Upgrade suggestions please

rjhazeld · 24 Jul 2012 at 20:46

I have an Antec P 180 case with AMD 9950 CPU, cooler, Asus Mn32-sli deluxe board, 8gb ram. GPU is a Nvidia 8800 GTS driving 2 x 23" displays at 1920 x 1080. Win 7 pro is on a Crucial M3 128 gb, three data store drives 2 x 1.5gb, 1 x 250gb (used to mirror ssd). Predominantly used for photo editing and GIS mapping.

The last update was to add the ssd which improved start up and responsiveness. However as the board doesn't have ahci probably I need to start with board, cpu, memory. Question is do I stick with the AMD and get a bulldozer 8 core or go I7. Happy to stick with the P180 as long as the board fits and it will take an ATI 7900 GPU (had several weird issues with NVIDIA drivers for the GPU and nforce chipset).

Budget around a grand including a new optical drive and 256gb ssd.

Suggestions ?

RJC · 24 Jul 2012 at 20:55

What PSU are you using?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £259.99
1 x VTX3D HD 7950 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - AMD 3 for FREE Promotion £239.99
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 830 Notebook/Apple Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC256N/EU) £173.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77MX-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £99.98
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38192M1600HC11DC) £32.99
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £12.98
Total : £857.92 (includes shipping : £10.00).

rjhazeld · 24 Jul 2012 at 22:42

Thanks, good starter for intel's 10 !! The PSU is an Antec TruePower Quattro - not sure whether it's the 850 or 1000 watt version.

ozzymundo · 24 Jul 2012 at 23:46

Just to say the mobo posted in RJC's spec is a micro-ATX board, so it should fit in your case but you might want to check. You could try this instead:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £82.99
Total : £92.89 (includes shipping : £8.25).

Or if you want to go Sli in the future then this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £112.99
Total : £122.89 (includes shipping : £8.25).

The Samsung SSD's are very well thought of here, and that cooler is one of the best value coolers out there. The GPU should be pretty good as it has 3gb VRAM so you should be sorted for editing...

RJC · 25 Jul 2012 at 07:14

I think there is 2 versions of the Antec p180 a mini and standard version, the mini can only take matx boards.

But looking at op boards it's already ATX so go with the either of the 2 boards above.

rjhazeld · 25 Jul 2012 at 13:55

Thanks for the help..now to count the pennies!!

CyberCrow · 25 Jul 2012 at 16:46

Dump the i7 an go for i5 way better for your money if your only using the rig for gaming, could always put the money saved towards more ram or a better Gpu