Upgrade for gaming - rebuild or new system?

sevenpenguins

sevenpenguins

sevenpenguins

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Joined
16 Apr 2012
Posts
60
Location
London
Hi all, I bought in 2012 this system recommended by Jony27 and it has been fantastic. Still shying away from doing my own build :eek: I want to play Star Citizen and it is struggling to play Watch Dogs now..the CPU is now at 100%. Should I add or just bite the bullet and go for whole new unit?

this is the system I have now. bad news is that Sky in my area is not due for Fibre optic so stuck on poor upload speeds so need to maximise speeds on rubbish internet connection. Prepared to do some decent spend this time 1500-2000pounds. All suggestions appreciated :D Cheers!

Originally Posted by Jony27 View Post
hi mate, heres my two pence

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung S24A300BL 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Glossy Black **GET THE VAT BACK** £125.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked FTW 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (01G-P3-1363-KR) £109.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £61.99
1 x Intel Pentium G840 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £53.99
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D3V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £47.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £41.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £29.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £20.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
1 x OcUK Black Gaming Keyboard (5105GU) £10.99
Total : £546.01 (includes shipping : £20.10).

iirc, Wow prefers Nvidia over ATI/AMD and this isnt a ordinary GTX460, its factory overclocked at 867MHz instead of the stock 675MHz.

also included a very nice 24" Samsung monitor with the VAT back (£20) which brings the total to
~£525 or you could use that and get abetter eyboard such as the Sidewinder X4.
you can get a 1TB for around the same price of a 500GB if you look around .
 
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My Budget is around 1000 pound, what do you recommend I keep? I am not sure weather to start a fresh or to upgrade. Tbh I have no idea what to do, and my computer knowledge is terrible :/

I also heard that the current best pc now would only be able to play star citizen in medium when it is released next year, but i dont know how true that is :/

I was also told that i should wait till July because new graphic become available and the old best graphic cards will be cheaper, but again i dont know how true that is.

thanks for the reply space monkey all and any help is much appreciated :)
 
I have Windows 7 that i could transfer over, but i would buy windows 8 if that better? I have been shown a alienware pc for 1100 but am i paying for a brand?

i would be happy to sell the pc if thats the best option which its looking like from what you have said. What would be a fair price for it?

i am happy to go over 1000 i would like as high end as possible without going crazy. but because my knowledge is terrible am not sure whats worth it and whats not tbh.

what is the optical drive btw? :/

thanks again for the reply :D
 
Yes i was looking at getting a second graphics card, I have decided to up my costs to 1500-2000pounds.

should i wait for the release in the middle of June?
 
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That's great thanks a lot. Yes if you recommend it better to hold out a few weeks then that's no problem at all.

If I don't need to spend it all then that's an added bonus. I would have to get OCUK to build it I think as I have no idea how to do it myself.

A lot of people have told me it's very easy but I really don't want to take the risk.

I might use the PC I have now as a tool to learn from and mess around with.

do you have a rough idea of what I could sell the PC I have currently for if I leave everything on it?

I have heard it is better to have two or more hard drives and to leave the 'c' hard drive with just windows on it and the PC will run better, is this true?

thanks again guys for all the help and advice.
 
lee32uk said:
I would use your current copy of Windows 7 if you can. I don't see the point of spending another £75 or so on Windows 8.1.

Do you know which version of Windows 7 you have ? i.e 32Bit or 64Bit version ?
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No am not sure what version tbh, ll try and find out tomorrow I guess it would be in properties?
 
lee32uk said:
Here is a spec that would allow a 2nd graphics card. The cpu is just a placeholder until the new ones arrive. The case is also personal so you might want to change that as well.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Tri-X 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (11227-03-40G) £329.99
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £251.99
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £119.98
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £109.99
1 x EVGA SuperNova G2 850W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £107.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 540 High Airflow ATX Cube Case - Black (CC-9011030-WW) £98.95
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 1220 Series 4 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler £81.6
1 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (TXD38G2400HC10QDC01) £59.99
1 x Toshiba 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB/s 64MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA200) HDD £56.99
Total : £1,232.46 (includes shipping : £12.50).



You can probably add on around £150 for the cost of OCUK building and testing the pc for you, so i guess around £1400 as a rough figure.
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would you recommend having two of of the graphics card you have listed above?

and thanks for the advice.
 
lee32uk said:
It really depends on the resolution you want to game at. If you are just gaming at 1080P then a single 290 will chew through most games no problem. You can always add a second later on if it starts to struggle.
Click to expand...

I heard thought to play Star citizen you need at least 8gbs of graphics, but am not sure how true that is.

So when the cpu is released in a few week should i just go ahead and order it to build from overclockers?

how do you guys get recognition for all the advice you give? is there a way to support you?
 
lee32uk said:
Virtual Beer ? :D Just be thankful that Ethermaster hasn't seen this thread yet, or your £2000 budget could quite easily become £3000 :D
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lol I thought it might be like twitch.tv in the regards to following a streamer, like if you guys got x amount of posts or trusts then you might get recognised that way and rewarding or something I guess.

I looked at my OS its Windows 7 premium home 64bit, but i was think of going for 8.1 to keep up with the times.
 
lee32uk said:
I think you might be getting mixed up with System Ram. If the game uses a lot of Ram then just go with 16GB instead of 8GB as you have a healthy budget :)

Regarding the upcoming cpu's it looks like they might be delayed until September.

See here - http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/intel_devil’s_canyon_delayed_to_late_september_2014.html
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Hmmm should I wait till September? how much better is the intel refresh? I mean if its revolutionary I don't mind waiting.

I might go with 16GB ram but am sure my friend said that two of the best graphics cards now will only play Star Citizen on medium graphics settings when it released next year.
 
lee32uk said:
The upcoming cpu's won't be anything special in regards to performance over current ones. They will be slightly faster out of the box, but the biggest plus was the fact that they will run cooler than current cpu's due to the improved thermals. So obviously lower temps is better for overclocking and also temps within your case should be a bit lower.

I must admit I am not familiar with Star Citizen, so i am in no position to disagree with your Friend :) Are the required specs out for the game yet?
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here is the Star Citizen speccs http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=5490&game=Star Citizen

But would you personally wait for the new cpu or would you just use the one you added to the basket?
 
ok cool thanks, lol i didnt realise we were on page two i was still looking on page1 for reply's.

The overclocking confuses me, i understand there is different levels and that it basically give the hardware more potential. Id have no idea if i needed it tho or if it would be worth it and what were the consequences if it was to be overclocked.

So do i just email ocuk about building it? or is there a forum i should post on?
 
lol I did add that app, I don't mean to sound stupid but do I just go shopping now and add all of them things to the basket print screen and then add it to the pre sales link?
 
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