Upgrade questions

Yazudave

Yazudave

Yazudave

Associate
Joined
31 Jul 2012
Posts
16
Hey guys

I'm looking at upgrading and was hoping you guys might be able to help me with some advice.

My current system is:
AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 555 3.20GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3) with the extra 2 cores unlocked and clocked to 3.8ghz
Patriot Viper 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C7 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Corsair CX 600W ATX Power Supply
ASRock M3A770DE AMD 770 (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5750 XXX 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card 800mhz clock speed
WDC 250gb HDD & a 1tb Seagate HDD
Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case
Samsung Syncmaster 920N 19" monitor

I only use it for gaming (mostly MMOs) and is plenty for WoW but when I played RIFT and SWToR I had to turn the graphics down to get a decent FPS. As GW2 is on the horizon I am looking to upgrade a bit so I can play it properly.

So far I'm looking at getting:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-030-C3 £184.99
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-062-AC £99.95

I looked at a couple of GPUs around that price bracket and the clock speed on this one was a little lower but it has more processing cores - is this a good trade off or do I need to look for one with a higher clock speed?

These parts I'm definitely upgrading. An SSD would be a great improvement but I would need a new mobo for that so that may come later. Possibly looking at http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-501-AS with a Samsung 830.

Budget-wise I'm looking at about £300 for now for the GPU and monitor which I'm thinking is enough to play GW2 on good graphics. With the mobo above I was thinking if I get that it would last me for a while if I decide to get a better CPU/memory later on.

What do you guys think? Any help on this is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Yazudave
 
7850, can overclock to 580 levels: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-100-GI&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411

Unless Piledriver fixes the poor IPC Bulldozer has, the only CPU upgrade you should consider is a 3570K. Plus the games you play are more CPU dependant, so perhaps it's better to upgrade the CPU/MB instead. The RAM you can reuse.

Looking at the system requirements for those games, it seems the 5750 meets the recomemended requirements, even for GW2.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £82.99
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
Total : £305.38 (includes shipping : £9.50).

 
An SSD will work fine with your existing motherboard. There's only a small performance penalty for using SATA 2 rather than SATA 3. My Crucial M4 still flies despite being plugged into a SATA 2 port.
 
I'm currently using a stock cooler on my CPU - I think I could get a little bit more out of it if I bought a decent one and then if that's still not enough I can at least use the new cooler on the new chip if I need it.

I can get the SSD straight away then and use it on SATA 2, and then when I need a new motherboard it can get bumped up to proper speed (would be nice to cut down the loading screens!).

The GPU specs confuse me to be honest -would the one I linked with more processing cores and higher effective memory clock speed be better or are there other factors I need to consider? (sorry if it's getting too technical for a general query).
 
for a 300ish quid upgrade, this is probably your best bet.


YOUR BASKET
1 x PowerColor HD 7850 PCS+ Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz & Dirt Showdown PC Games £191.99
1 x Intel 330 Series 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £83.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 612S CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/1156/1155/775/AM3/AM2+/AM2) £31.79
Total : £319.16 (includes shipping : £9.50).



aftermarket heatsink so you can oc your cpu further. (and when you want to upgrade to an i5k, you can use the same heatsink.
the 7850 is (arguably) better than the 6950. around 5% ish. the 7850 also uses less energy, and is the newer generation (not that being newer makes any difference tbh lol).
the intel 330 is in stock ;p
i'd go for the samsung 830, but that isnt in stock at the moment
 
Ah lol. Well I've got just under 3 weeks before it comes out - any idea on how long it takes to get some more in? I'm sure another couple of weeks of WoW loading screens won't kill me!

I was originally looking at £300 for the GPU and new monitor (was the one I put any good btw?) and then spending extra on the new SSD/cooler that would be separate. I've just considered these upgrades for possible re-use later on if I get a new motherboard/CPU etc. It does seem like I'm just awkwardly building a new system, but I'm trying not to! ;)
 
Curses! Foiled!

Well for now I think the PCS+ GPU, the CPU cooler, the SSD (Samsung 830 when it's in stock) and the monitor will be a worthy upgrade?
 
i think that's more than 300 quid ;p
but i guess if you can sell ur 19inch on fleabay, it should help recoup some of the extra $$$
 
You can sell all your stuff you have at the mo on fleebay and get an upgrade to a better gpu and i5.
 
Honestly I would get the i5 instead. A new GPU probably won't help your games since they all are CPU dependant. You're pretty much reaching the limits of the PII if it's clocked at 3.8ghz and unlocked.
 
The £300ish was just what I was looking at spending on the GPU and monitor. I'm happy spending the £85 on the SSD and £25-30 on a decent cooler separate to that. The SSD/cooler/monitor will be a good upgrade from what I have now and should last me.
 
I've looked at the benchmark between the i5 3570k and the FX-8 8150 and the 8150 scores higher and is cheaper - is there something I should be aware of that makes it not a viable option?
 
That's benchmarks, which will use all the cores, hence the higher score. In gaming though, the extra cores does nothing. Games usually only use 2-4 cores, and because of this, due to the 3570K's higher IPC (better performance per clock) the 3570K does a lot better than the 8150. The 8150 actually does worse than your CPU due to the lower IPC compared to the PII.

When you're doing a gaming build, never look at benchmarks, always read reviews instead. This will give you a much better picture on what CPUs can do.

2500K vs 8150: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=434

And you can see in the gaming benchmarks below, the 2500K has a massive lead over the 8150.

The 3570K performs better than the 2500K, so the 8150 won't even come close.
 
If I was to go for the GPU upgrade would it be worth spending the extra £60 to get the 7950 instead? I'm thinking in terms of how long it will last before I next need to upgrade it i.e. would I be able to get an extra 12/18 months out of it?
 
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