System upgrade - critique my hardware selection!

peanutismint

peanutismint

peanutismint

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Cardiff Geordie
Okay, here's one for you night owls - upgrading my well-outdated system so I can play some new games/edit some video etc. Currently sporting a Core Duo system with 'integrated' graphics :D so you know how much of a leap this is....

After browsing the store I'm thinking of buying:

Motherboard - ASUS P8Z77-V w/WiFi
CPU - Intel I5 3570
RAM - Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2X4GB)
GPU - MSI GeForce GTX 650 OC Power Edition 1024MB GDDR5
PSU - OcUK Battle 750W Dual Rail High Efficiency Modular '80 Plus'

Can anyone see any incompatibilities or places where I could do better??

Bearing in mind I hoped to only spend £300 odd....and as inevitably happens, I lose all sense of money and just glaze over and see Battlefield 3 at 298000x1678827 resolution in my mind, and the next thing you know I'm spending closer to £500!! :D
 
get a cheaper mobo and a more expensive gfx card if you want to play games
different psu if u value ur hair
 
Mei said:
get a cheaper mobo and a more expensive gfx card if you want to play games
different psu if u value ur hair
Click to expand...

Hahah ok! Any chance of a little more detail?

Is the PSU really that bad? Should I be steering clear of that PSU brand altogether?

Also, re. the GPU, I can't really afford to push the £150+ price mark...will it really make that much difference? I had in mind to get another one in a year or so and SLI them....??
 
650 is a rly bad card tho ><
not saying these builds are amazing but might give u some idea of ur choices,

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards w/ Nexuiz & Sleeping Dogs PC Games £155.99
1 x Intel Pentium G850 2.90GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £59.99
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D2V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £41.99
1 x OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply £32.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £23.99
Total : £326.94 (includes shipping : £10.00).





YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD580KWOHJBOX) £95.99
1 x ASRock FM2A55M-DGS AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £44.99
1 x OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply £32.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £23.99
Total : £209.35 (includes shipping : £9.50).

 
Mei said:
650 is a rly bad card tho ><
Click to expand...

I'm not disagreeing (anyone else on this board is going to know more than me about this stuff!! :D) but I'd still like to see your working... it's got good reviews, same specs as other more expensive cards, so what's the problem with it? I can get a better one/cheaper motherboard if necessary, but I chose my mobo based on a few other features that I'd rather not lose (like built-in wifi, good brand, enough PCI ports etc...

Also should stipulate I've only been looking at nVidia cards as I like their graphics features (PhysX etc) but would entertain ATI cards if you think there's a better bang-for-buck??
 
peanutismint said:
I'm not disagreeing (anyone else on this board is going to know more than me about this stuff!! :D) but I'd still like to see your working... it's got good reviews, same specs as other more expensive cards, so what's the problem with it? I can get a better one/cheaper motherboard if necessary, but I chose my mobo based on a few other features that I'd rather not lose (like built-in wifi, good brand, enough PCI ports etc...

Also should stipulate I've only been looking at nVidia cards as I like their graphics features (PhysX etc) but would entertain ATI cards if you think there's a better bang-for-buck??
Click to expand...

lol no its cool, u shuld ask this stuff^^
personally i havent seen the good reviews, if you see some post them
ones ive seen its about same as a 7750, thats a old card now, with the 7850 being twice as good

i guess we were just expecting more from a new nvidia card
yeh my game pc has a nvidia in it too

you can get cheap wifi cards etc if that saves u any i duno
 
Ah ok :)

This was the review I saw: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_650_Power_Edition/

So you have an nVidia - would you reckon an ATI card was a better bang-for-buck purchase at the moment?

What's the best way to choose a GPU then? Decide on a price-bracket first and then get the most expensive one you can afford? I also want to think about crossfiring etc. in the future perhaps..... I don't really wanna break the £150 mark if possible, so you reckon I can get a decent one for that price?
 
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Ah cool, thanks for the link, will have a think... 1600 is such a dream res for me.... last time I gamed on PC it was HL2 and I'd still be running at at 1024x768 just to get a decent framerate! :D

Okay, thanks again for the input; will consider it....one more thing - is there much difference between cards from different vendors? i.e. a 7850 from MSI vs Gigabyte vs Sapphire etc....??
 
Slightly over 500 but it's imho the best bang for buck you'll get. You need a decent PSU especially if you'll be going SLI in the future.

A modular alternative if you wanted that would be the XFX 650w XXX edition for the same price. Good brands for PSU's are Corsair, Antec, Seasonic, Silverstone, OCZ and XFX. 650w should be ok for SLI or 500w for a singlecard but you get what you pay for and a decent PSU bought now will last you several build cycles. That £32 OCZ 500w is reasonable and the one i put in someones PC hasn't exploded in the last week so could be a stop gap until you SLI.

If you needed to cut costs further imho drop the 3570k and get a i3 3220 as that will impact gaming performance the least.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards w/ Nexuiz & Sleeping Dogs PC Games £155.99
1 x Asus P8Z77-V LX Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020015-UK) £69.98
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £23.99
Total : £519.94 (includes shipping : FREE).

 
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the cooling and the customer care if it breaks
well both them above much faster than duo with integrated for sure :)
most stuff is a step up huh

...lol i dont think peanut wants to spend 500...well maybe he WANTS to but....
 
Yeah, I was just going by the cost of the stuff he was thinking of buying. If he has to stick to £300 that llano setup looks good.
 
I think I'm gonna go for a cheaper mobo (probs Asus as I've had good experience with them before, unless anyone thinks no?) and try to go for that ATI (7850 was it?) and maaaybe downgrade from i5 to i3 as I can theoretically upgrade to an i7 in a year or so on the same mobo once they're a bit cheaper??
 
Ok so I have bitten the bullet! Went for:

Mobo - Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H
CPU - Intel i5 3570K
GPU - MSI Radeon 7850TF 2GD5
RAM - Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB
SSD - OCZ Agility 3 SATA III 120GB


Hope it works! :-)
 
peanutismint said:
Ok so I have bitten the bullet! Went for:

Mobo - Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H
CPU - Intel i5 3570K
GPU - MSI Radeon 7850TF 2GD5
RAM - Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB
SSD - OCZ Agility 3 SATA III 120GB


Hope it works! :-)
Click to expand...

If for some reason you can't get the GFX card to work in the board (but it works without the GFX card) update the bios - http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4325#bios

Download the file.

Extract it onto a USB thumb drive.

Boot the PC and enter the BIOS, use Qflash and follow the instructions.
 
Seems to all be up and running! :) That Windows 'how good is your PC' thing just gave it a 7.6! That's good right??

One thing tho.... using a PCIe Wifi card (Ethernet is unfortunately not an option right now...); it's seeing all the local wifi networks, I can click mine but it's not accepting the password even though it's 100% correct. My Mac is connected fine. Any ideas?? Tried updating driver/reinstalling/rebooting, still nothing....

As soon as I can get this wifi sorted it's download-o-clock! :-)

Steam first obviously, AntiVirus can wait.... :D
 
Don't pay any attention to the Windows experience index its meaningless.

As you have a SSD, make sure disk defrag is disabled for it.

To truly judge your PC's performance you can run and compare the scores in the 3Dmark and Unigen Heaven benchmark threads in the graphics card forum.
 
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