Upgrade shopping list; a few questions...

scoop · 26 Nov 2011 at 19:12

Hi all,

Have an old Core 2 box at home on an Asus board which is getting a bit flaky, with intermittent USB and SATA issues so thoughts are turning to an upgrade before it dies. Will re-use the case, 400W Enermax PSUs and one of the SATA-II HDDs already in there (1TB) but plan to replace the rest with one of the OCUK bundles, plus a couple of other bits. Looking for best performance/cost trade-off and the original budget was £550 (which I've already gone a bit over, at £610 so far). This get me:

i5 2500K 3.3GHz clocked to 4.4GHz
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB
OCZ Vertex 3 60GB SSD
Samsung Spinpoint F4 2TB HDD
Samsung SH-S222AB SATA DVD-RW (Have a beige case still, so wanting one with a beige bezel)

The box will be on 64-bit Win7, used for usual stuff (web, office, kid's homework) and dealing with photos on Lightroom 3. No hard-core gaming or intense graphics are likely to be going on. Given expected usage, I have a few unresolved questions in mind, if anyone would care to comment?

- Is the Gigabyte Z86X-UD3P board really worth the extra £45?
-Pondering stretching to the larger 120GB SSD: Is there much difference between the Agility 3 and the Corsair Force 3?
-Present graphics card is an ATI HD3450. Any suggestions on a cheap card more matched to the setup above, or am I not going to see much difference given what I'm using the box for?

Thoughts welcome

stulid · 26 Nov 2011 at 19:21

- Is the Gigabyte Z86X-UD3P board really worth the extra £45?

Only if you want dual GFX cards SLI/Crossfire etc.

-Pondering stretching to the larger 120GB SSD: Is there much difference between the Agility 3 and the Corsair Force 3?

Corsair Force and Crucial M4 over a OCZ all day long.

Doomedspeed · 26 Nov 2011 at 19:27

scoop said:
Present graphics card is an ATI HD3450. Any suggestions on a cheap card more matched to the setup above, or am I not going to see much difference given what I'm using the box for?

If you are looking for a cheap card, which can do all the thing you are asking and also having a bit of scope to play the odd game now and agian (you never know) this seems to be a great card to go for: GT 430

Or if that is too pricey, the ATI 5450 at half the price would sufice for general use. Though it won't be a huge increase on your 3450, where the GT430 will be.

I also agree with everything stulid said.

stulid · 26 Nov 2011 at 19:29

A cheap card isnt any better than the built-in HD3000 provided by the CPU, the motherboard features a HDMI output for this.

fowler002 · 26 Nov 2011 at 19:34

do you not have any old sata hard disk/s and dvdrw you can reuse? the prices of hards diks at the moment in all fairness is a complete joke, if you can hold off with a lower capacity storage drive with a ssd then get a new drive in the coming few months onces the prices come down.

as for the bundle it'll be a bit cheaper to get the mb/cpu/cooler/ram as seperates and oc yourself, its not too difficult and I'm sure stulid will be happy to guide you.

scoop · 26 Nov 2011 at 19:39

Thanks, guys,for advice so far. But I'm curious why~:-

stulid said:
Corsair Force and Crucial M4 over a OCZ all day long.

Understood the OCZ drives were pretty good? And do the Crucual drives now come ready flashed to 550MB/s?

Also; to answer a couple queries above:

-Was planning on getting the bundled deal for ease. However, if cheaper I'll go for the seperates. Compared to the existing CPU, the web suggests the non-overclocked CPU is already 17-fold (Edit-slight calculation error-should be 6-fold) faster so overclocking isn't a major priority. Might build with just the 1TB I have and expand later if prices continue to rise.

- Have several smaller SATA (1st generation) drives in there, plus an old IDE Lite-On DVD-RW drive. Was planning on consolidating the storage and replacing the old IDE drive as I understood the board had no IDE/FDD interfaces. As for the Graphics, I'm running twin monitirs and planned using the old card to drive both (Dell 22" Ultrasharp and an older Iiyama 1024x768 panel). Presume not easy to do this via the integrated HDMI?

stulid · 26 Nov 2011 at 19:41

scoop said:
Understood the OCZ drives were pretty good?

