upgrade or start again?

mowlio

mowlio

mowlio

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16 Mar 2010
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211
My PC is getting close to 3 years old now I'm going to buy a new one soon but before I do is there any point? I know I'd need a new graphics card and some more ram but other than that what do you guys think?

Currently running:
5850 at stock
4 gig of Ripjaw 1600
Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard
Intel Core i5 750 2.66GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156
 
Really depends on what you do with your computer and your budget. Cutting edge gaming? Probably need to upgrade most of the components. Moderate gaming? Another 4gb of RAM and a GPU upgrade will likely keep you ticking over.
 
Budget is about £1,000 -£1,200 for a new build. I want the ability to play bf4 nicely with the hope my PC will last another year and a half - 2 years
 
Then you have no option but to go new really. i7 for the cores and a big PSU for possible crossfire in future.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £309.95
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £275.99
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £149.99
1 x MSI Z87-G45 Gaming Series Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £113.99
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 750W Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (0-761345-06223-7) £99.95
1 x Toshiba 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA200) HDD £68.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan GOLD 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLYD38G2400HC11CDC01) £65.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black (CC-9011023-WW) £49.99
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler £29.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £1,192.40 (includes shipping : £10.50).

 
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YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £309.95
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £259.99
1 x Antec High Current Gamer 850W Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (0-761345-06225-1) £119.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 540 High Airflow ATX Cube Case - Black (CC-9011030-WW) £116.99
1 x MSI Z87-G45 Gaming Series Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £113.99
1 x Toshiba SSD HG5D Series THNSNH 7mm 128GB Solid State Hard Drive - (THNSNH128GCST) £79.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLD38G2400HC11CDC01) £71.99
1 x Toshiba 2TB 5700RPM SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ABA200) HDD £64.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H100 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler *Manufacturer Refurbished Unit - 90 Day Guarantee £44.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £1,211.95 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
Forgot to mention I have all the other bits.

PSU is 900w Tagan so that should be ok. Although a new case would be helpful as mine is quite small.

If I were to just go Graphics and ram route how long would you expect mine to last before it starts to struggle?
 
mowlio said:
Forgot to mention I have all the other bits.

PSU is 900w Tagan so that should be ok. Although a new case would be helpful as mine is quite small.

If I were to just go Graphics and ram route how long would you expect mine to last before it starts to struggle?
Click to expand...

It`s hard to say how long it would last before it starts struggling.
You could also get a decent cooler(if you don`t have one already) and OC your Cpu, that will help in the performance department.
 
I have a freezer 7 atm. If I were to just upgrade I would probably go for watercooling for my CPU and overclock it to buggery.

Is there likely to be an bottleneck issue with the CPU though if I got a new card?
 
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get a new card and try it,there will be some bottleneck but still be improvement over current card

could put in an i7 860 in current board with hyperthreading if you can pickup one cheap
 
If you've a freezer 7 in there you can overclock your CPU a lot, get a new graphics card and see how you feel, the i5 750 is still fine for most games if you're not after maximum settings.

Say a 7950, 7970, 270X or 280X with the CPU running 3.6 to 4GHz should be fine.
 
Overclocked to 4.0, 10 hours stable on small FFTS and 6 and counting on blend. Temps are 81c... how does that sound?

What Graphics and Ram would you go for?

I could spend £700 for an upgrade... but spending that much on an upgrade seems a bit half arsed as I could sell my current one...
What would I expect to earn from selling my current one?

Asus ATI Radeon HD 5850 @ stock
Intel Core i5 750 @ 4.0ghz
G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB
Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L
Tagan TG900-U33 900w
Cooler Master Elite 335 Cas
Sony Optiarc AD-5240S 24x
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler
 
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My brother just stuck a 7950 in to his i5 750 pc and it runs games brilliantly, the i5 750 is still a decent cpu.

His one is running at stock speed with 8gb corsair vengeance and I put a spare 120gb SSD in for him too which has sped it up nicely.

Personally if I was you id be going for a decent gnu and a slight overclock on your CPU. Id also consider getting an SSD too as it will make you computer seem twice as fast in day to day use. A ram upgrade would be preferable too but id be tempted to leave that for a bit as ram is so expensive at the minute.
 
How come it's more expensive at the moment?

£72 doesn't seem unreasonable for 8 gig to me.

My upgrade plan was to get a New GPU, ram, an SSD and maybe a new case.
 
I'm looking at getting a 7970, is the a particular brand I should go for? I like the idea of having the freedom to over clock.
 
OK I've decided to just upgrade.

I'm only looking at GPU, SSD and Ram now as I've managed to get a Zalman Z9 case for free.

I was considering the options of maybe doing 2x 7970 in crossfire, although of course I would need a new motherboard for this. Is it worth doing?

I'd like 16gb of ram too, although is it worth the money?

P.S my new case didn't come with a 3.5 floppy cover, I don't suppose anyone on here might have a black mesh one that would fit that they don't need? Cheers.
 
For gaming 8gb ram is enough, on the Gpu the 280x > 7970 and equal to the 7970ghz edition so keep that in mind and check the prices of the too.

X fire would be held backmore by your cpu I believe so I recommend getting 1 card, more ram and trying that out first. See how it feels before you buy anything else, for the most part it should hold you over for another year or even 2.
 
but if I got a 290 theres a chance I could flash it to a 290x I suppose, so it seems like a decent use of the extra £100 or so...

Are there still many instances of that happening?
 
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