Thoughts on the upgrade I specced my friend?

Akagi

Akagi

Akagi

Caporegime
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Hi guys, so my mate has a system with these specifications:

Phenom II 955BE @ Stock
Gigabyte 970A-UD3 (AM3+)
8GB (2x 4GB) 1333MHz Samsung DDR3
Sapphire Radeon HD6870 1GB
XFX 550W Core Edition

And he fancied an upgrade with a budget of around £300, so I specced him this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x VTX3D HD 7870 Black Boost Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £189.95
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £113.99
Total : £315.34 (includes shipping : £9.50).



What d'ya recon?
 
I thought the VTX3D 7870 Boost would be a good choice cos it can overclock to match a 7950 (its one of the Tahiti LE ones) and it's £70 less :P

Forgot about selling the Phenom and 6870, so could have the best of both and get the Tahiti 7870, 8320, an SSD and a CPU cooler, then clock the CPU..? :) or maybe leave the CPU stock without a new cooler and get a 120GB SSD :)

I'll talk to him later :p
 
Don't buy the bgrade 7850.... Most the bgrade stuff is ok, but these 7850's and 7870's had a lot of problems... wont even keep your PC on for too long without giving you a black screen you cant wake fom.

If you can get the VTX 7870 Black edition, or the Sapphire 7870xt or the Club 3D 7870 Joker... these 7870's are built with the Tahiti chip like the 7950 and 7970 much better than the norm 7870's!

Seriously though, I bought a few B grade stuff, its usually fine, just dont buy the B Grade 7870's from Gigabyte.. obviously manufacturer supplied what with them popping up with 10+ in stock every now and then.

First thing I would do is buy a SSD if the system didn't have one, even if 32 or 64gb just putting the OS on it makes a big difference!

Depending on on your mate having a SSD or not I would go with a... 62gb SSD, the VTX3D 7870 Black and the AMD FX 6300...

You can get the VTX 7870 Black (Tahiti) £150 delivered... trust!
 
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He just informed me that he has £1200 and wants a new CPU, GPU, SSD, case, keyboard, mouse, mousemat, cooler and to put the rest away... I got him to choose the keyboard, mouse, mousemat and case himself and checked that they were decent ones.

At the moment I have specced...

FX8320
HD7870 Tahiti LE (£166 elsewhere :eek:)
128GB Toshiba
Thermaltake Water 2.0
 
acme15 said:
He just informed me that he has £1200 and wants a new CPU, GPU, SSD, case, keyboard, mouse, mousemat, cooler and to put the rest away... I got him to choose the keyboard, mouse, mousemat and case himself and checked that they were decent ones.

At the moment I have specced...

FX8320
HD7870 Tahiti LE (£166 elsewhere :eek:)
128GB Toshiba
Thermaltake Water 2.0
Click to expand...

Looks good,

What components did he pick?
 
Doomedspeed said:
Looks good,

What components did he pick?
Click to expand...

CM Storm Quickfire Rapid
Razer Abyssus Mirror
Xigmatek Alfar (windowed - black/black)

Cant go wrong with the little mech keyboard, I told him it doesnt have backlighting and such, he wasn't bothered.

Mouse is alright I suppose, i'll try and talk him into getting something which offers better value for money though.

Case is solid, did a build in one before. :)
 
Is there any reason he wants to keep his motherboard or stay with AMD?

I managed to build an i5 3450, GTX 660Ti, 8GB ram and a 120gb SSD with monitor keyboard etc for £900 for a friend.

With the extra £300 and no monitor in the build you could get a really good Intel build.
 
We don't really want to do a full re-build when we can just slot in a new CPU, GPU and an SSD. The case will most likely come later, as will the peripherals.

Partially cos of the extra cost, and partially because Windows probably wouldn't re-activate if you replace the entire core system. (it is an OEM licence. Many moons ago his system was a pre-build. His motherboard died and we replaced it with a new AM3+ board a few months ago, we had to ring Microsoft and explain the situation to get Windows activated again.)

The thought did cross my mind however, and I will have a word with him about it. We might be able to nab some bargains on the MM and get an Intel system built, but he would probably need a new Windows licence, and the parts would probably have no warranty.






also, if we no longer have an AMD guy in our little 'clan', who would we pick on? :D
 
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