Upgrade for £250? (or less)

Steveh_monkey

Steveh_monkey

Steveh_monkey

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22 Apr 2006
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313
It's finally time to upgrade my 5 year old PC, and I'm on a budget. Because I've been out of the loop a while I'm a little confused so a bit of help would be much appreciated.

My current setup is

E6300
Gigabyte 965P DS3 (rev 1.3)
X1900XT
2GB DDR2 Ram
Enermax 500W PS ( I can't remember the make, but I'm sure it was a decent quality)

What can I do with a budget of £250? I'm assuming I'll need to get CPU + Mobo + RAM + GPU. I'm not accouting for the possibility that I may need a new PSU.

I'm mainly using the PC for mid level gaming. I've got a 1920*1080 monitor but will happily play at a lower resolution or lowered detail. My current setup can surprisingly hold it's own so I'm just looking for things to run along a bit more smoothly. The main games I want to play are Starcraft 2, Dawn of War 2 and other such games that aren't necessarily the highest spec.

Any advice on possible parts would be great to get me started. I'm looking into probably upgrading in stages, and if there is any reason to maybe spend an extra £50 or wait a while for a new release would be ok.

Thanks very much
Steve
 
You could fit a second hand Q6600 cpu which cost around £70.

Buy a 4GB DDR2 ram kit and sell your current 2GB kit.

Buy a GTX460/ ATI 5850.
 
I would just uprgrade your GPU, get something like a 480/6950/570 and your away. Then upgrade again when Ivy comes out or something. That E6300 is more than capable, it's your 1900XT holding you back at the moment big time. Is the that E6300 overclocked? Oh also get another 2GB of ram.

Yeah like above, sell your GPU/CPU/Ram then stick a 6950/4GB/Q6600 in, done and dusted!
 
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I've tried overclocking in the past but never with much success. A bit stupid since in my noob optimism I bought a Tuniq tower cooler for £30 with the intention of overclocking.

Anyway, I'm very glad to here that my mobo may not need replacing. I thought LGA775 may be obsolete but apparently not. I'll look into getting a new GFX card such as the ones you mentioned and then go about upgrading CPU and RAM. I might even do a bit of overclocking.

Cheers
 
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £107.99

Maybe an extra 2GB DDR2 800mhz(?) on the cheap. Should run you to around £125. Depends on your PSU, has to be SLI compliant (two PCIE 6 pin connectors required) to accept the 5850.

If the power supply is inadequate, and you are thinking of upgrading in the future, a good power supply will be handy anyway.

- 5850 : £108.
- 2GB DDR2 second hand (did a lot of good when I added 2GB on my E6600). : £20
- Good PSU for future upgrade and any card combination (even SLI/CF) : £70 -> £120.

£200 -> £250 total.

What PSU you have?
 
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PSU is an Enermax Liberty 500W, I don't actually have the PC near me right now but as far as I can tell by reading some of the reviews it does have 2 PCIE 6-pins.

Question: is 4*1GB better, worse or the same as 2*2GB? If I was to get another set of 2*1GB ram would it need to be exactly the same type? Or would it only need to be the same if I was to overclock?
 
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