Upgrade time

Claire Drew · 21 Mar 2013 at 14:21

Hi all, Looking to upgrade my old system as in sig.

I am on a tight budget of £200 and have found the below from a competitors site

AMD Bulldozer FX-4170 Quad Core 4.2GHz - Asus M5A78L-M USB3 HDMI Motherboard - Patriot 8GB 1600MHz Dual Channel DDR3 VIPER 3 BLACK MAMBA RAM Memory

The above is £199 inc Vat and p&p

Been a long time since I did any upgrading.

Couple of questions

How does the onboard graphics match up to the 5770 i have?

What should I expect from the onboard graphics as I run my pc through a Samsung 40" tv?

Finally would I be able to do some overclocking on the above board/cpu and what should I expect?

This would be running a stock cooler fyi

Doomedspeed · 21 Mar 2013 at 14:35

To be honest, I don't see that as an upgrade. The Q6600 is still a fairly capable CPU and replacing it with the 4100 isn't going to help that much.

The on boards will be far behind the 5770..

Can you overclock your Q6600?

zakblood · 21 Mar 2013 at 14:38

i'd just add a better card in the system you have already got tbh

1 x Sapphire HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Tomb Raider & Bioshock PC Games £149.99
Total : £160.79 (includes shipping : £9.00).

Claire Drew · 21 Mar 2013 at 14:42

Thanks for the replys

The CPU is clocked to 3ghz but the board is poor so I can not get any more out of it.

With that advice I may look to just get better Ram and a SSD as the pc is not used for heavy games.

Used for a HTPC and every day use such as web and a lot of flash player games

Do the odd encoding of films so would you recommend an alternative for my budget.

Just RAM, CPU & Board

honosuseri · 21 Mar 2013 at 14:53

Claire Drew said:
Thanks for the replys

The CPU is clocked to 3ghz but the board is poor so I can not get any more out of it.

With that advice I may look to just get better Ram and a SSD as the pc is not used for heavy games.

Used for a HTPC and every day use such as web and a lot of flash player games

Do the odd encoding of films so would you recommend an alternative for my budget.

Just RAM, CPU & Board

I'd probably consider this.....

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte Z68A-D3H-GEN3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 (MB-380-GI) £52.00
1 x Avexir Core Blue Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U16000904G-2CW) - Blue Light £37.99
Total : £269.98 (includes shipping : FREE).

I'm assuming you have DDR2 RAM so it can't be reused

If you sell off the old mobo bundle you'll recoup some cash. The i5K is great at video encoding, especially if your software supports the Quicksync feature. This K CPU gives you the option to overclock too.

Doomedspeed · 21 Mar 2013 at 15:18

I presume the op has the MM?

if so you could get a 2500k and Z68 motherboard secondhand. Would probably be around the £150 mark..

A 6950/560ti/570 for £70-£100 would be a good upgrade too.

honosuseri · 21 Mar 2013 at 15:23

Doomedspeed said:
I presume the op has the MM?

if so you could get a 2500k and Z68 motherboard secondhand. Would probably be around the £150 mark..

A 6950/560ti/570 for £70-£100 would be a good upgrade too.

1000 posts for the MM bud (rules here) but yes I swear I recall the mods making exceptions for long time members

For the games she plays I don't think the GPU needs to be upgraded honestly.

Doomedspeed · 21 Mar 2013 at 15:42

im sure back when I joined it was 300 at the time..

Pretty sure she'd have access..

Good point on the GPU.

honosuseri · 21 Mar 2013 at 15:53

Well with the B grade mobo she would have a 3 month warranty with OCuk and whatever is left with the manufacturer. I saw someone on the MM recently trying to sell my suggested mobo for a lot more....thread was closed after no interest was taken, can't think why lol

To be honest the i5K is a little overkill for a HTPC. Although I remember when I first got my hands on one. Clocked it to 4.2Ghz in mere minutes. I enabled quicksync in DVDfab and a 2 pass encode of a good 2 hour movie on the fly from the DVD took 20mins!! If she is looking to put her DVD collection onto storage the i5K will soon make short work of that

Claire Drew · 21 Mar 2013 at 17:48

Hi guys,

yes have access to MM I am looking for the suggested 2500k and Z68 motherboard

I have dropped a few mails so with a bit of luck I can obtain a decent upgrade for my £200 but this would also need to include the ram and cpu cooler so am sure its not to far off.

Doomedspeed · 21 Mar 2013 at 17:53

If you can get a retail version CPU you'll get a stock cooler with it, if not im sure you can get one free or close to from the wanted forum..

RAM is quite adundant in the MM too.