Upgrade help please

Greenwich720 · 10 Mar 2011 at 19:11

Hi guys, i'm on the verge of purchasing a few upgrades from here and was wondering if I've made the right decisions?

I was looking at -

AMD Phenom II X6 Six Core 1090T Black Edition 3.20GHz (Socket AM3)
OCZ StealthXStream 2 600W Power Supply
Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2 (AM3) Motherboard

Would these components be compatible? My max budget is £280 including delivery and i'm hoping to run Arma 2 / FSX a little smoother? The GPU i'll be using is an ATI HD 5770.

Thanks

4T5 · 10 Mar 2011 at 19:13

Hello mate.
You'll get a better response listing the items rather than posting links, Sorry but we're lazy.
Post your Current specs as well.

Greenwich720 · 10 Mar 2011 at 19:30

Done

My current specs are -

AMD 64 X2 6000+ @ 3.0GHZ
3GB DDR2 Ram
Asus M3A
ATI HD 5770 1GB
Win Power 535W PSU

I'm experiencing lag in a lot of games, even such as F.E.A.R and Gothic 2.

Pighardia · 10 Mar 2011 at 19:37

i would get what you can for cpu/mobo/ram/gpu and get these-

Your basket

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 OC 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £124.99
(£104.16) £124.99
(£104.16)

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £104.99
(£87.49) £104.99
(£87.49)

Asus M4A88T-M AMD 880G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £53.98
(£44.98) £53.98
(£44.98)

OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3G1333LV4GK) £32.99
(£27.49) £32.99
(£27.49) Sub Total : £264.12 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 : £54.72 Total : £328.34

or a 5850 depending on how much you get for the 5770

but yes, what you posted is all compatible.

Greenwich720 · 10 Mar 2011 at 19:47

I like those suggestions, is it even worth keeping the 5770 at all? I was blaming the poor performance on my CPU as i'm pretty much experiencing lag in every game i play.

Pighardia · 10 Mar 2011 at 19:52

5770 is capable enough, but not great. A 460/5850 will be a great improvement though.

the problem with the upgrades you suggested is that the mobo upgrade will mean your ddr2 ram will not be compatible with it, so you'll have to get new ram anyway, which is not a problem, as its so cheap atm.

Someone else will no doubt have other suggestions though. There are cheaper cpu's which will still give you a significant upgrade.

I'm not sure of the benefits of the 1090t over a 955be when it comes to gaming, i don't think there's that much difference though. Not £50 worth anyway

hybrid572 · 10 Mar 2011 at 20:01

The Phenom II X4 840 is the best value for money AM3 CPU at the moment. It's about £23 cheaper than the 955, yet chucks out incredibly similar performance. As Pig said, you'll need to replace the RAM as well as the motherboard.

Ignore suggestions to replace the 5770. Although it does pale a little in comparison to the 460/5850/6850, it's still a cracking graphics card and certainly not worth spending big money on upgrading, as it'll only be a marginal increase.

Reaper 392 · 10 Mar 2011 at 20:02

Pighardia said:
5770 is capable enough, but not great. A 460/5850 will be a great improvement though.

the problem with the upgrades you suggested is that the mobo upgrade will mean your ddr2 ram will not be compatible with it, so you'll have to get new ram anyway, which is not a problem, as its so cheap atm.

Someone else will no doubt have other suggestions though. There are cheaper cpu's which will still give you a significant upgrade.

I'm not sure of the benefits of the 1090t over a 955be when it comes to gaming, i don't think there's that much difference though. Not £50 worth anyway

for gaming going for a 6 core processor is completely pointless. most games are written for 3 cores so they can work for consoles, and very few are written for more than 4 cores.

save the money and go for the 955BE, or spend some money and get an i5-2500K

Pighardia · 10 Mar 2011 at 20:05

hybrid572 said:
Ignore suggestions to replace the 5770. Although it does pale a little in comparison to the 460/5850/6850, it's still a cracking graphics card and certainly not worth spending big money on upgrading, as it'll only be a marginal increase.

no it's not bad at all, but as he's upgrading a gaming pc, maybe selling the 5770 for £70-80 and getting a 460 for £100ish might be a good move

Greenwich720 · 14 Mar 2011 at 20:49

Hi again, i bought the Phenom 955, Asus M4A88T-M and the OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Dual Channel Kit.

All is well apart from the RAM, the computer won't even start with one of the sticks so I'm guessing it's faulty so I'm only running 2gb at the moment.

I'm going to be looking at some RAM that isn't OCZ such as the Corsair XMS3 4GB Kit. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-203-CS&tool=3

Does anyone know how far i can expect the 955 to overclock with the stock fan?

Thanks

hybrid572 · 14 Mar 2011 at 21:31

OCZ RAM does seem to have a higher-than-average RMA rate, it sounds like you got unlucky. Geil are a well-known reliable RAM, and the Corsair XMS3 is well known for its speed, reliability and overclocking potential (although obviously this won't matter too much with an unlocked multiplier).

Check the CPUs section for details on overclocked Phenom IIs, but I would think you'd be lucky to get more than a 10% performance increase without a serious heat problem. In terms of aftermarket cooling, the Hyper 212+ and the Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 are both serious coolers that produce very low temperatures for £20.