Unreliable and slower - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18316485 -lots of threads about in the news section and storage section saying about BSOD of OCZ drives and stuff.

fowler002 · 26 Nov 2011 at 19:57

which exact bundle are you looking at? will then be able to compare the price of it and buying as seperates.

you will need a new dvdrw in that case as you said the new mb don't have ide.

if you're wanting an extra hdd maybe get http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-252-SE

the 1tb was the same price the other night, did you miss it? you get free delivery so could have got it then ordered the rest once you'd decided

scoop · 26 Nov 2011 at 21:02

I was looking at the Krypton Z68 590i, which is £10 more than the individual components on their own.

stulid · 26 Nov 2011 at 21:03

scoop said:
I was looking at the Krypton Z68 590i, which is £10 more than the individual components on their own.

Ahh, get that then, you get a warranty to for the overclock.

scoop · 28 Nov 2011 at 10:38

Thanks all, very helpful and informative. Will save the money on the mobo and possibly chuck the savings at the GT430 card and/or a larger SSD.

Seen mixed data on the M4 and Force Series 3 drives in terms of overall performance. Some reviews suggest one is better, others suggest t'other. Is there really much of a difference, or just go for the one with the best deal? Erring toward the Corsair as the write speeds are allegedly 5x faster, though whether this will actually be noticable in real use is, presumably, debatable?

stulid · 28 Nov 2011 at 10:54

Well for the uses you have said, the higher write speeds of the Corsair will be of benefit to you. The M4 is still fast though

fowler002 · 28 Nov 2011 at 11:03

scoop said:
I was looking at the Krypton Z68 590i, which is £10 more than the individual components on their own.

How did you get £10 extra?

bundle =~£339 with 4gb ram, ~£363 with 8gb

separates

CPU £156
mb £85
CPU cooler £25
ram £20 for 4gb, £48 for 8gb(was £35 over the weekend)

total= £286 with 4gb ram, £314 with 8gb. £301 with 8gb if bought over the weekend.

So I make that to be ~£50 difference, unless of course you were looking at the price of the retail CPU(ocuk use the oem not retail so can't compare with price of the retail version).

stulid · 28 Nov 2011 at 11:07

Its actually only £41 difference.

You get this for the overclock,

- Full 12 Month collect and return warranty

Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £155.99
(£129.99) £155.99
(£129.99)
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
(£70.82) £84.98
(£70.82)
Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/LGA2011) £24.98
(£20.82) £24.98
(£20.82)
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £23.99
(£19.99) £23.99
(£19.99)
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £8.99
(£7.49) £8.99
(£7.49)
Sub Total : £249.11
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £51.72
Total : £310.33

------------------

Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Krypton Z68 590i Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30GHz @ 4.40GHz Overclocked Bundle £229.98
(£191.65) £229.98
(£191.65)
Options applied to the above product:
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £23.99
(£19.99) £23.99
(£19.99)
Options applied to the above product:
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
(£70.82) £84.98
(£70.82)
Sub Total : £282.46
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £58.59
Total : £351.55

fowler002 · 28 Nov 2011 at 11:28

why the ac5? doesn't the a50 come with pre-applied paste or a tube in the box?

just realised the upped the price of the 4gb ram to £24 so the 4gb option in calculations comes to ~£290(no need to add delivery just to those as you'll be getting other parts so the delivery will be added to the basket as a whole).

stulid · 28 Nov 2011 at 11:30

The bundle comes with AC5.

Bundle Specification
- CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30GHz @ 4.40GHz Sandybridge CPU
- Motherboard: Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (default choice)
- RAM: Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel
- Cooler: Corsair A50 CPU Cooler
- Artic Silver 5 Thermal Compound

scoop · 28 Nov 2011 at 12:50

Parhaps somewhat heretical given the name of the forum, but am now strongly pondering forgoing the overclock, buying the component bits at native clock speed and getting both a larger SSD and the graphics card.....