Sub 150 quid upgrade time?

Malt_Vinegar

Malt_Vinegar

Malt_Vinegar

Don
Joined
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Looking to upgrade my system. It's somewhat ageing! Bledd helped me spec this one over 4 years ago! However, it is starting to show the strain running my HD5870 and 6 screen maze unit.

I was looking at a system that would be around 150 quid for Ram/CPU/mobo. It needs to work with my HD5870 GFX card and be faster than my current system! So, thats my reasons for the budget cap! I only play Iracing, a few retro games(HW2), and the odd HL2/HL1 based stuff. So I figure most new bundles/combos would be suitable power-wise?

I have chosen the Kingston 120GB SSDNow V+200 Drive SATA 6Gb/s drive for the system drive.

Current spec is:
Coolermaster CM210 Azure
Ultra 500W PSU
Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L Intel P31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2
Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB SATA-II 16MB Cache
Radeon HD5870 Eyefinity 6 edition

I would be keeping the WD drive as the second drive, and would look to move to watercooling after a near decade away from it in the next few months, once I have decided it's too loud :D I also MUST keep my CM210 case :p

Any ideas OCUK?
 
Cheapest H61 board and RAM kit (8GB or 4GB) then any Pentium Sandy bridge you can afford or even an i3 2100 (Which can be had about 80 quid).

That's your best bet.
 
A bit more than you were wanting to pay but this to me seems the right way to go.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £97.99
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D3V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £47.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1333C9DC) £29.99
Total : £175.97 (includes shipping : FREE).



The motherboard supports SATAIII and USB3, The RAM is very well priced and the CPU can be had cheaper "2nd hand", or you could go for a Pentium G840. :)
 
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The i3 is no way near worth the 98 quid asking price.
I picked up an i3 2120 for 90 brand new, and i3 2100's have been listed at sites for 80.

For the RAM and board though, no contest, but I'd get an i3, but elsewhere unless OCUK want to offer you a reasonable price.
 
I moved from a [email protected], H50 cooler, 4gb ram and P45 motherboard to an i5 760@4ghz, arctic cooler, 8gb and P55 motherboard

Sold the items I owned for £170 after fees and purchased the i5 rig for £180


Sell the PSU, board, cpu and memory and get something similar (along with a better PSU so its stable for when you upgrade graphics card)
 
if you already have the ssd i think u need a bigger budget for a worthy upgrade
or wait for the new i3's i guess
 
you can get something like this right now
it might be a bit more snappy and gives u extra memory to multitask
its not very upgradable tho, just cheap
the ssd hasnt speed up ur pc much?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Pentium G620 2.60GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £49.99
1 x MSI H61M-P31-G3 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £32.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1333C9DC) £29.99
Total : £123.47 (includes shipping : £8.75).

 
I have Win7 already, and MSDN access so will test win8 if I feel like I want to :)

I have not bought the SSD, but it is in my basket ready to buy once I have chosen the other parts.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Pentium G620 2.60GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £49.99
1 x MSI H61M-P31-G3 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £32.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1333C9DC) £29.99
Total : £123.47 (includes shipping : £8.75).
Click to expand...

Mei, I like the look of this.. I dont plan to overclock anymore, and it looks like it will significantly out-perform my conroe... Should run nice and cool too when watercooled in the near future.

Also, I could always lob an i7 in there at a later date to really up the performance when I do my next budget upgrade in a couple of years??
 
Your Basket
Intel Core i3-2100 - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-367-IN
Kingston 120GB SSD - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-023-KS
Gigabyte H61MA-D3V - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-386-GI
GeIL Black Dragon - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-118-GL
Subtotal £255.96
£213.30 ex VAT

Works out at 175quid without the SSD. A little more than I wanted to spend, but should last a lot longer :D

Any other suggestions before I hit the order button? Could i replace the SSD with the following, which is on offer at the moment..
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-076-OC

Saves me a few quid, and allows me to add a drive adaptor plate at pretty much the original cost!
 
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Yer, that has already been suggested to me, but I can only find it at other places with no heatsink, and I am not sure I can be bothered to buy a heatsink separately when it only going to be replaced with a WC setup shortly after construction!

The 3.30 is only a few quid more, is that a better buy?
 
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Malt_Vinegar said:
Yer, that has already been suggested to me, but I can only find it at other places with no heatsink, and I am not sure I can be bothered to buy a heatsink separately when it only going to be replaced with a WC setup shortly after construction!

The 3.30 is only a few quid more, is that a better buy?
Click to expand...

I'm looking at retail ones at 77, not sure where you're looking.
The i3 2120 I bought for 90 was retail too.

Your basket however looks fine.

That 98 quid on the i3 2100 is actually killing me :p
 
It was full retail where i saw it and the 2120.

From OCUK the 2120 would be the better buy for only a extra few quid but it's still too much to me.
 
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