Upgrade me with £300 (with a twist)

leemonk

leemonk

leemonk

Associate
Joined
13 Aug 2006
Posts
114
Hi all,

I want to upgrade my PC experience.

I'm looking at a number of things that need reworking including my home network powerline systems, but that is a separate issue.

I have around £300 to spend and want to upgrade the machine listed below.

Some previous idea's were around an SSD and Windows 7 upgrade and if those still stand then fine, but I was surprised to find that my RAM is very low and it turns out my Mobo can't handle much more of it.

What I want to try and do with this thread is get some good suggestions but also to learn from it. So...... what I am proposing is that if you post an idea that is different to the person above, can you please explain WHY you'd do it the way you suggested.

One thing I ask, not that it's an issue on these forums, but please keep it friendly and explanations such as "it sucks" doesn't help me learn ;)

I generally use my machine for lots of internet stuff, a little basic word/excel and I play EvE online, Football Manager and Civilization and very little else (though, I do play these games a lot and often double/triple client with EvE).

I have dual monitors

I also stream movies from my PC to my PS3

One last thing. I will NOT upgrade the graphics card.


My current PC:

Lian-Li PC-7B PLUS II Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black (No PSU)
Corsair HX 520W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-520HXUK)
Samsung SH-183LBEBN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Black)
Samsung T240 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor
ATI Radeon HD 5800 (overclockers model - detail not in old orders)
Noctua NF-S12 1200RPM 120mm Silent Case Fan - 3 Pin
Samsung SpinPoint T 400GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD401LJ)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000528AS)
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (66I-01939)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
Noctua NH-U12P CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/LGA775)
G.Skill 2GB DDR2 PK PC2-6400C4 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-6400
OS - Windows Vista


Regards

Lee
 
Well, Vista is well known as a memory hog and you don't have that much to spare! I'd go with 4GB of DDR2 and the W7 (x64) OS upgrade. On top of that a SSD would breath new life in to your machine, drop your OS and EvE on it.

Something like:
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G) £49.99
Corsair Value Select 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C4 667MHz Dual Channel Kit (VS4GBKIT667D2) £47.99

Sub Total : £151.64
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.00
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £31.93
Total : £191.57

re-read your post and basiically this is what has been mentioned before, other than that, I'm really not sure what you could do...

e: you're motherboard supports up to 8GB RAM:
Memory 1.Supports DDR2 1066*/800/667 memory
2.Dual Channel architecture supports up to 8GB by 4 DIMM slots
 
Last edited:
A little over

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £99.95
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128D/EU) £79.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £23.99
1 x Zalman CNPS5X-Performa Quiet Compact Tower CPU Cooler (Socket 1155/1156/775/FM1/AM3+/AM3/AM2+/AM2/939/940/754) £13.99
Total : £314.30 (includes shipping : £9.50).



Ivybridge I3 with hyperthreading. good processor with intels latest architecture supports pci-e3.0 etc incase you wanted to upgrade gfx card in future

gigabyte board, good quality board, UK RMA base. Has USB 3 and Supports PCI-E-3.0 incase you wanted to upgrade gfx card in future also. also will support higher end cpu's incase you again upgraded to an i5 in future.

Sasmun SSD is a really good fast SSD

8GB of ram, DDR3 1600 mhz dont need anything else!

Zalaman CPU cooler, never really seen this cpu cooler before, but like the look of it and zalman tend to do good coolers so would trust it.



With windows 7

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x Intel Pentium G840 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £56.99
1 x OCZ Agility 3 60GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-60G) £43.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £23.99
1 x Zalman CNPS5X-Performa Quiet Compact Tower CPU Cooler (Socket 1155/1156/775/FM1/AM3+/AM3/AM2+/AM2/939/940/754) £13.99
Total : £319.33 (includes shipping : £9.50).



stil decent cpu for what you want to do and will allow for upgrade later on if needed, 60gb SSD instead of 120.
 
Last edited:
I'd be going with something like the above, you really need more ram and to not change your mobo/cpu will mean having to spend far to much money to get it and leave you still on an outdated platform
 
Thank you for the replies, and the information with them.

I am more inclinced towards a motherboard and more RAM at this stage as it does seem to be the main thing holding everything else back at this stage.

However, if there are any more suggestions along with a lesson to be learnt, then I am happy to keep listening.

Regards

Lee
 
Hi,

I just wanted to re-visit this..... though, I now have £500 to spend! Yay..... new job and all :)

Thus could I please ask for your recommendations on what to upgrade for £500.

Thanks

Lee
 
Just under :)

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £179.99
1 x Plextor M5S 128GB Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5S) £82.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £43.99
1 x Noctua Mounting Kit NM-I3 - Socket 775/1156/1366 £5.99
Total : £484.34 (includes shipping : £9.50).



New i5 processor great for multithreaded tasks as well as single threaded because of its high IPC.

Its worth noting at this point its your GPU that will be holding you back from running 3 EVE clients at once at max settings. I use a 6850 to run 2 and I have no lag but bump it up to 3 and the fps drops horribly.
 
 
 
OP,

one thing I've been able to quickly learn about is the latest 2 gens of intel processors and the latest graphics cards by simply by sticking into google 'cpu/gpu comparison list 2013'.

allows you to get a gauge on what each of said 2 components are able to push out these days, and if you specifically look around on retailers websites for a particular product, you're able to guage what is best bang for buck!

Alongside this you also pick up about AMD and even RAM too!

Takes a little doing, but I've learnt one hell of a lot by simply doing this.
 
 
thank you very much for the prompt replies chaps.....

Quite a bit of crossover on a number of the products, so it should make a decision a bit quicker :)

Interestingly you all seem to be mostly split on the OS.... Is this a cost issue? with the Windows 8 being an upgrade costs and 7 being a new setup? Or are there performance differences too?

One other thing that worries me a little is space.... I bought a OC branded (not sure the makers though) graphics card a while back and it only fit when I push some other stuff around.... it is enormous!

How do I check this and know if it will all fit? Can I just send the list of components to OCUK and ask them?

Also...... if I squeeze another £25 or so out of the boss (read the wife), could that MoBo take 12 or 16 gigs of RAM? (And would it be worth it?).

I looked and saw it was 4xDDR3, but I could see four slots on the Mobo itself.



Regards

Lee
 
Isn't windows 8 more 'tablety'?

I love my iPad and can certainly see the benefits of this but how well does it translate to a mouse and keyboard?

What other benefits (without turning it into a 8 vs 7 thread) are there?

Regards
 
TommyV said:
OP,

one thing I've been able to quickly learn about is the latest 2 gens of intel processors and the latest graphics cards by simply by sticking into google 'cpu/gpu comparison list 2013'.

allows you to get a gauge on what each of said 2 components are able to push out these days, and if you specifically look around on retailers websites for a particular product, you're able to guage what is best bang for buck!

Alongside this you also pick up about AMD and even RAM too!

Takes a little doing, but I've learnt one hell of a lot by simply doing this.
Click to expand...

Interesting the AMD 8350 outperforms the i5 listed here, and it's cheaper.

So why are people always recommending intel i5's over any amd's?

Confused :confused:

Edit: Ahh I see game peformance wise i5 does win over, but only slightly.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom