.96 (includes shipping : FREE).

Click to expand...

I only picked the Gigabyte board because it is regarded as the best budget Z77 board and it is decent for overclocking. I have read that the MSI board has some issues with overclocking. It would be fine for stock clocks, but who buys a 3570K to stay at stock clocks.
 
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acme15 said:
Theres no point getting an i5 unless it is a 3570K imho. You would regret it further down the line.



I only picked the Gigabyte board because it is regarded as the best budget Z77 board and it is decent for overclocking. I have read that the MSI board has some issues with overclocking. It would be fine for stock clocks, but who buys a 3570K to stay at stock clocks.
Click to expand...

But then the price jumps from £260 to nearer £300, plus you need either a retail chip or cooler unless he already has one.
 
Bacon? said:
But then the price jumps from £260 to nearer £300, plus you need either a retail chip or cooler unless he already has one.
Click to expand...

Changed it to a retail one now. It is worth it in my opinion. The amount of non K ivy i5's I have seen in the members market because people decided that they want to overclock is ridiculous.

And OP the difference is that the K processors have unlocked multipliers allowing for effortless overclocking, meaning that further down the line, rather than upgrading your entire setup again to keep up, you can just overclock the CPU and get a decent CPU cooler.

My 2500K (which is the previous gen version of the 3570K) overclocked to 4.7GHz with very little effort, and my highest stable(ish) overclock was a ridiculous 5.4GHz (which took a little more effort). Dropped it down to 4.7 again because I am more comfortable with the voltages (1.34v) and the temperatures.
 
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I haven't bothered overclocking my i5 yet till I have a K2 heatsink, but I imagine you could get at least a 4.0 overclock on stock volts no?
 
The Z77M-D3H and the MSI Z77-G3A are voltage locked so not ideal for overclocking an i5K

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVI38G186C9K) £35.99
Total : £293.96 (includes shipping : FREE).



The OP might well just get the free P&P. The Z77-D3H is a full sized ATX mobo and is NOT voltage locked. It also has LucidMVP software (overthe other two mobos suggested) to use the i5Ks improved IGP to boost his 6870. The RAM is colour coded to the mobo, good speed for the price. The OP can sell his old mobo bundle to recoup some cash. Whilst he could reuse his RAM it's 1333mhz and trying to sell his old mobo bundle without RAM might make it harder to sell on
 
acme15 said:
If you want to get memory with a clock speed higher than 1600MHz then I would recommend these (though they are currently out of stock) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-320-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1387
I have heard some not so good things about Patriot memory. Corsair are one of the best manufacturers of any PC component including RAM, and these sticks are of course, 2000MHz rather than 1866MHz.

It is unlikely that you will see any performance increase over 1600MHz RAM unless you are into memory benchmarking.
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Yes it's true that higher than 1600Mhz makes little odds on the 1155 socket. However seeing as the RAM has a lifetime warranty it makes sense to get the best speed you can for the price. There are many 8GB kits for around £30-35 (not sure why you linked 4GB), I partly chose the Patriot as it was colour coded to the mobos heatsinks
 
honosuseri said:
(not sure why you linked 4GB), I partly chose the Patriot as it was colour coded to the mobos heatsinks
Click to expand...

Again, because I can't read :D

And I thought that, it does look nicer than the RAM in my spec, it is faster, and it does have a lifetime warranty, you are quite right :)

I have heard some peoples experiences with Patriot memory though and it doesn't sound too good, though I think they were about the Black Mamba series.
 
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