Upgrade Advice needed!

[Joshy]

Hi there.

I don't usually venture outside of Motors but I'd like some input regarding some upgrades I want to perform to my PC. The build is about 3 years old now, and even back then it was a budget build and although its working nicely, I'm looking to get back into PC gaming a little bit more than I do now so I feel an upgrade is in order.

Specs
ATI (now AMD, when did that happen!? ) 4870 1GB
E5200 Overclocked @ 3.2Ghz
4GB PC6400
DFI P45 motherboard
1TB Harddrive X2
430W PSU

When I built that system I wasn't clued up too much on hardware back then, now I'm well behind and not really sure what sort of upgrades I should make.

I'd like to able to get playable frame rates on high/ultra settings at 1900x1080 on most games. Truth be told I can already manage this on most games with my CPU seemingly being what holds me back (I.E the reason I run my E5200 overclocked is because there is a noticeable frame rate difference between 2.5GHz and 3.2Ghz).

What sort of upgrades would you guys recommend?

Is it worth me staying on old tech and buying second hand, or should I just nuke this build and start again? There is not set budget, I'm just after cost effectiveness (But let's say I don't want to spend more than £400. I'm willing to buy s/h).

Any input is appreciated

Thanks

Josh

 

[Joshy]

Wow! I didn't realize that an upgrade to a i3/5 processor, even a modest speced one would yield such an increase in performance!

Originally I was thinking about just upgrading to a Q6600 and going for a better graphics card, but even with the 4870 it seems like the CPU is causing a bottle neck, the only reason I run at 3.2GHz is because it makes the difference between unplayable and playable in some games compared to stock speed, and now I'm thinking that even with 2 more cores a Q6600 is going to make much difference considering it'll run at the same clock speed and is the same vintage of tech.

Regarding the PSU, its a Coolermaster unit and I am a little concerned that it won't have enough juice to power the new generation of tech, in fact to be honest I was surprised that it worked on my current build! Is it worth the £50 or so for a new PSU or is today's hardware more energy efficient than I'm giving it credit for?

 

[Joshy]

Thanks so far chaps.

I'm trying to keep costs down so I'm considering buying second hand. Do you think a I3 processor like a 550 will net me a decent performance gain. From a bit of reading I gather that one should be able to overclock easily past the 4GHz mark?

Will older 1155 chips work okay in a recent motherboard?

I'm thinking a I3 550 for £40, new motherboard for around £80 and 8GB of RAM. Then I just need to add a £100 or so graphics card and I'm set with a fair bit of scope to upgrade when the time (and money!) comes?

 

[Joshy]

As for what to go for, based on what you have said you have a budget of ~£160 for the new motherboard/CPU/RAM,would that be accurate?

Sort of.

I'm a 'bang for buck' sort of guy. I (like 99% of us I imagine!) want the most performance I can get for a reasonable amount of money. I am willing to spend upto £400 on an upgrade if, and only if it has a noticeable performance increase on say an upgrade that I could do for £250. If the difference is negligible then I'll go for the cheaper system.

An extra 10% in benchmarks isn't something that floats my boat. Real world performance is all that matters, and if it isn't noticeable, I'm not really that bothered .

 

[Joshy]

Thanks for that, sounds like just the sort of upgrade I'm looking for.

Still not sure how far to go on the Graphics card front. I've heard great things about the 560TI, but is it really worth the extra compared to something like the 6850?

 

[Joshy]

Looking at Benchmarks over on Hexus it doesn't really look like the 7850 which from what I can gather is the best buy for the circa £200 market is really all that much more powerful than the 6850 at my res for nearly half the price?

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/36269-amd-radeon-hd-7850-vs-6850-vs-5850-clocks/?page=2

The only game where the 7850 pulls ahead is in Crysis, where in everything else it barely has a few frames on the older, cheaper card which is disappointing.

Do you guys think a 6850 now and then another £100 upgrade in a year would make more sense than the £200 on a 7850 now?

 

[Joshy]

Aye, those are the tests with all those cards at 860MHz. That is the stock core clockspeed of the 7850, but a decent overclock for the HD 6850 (which is a 40nm 775MHz card). As you say, the 7850 does a bit better in the gaming tests and at stock speeds for all the cards the 7850 does pretty well (see here).

But the main selling points of the 7850 are its overclocking ability (see here), the 2GB VRAM and cool/quiet operation.

My word, I didn't realize the 7850 had such massive overclocking ability!

Looks like that's where my money is going to be spent!

 

[Joshy]

Right, that's CPU, RAM, and Graphics card pretty much all sorted then, thanks guys!

My next question is on SSDs. For the sake of £60ish new/£50 used should I take this upgrade as an opportunity to get a small 60GB SSD and installing windows and my core programs on that?

Again, I know benchmarks are impressive for SSDs, but I'm after real world results.

I'm not sure if it is due to the fact that my install of windows is 3 years old but my computer feels a bit sluggish when it comes to loading times. Is a SSD likely to make a massive difference to general window usage?

 

[Joshy]

Thanks guys, you've been a massive help so far!

Now just to jump back to my concerns about PSUs. Is it even worth me risking running overclocked I5 2500k and 7850 on my weedy 430w Coolermaster PSU or should I stop being so tight and fork out for a new Power supply?

And the good news is that I've already bought a i5 2500k .