Upgrade path, limited budget

AshenShugar1873

AshenShugar1873

AshenShugar1873

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Joined
12 May 2011
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435
Location
Kilwinning, Scotland
Mate has a Asus P5B Deluxe with an OCed E8400 and a HD4870 graphics. Plays at 1920x1080 on a 22'' and is interested in being ready for MW3 and probably BFBC3. Only has £150 to spend, where is the money best going and when should it be spent.

Initial thoughts are

1. Second hand Q6600 (£50) and graphics (£100) - which one? new or used?
2. Q9550/Q9650 (£100) but then what? SSD (£50) for load times
3. Wait for Bulldozer and maybe IvyBridge to come out and hope to get a P8P67 board and 2500k second hand for £150, think that will be tough.
4. I have an old 19'' monitor that does native 1280x1024, should he suck it up and play at worse resolution so the graphics card can cope - really not keen on this but...

Any thoughts or other combinations.
 
Nvidia 460 recond (1 year warranty) from OC is £90. It has cuda tech so that £90 is boosting the graphics as well as processing speeds.

I was going to post jonys link but thats pointless now. You can see his cpu is still "ok", yes games are starting to favour quad cores but that doesnt mean his rig wont run them.

Is the system Overclocked? Or is he using a stock cooler? I'd probably go with the Corsair H60 for £60 to help cool / OC the CPU and should still be compatible if he upgrades the CPU to a different socket.

So that's technically 2 boosts to the cpu and 1 to the Gfx for bang on the budget but i do get free delivery ;)
 
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honosuseri,

I don't think cooler is an option here. Trying to run Black ops on a 2 core Processor was dreadful nevermind any newer games coming out, so i feel that would be a waste of money.

I would say the best option is to get the q9550 minimum.
 
Says the man with a H-70 cooler to tame his overclocked i5K ;)

You are aware of the advantages of that cooler. The OP could just get a air cooler which would be cheaper and still have benefit and longevity for future upgrades. I would think 4ghz is a reasonable expected overclock from the E8400.

The games mentioned aren't even out yet. Couple of months isn't it? Hopefully the bulldozer CPUs will be released by that time (atleast this year we hope).
If the system is struggling the OP can then decide to swap out the CPU,Mobo and RAM. Which will be expensive or buy these very old socket Intel CPUs suggested once they depreciate further

Although I wonder how many people own the q9550 and are overclocking it to keep it competitive? Having a good heatsink would help no? ;)

The 460 is still a reasonable DIRECT X11 card and not bad for £90. i'll post a link to compare the current card to the 460

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/176?vs=181

It's only my opinion. Let him talk it through with his mate. See if he's willing to drop a few more notes on a CPU come the games release or xmas time ;)

Hope he's happy whatever you go with.
 
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Thanks for the feedback everyone. He has a Zalman CNPS9700 cooler and the E8400 is OCed to 3.6GHz. It is really struggling at times in Black Ops and think MW3 never mind BFBC3 will really need the four cores. The 460 looks an option and I can maybe get him a Q6600 and OC that to get some 4 core benefit. Will probably hold off until Bulldozer and see what happens with second hand Q chip prices and if SandyBridge prices take a big tumble.
 
Well there is plenty of posts on the internet about COD:BO being a bad port/poorly optimised game.

Im pretty sure that heatsink you have covers all the socket types which is good :)

I would buy the 460 now and reap the benefit, if nothing else it will bring the rig into the "directx11 club". Thats £90 and save the remaining cash towards a mobo bundle upgrade later. I don't see the logic of paying £60ish or more on a second hand Q6600. The rig does need a mobo bundle upgrade really.

Wait for the release of Bulldozer and then look at your options. If bulldozer looks promising he could consider a new cheapish AM3+ mobo, 4GB of DDR3 and get a 955BE second hand. The 955BE beats the Q6600 and you can buy these NEW today for £80! I'm sure there will be plenty floating around second hand once bulldozer is released. You have a heatsink to cool it and they overclock easily through the multiplier in the bios. Plus you know you can drop in a bulldozer cpu instead or upgrade later to one.

Of course sandybridge is still an option too it will depend on prices at the time as to what is best bang for buck. Remember if he does these upgrades he will have his old mobo bundle with RAM and a gfx to sell on to recoup some of his cash ;)
 
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