Upgrade time, advice appreciated.

Shatners-Bassoo

Shatners-Bassoo

Shatners-Bassoo

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Joined
25 Feb 2011
Posts
39
Good evening all.

It's that time chaps, the ole girl is starting to slow down quite a bit now. Though I have to admit it's been a while, but Sandy just ain't cutting the mustard anymore. Six years at 4.4GHz & still ticking along admirable I have to say she was a prize pony; the single greatest computer purchase I've ever made. Thank you i5-2500k, you magnificent beast.

Admiration over, I mainly game at 1080p on my aging but more than capable BenQ xl2411z, so actually hitting that 144hz bracket might be nice. Basically looking to upgrade the core components, I want the best bang for my buck maybe with some future proofing thrown in.

As for budget I don't quite know yet, I'm more keen on hearing what other people would do, I'm tempted by Coffee lake but the wait until the cheaper motherboards come out is putting me off a tad. Any opinions on a reasonable upgrade avenue?

Currents specs are:

CPU - Intel® Core™ i5-2500K OC'd to 4.4GHz
Cooler - Corsair Hydro Series H50
GPU - MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming Edition OC 3072MB GDDR5
RAM - G.Skill - Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory

I have a HAF-X case which is still good along with a beefy Corsair PSU so those bases are covered. I'm also rocking an ancient 60GB SSD, along with a 1TB WD Black + 2TB WD Green. So a new SSD is undoubtedly on the cards.

Look forward to hearing any opinions and suggestions, thank you.
 
I would drop in a decent gpu and see how you get on. That's where you are going to get the biggest boost and you may not even need to replace the 2500k. Even if it turns out that the 2500k needs replacing you won't have lost anything by trying just the gpu first as the 280x would need replacing to take advantage of a new cpu/mobo/ram anyway.
 
I have the same cpu as yourself, looking at upgrading this Xmas as starting to get small to issues from the mobo, looking at coffee lake i5-8400, checked all specs and revues etc and as a gaming cpu it comes out top in mid range gaming cpu's and stays within budget, not bothered with the Ryzens as only gaming so do not need the hyperthreading.
 
Last edited:
Patrick Covernton said:
Do you want a bump in resolution or are you happy with 1080p?
Also what games do you play?
Click to expand...

I'm happy with 1080p for the time being, maybe an upgrade to 1440p in the future. I play a fair bit of ARMA/Squad along with a lot of strat games, far too much Civ and Total War going on in my life, but I always end up playing the AAA's after a time just to see what all the fuss is about.

pastymuncher said:
I would drop in a decent gpu and see how you get on. That's where you are going to get the biggest boost and you may not even need to replace the 2500k. Even if it turns out that the 2500k needs replacing you won't have lost anything by trying just the gpu first as the 280x would need replacing to take advantage of a new cpu/mobo/ram anyway.
Click to expand...

This did cross my mind but I thought I'd just go in deep and upgrade the lot. Thinking it over though it could be worth it just to spread out the expenditure and narrow the wait for the non Z boards on the Coffee Lake.

Also just dove into the wonderful world of Ryzen mobo's and RAM pairings, good lord I'm out of the loop.

Chris.p said:
I have the same cpu as yourself, looking at upgrading this Xmas as starting to get small to issues from the mobo, looking at coffee lake i5-8400, checked all specs and revues etc and as a gaming cpu it comes out top in mid range gaming cpu's and stays within budget, not bothered with the Ryzens as only gaming so do not need the hyperthreading.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty keen on it from a future proof angle but a part of me is very impatient, don't really want to wait for the lesser boards, I'll probably have to dive into some of the cheaper board reviews to see how they fare.
 
if you are going to upgrade and seems your Games are CPU bound , i7 8700k for 6 cores and 12 threads over your current 4/4 or potential 2nd hand i7 4/8 chip

unless your happy to swing to AMD ryzen ?

worth seeing WH 2:TW reviews on OC3D or other places to see how ryzen vs intel stack up
 
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