Upgrade help

[father-ted]

Hi,

I am helping a friend upgrade his system.
He currently has the following:
Gigabyte mobo - GA-F2A58M-HD2
AMD A8-6600k processor
PSU - CIT 500u 500W

He was looking at adding:
Nvidia GTX960 gfx card
8gb ram
Expect he will have to at least upgrade the PSU?

He is looking to spend in the region of £300.
What are his best options please?
He will be using the system mainly for gaming.
OS Windows 8.1

Thanks

 

[pastymuncher]

Quite right about the psu as the one he has is absolute garbage. Either of these is more than enough:-

YOUR BASKET
1 x EVGA Supernova GS 650W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £76.99
1 x EVGA Supernova GS 550W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £71.95
1 x Antec TruePower Classic 550w '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply £59.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £54.95



I included the EVGA GS650w because it is so much better value for money than the 550w version at only a extra fiver.

 

[father-ted]

Thanks for that.

Which gfx card would best suit him (he was wanting a GTX960), is it worth him waiting a while?

Also, which ram?

 

[pastymuncher]

Any idea what resolution he games at? AMD have some new cards launching soon which may or may not trigger some price adjusting by Nvidia.

As for memory, these are decently priced:-


YOUR BASKET
1 x Corsair Vengeance Pro Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CMY8GX3M2A2400C11R) £49.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2400HC11CDC01) £49.99


The Corsair may be too tall depending on what heatsink he has.

 

[father-ted]

He usually games at 1920x1080

Thanks for your help

 

[Bluecube]

For 1080p a 960 will be perfectly ok in most cases. Badly programmed AAA titles will need a 970 though so it depends what games he plays.

 

[pastymuncher]

I think I would really want a 970 for that res just to cover all possible situations. He could try picking up a second hand GTX 780.