Trying to justify an upgrade

[GizmoTheMogwai]

I've had my rig for over 2 years now, it's served me pretty well;


Intel Pentium E5200 @ 3.20GHz
4GB DDR2 RAM
ATI 5750 (upgraded from 4850)



I want to run the next wave of games at high settings with anti-aliasing/HDR etc, and this current build is not capable of doing that for the majority of games. I have a budget of £270, and I was thinking of waiting for the 7000 series of ATI cards before upgrading.

My questions are;



Would my graphics card be a major bottleneck?


Is now a good time to upgrade in this lifespan of hardware?


Would the performance increases added by the above hardware justify the cost?


My PSU is at 600W, is this enough to power the above?

Cheers,

Daniel

 

[RJC]

Problem is in my mind is you have chosen the k series CPU with a H61 board which allows for virtually zero option to over clock the cpu.

You could drop the cpu down and get a better GPU, do you have a budget?

 

[Ak!ta]

Yes your gpu would be a bottleneck.
If you can stretch to this, it will be a vast improvement.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE DIRT3 & Deus Ex PC Games £119.99
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £109.99
1 x MSI H67MA-E35 Intel H67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro-ATX Motherboard - (Sandybridge) **B3 REVISION** £64.99
1 x Corsair Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit £19.18
Total : £325.55 (includes shipping : £9.50).



Just noticed you should get free shipping, so £9.50 off this price !!!

 

[GizmoTheMogwai]

I have a budget of £270, and I was thinking of waiting for the 7000 series of ATI cards before upgrading.

 

[mp260767]

I have a budget of £270, and I was thinking of waiting for the 7000 series of ATI cards before upgrading.

do that get the mobo/cpu and memory first and run with your current card, IF you think you can put up running games at lower settings until its upgraded.

 

[GizmoTheMogwai]

do that get the mobo/cpu and memory first and run with your current card.

Do you think a 5750 with a i5 could run Battlefield 3 at high settings?

 

[RJC]

Come up with this, the board should allow for future SB upgrades.:

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-2400 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 Canyon PC Game £149.99
(£124.99) £149.99
(£124.99)
Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard ** LOWEST UK PRICE ** £99.98
(£83.32) £99.98
(£83.32)
Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £24.98
(£20.82) £24.98
(£20.82)
Sub Total : £229.13
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £47.73
Total : £286.36

 

[mp260767]

Do you think a 5750 with a i5 could run Battlefield 3 at high settings?

i would say not, there have been no real benchmarks yet, and iirc most of the bf3 displays were done with nvidia 580 gtx cards.

if thats your main game then i would suggest holding off until the bench marks are released for bf and see how your current setup runs.

what size monitor do you have and what resolution do you currently game at ?

spec wise i'd go oppposite to rjc and get the 2500K processor with a p67 mobo like the Asus P8P67 LE.

 

[GizmoTheMogwai]

i would say not, there have been no real benchmarks yet, and iirc most of the bf3 displays were done with nvidia 580 gtx cards.

if thats your main game then i would suggest holding off until the bench marks are released for bf and see how your current setup runs.

what size monitor do you have and what resolution do you currently game at ?

I have a 32" HDTV @ 1360x768

 

[mp260767]

i think it will struggle at that res with all the bells and whistles on, but should be playable by tweaking the graphics settings.