UpGrade

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15 Apr 2012
Posts
63
Location
North Wales
I am thinking of upgarding my PC in the next few weeks, My budget is about £500(Give or take £50),
I dont know what I should upgrade or what I should upgrade to,
So I thought I would see what you guys think I should do, Here is my spec as of now

Case : Coolermaster Haf X
Mainboard : Gigabyte G41MT-S2PT
Processor : Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.67GHZ
RAM : 8192MB (2 x 4096 DDR3 Kingston HyperX)
GFX Card : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 2GB (Gainward "GS" Sample)
Hard Disk : SAMSUNG 500GB + Western Digital 2TB
O/S : Windows 7 Pro 64bit

Any help would be great

Thanks

Welsh
 
Thanks for the quick response,

Im not really a big fan of AMD/ATI things, So I would say an Nvidia card if possible, I also have a cooler that I can use.
 

Thanks for the quick response,

Im not really a big fan of AMD/ATI things, So I would say an Nvidia card if possible, I also have a cooler that I can use.

Just out of interest, any reason why your not a AMD fan?

For that money you won't get better performance that the 2GB 6950. When runnnig games like Skyrim, this card achieves double the amount a similar nvidia card (gtx 560ti) would. Thats all down to the 2GB VRAM. If i was after a new card now the 6950 would be near the top of my list for sure.

RJC's spec looks great, as always :)
 
Just out of interest, any reason why your not a AMD fan?

For that money you won't get better performance that the 2GB 6950. When runnnig games like Skyrim, this card achieves double the amount a similar nvidia card (gtx 560ti) would. Thats all down to the 2GB VRAM. If i was after a new card now the 6950 would be near the top of my list for sure.

RJC's spec looks great, as always :)

Cheers Doomedspeed,

But I agree with the comments, for the price of the 6950 you can't go wrong, the deal will end first thing Wednesday.

OP, does your current cooler have the mount for socket 1155 socket.
 

Sorry to gate crash, but also interested in 6950 - play BF3 a lot. I heard there were issues with drivers and poor on that game vs 560ti. Any thoughts ?. Tks
 
]I done know why I am not a fan, I would be willing to give them a go however if the performance is that much better.
I suppose its every man to his own with what he prefers.

Yeah it dose have mounts, I have http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-040-AR&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

Back on topic love birds. :)

I suggest using that cooler again. It's a good product.

I've not used AMD, as i've only has 2 GPU's though my friend had a 6950 (when they were £200+) i was so jealous of the Framerates he got.
 
Just spit balling here, Would it be a good idea to keep my gtx 460 but buy the rest of the bits excluding the card and the at a later date pick up some thing like the 7970 or the gtx 670/680 ?

Also would I see much difference in performance if I just bought a new card and not the rest of the system ? I know that my board and chip would hold it back, but would it matter a huge amount, and then later in the year buy the a new motherboard and chip ?
 
The 460 is a pretty decent card and would still hold respectable frames, just dont expect miracles.

If you keep your card, Id go with this.
The 2500k is SB, but everyone on here knows that its amazing at what it does. The 3570k is exactly the same, just enables PCIe 3 and a slightly lower TDP (77w instead of 95w).

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128D/EU) £85.99
1 x Gigabyte H77M-D3H Intel H77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £74.99
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £24.12
Total : £355.09 (includes shipping : FREE).



If you dont want to keep your card, you can add a 7850.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £179.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128D/EU) £85.99
1 x Gigabyte H77M-D3H Intel H77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £74.99
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £24.12
Total : £535.08 (includes shipping : FREE).

 
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The 460 is a pretty decent card and would still hold respectable frames, just dont expect miracles.

If you keep your card, Id go with this.
The 2500k is SB, but everyone on here knows that its amazing at what it does. The 3570k is exactly the same, just enables PCIe 3 and a slightly lower TDP (77w instead of 95w).

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128D/EU) £85.99
1 x Gigabyte H77M-D3H Intel H77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £74.99
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £24.12
Total : £355.09 (includes shipping : FREE).



If you dont want to keep your card, you can add a 7850.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £179.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128D/EU) £85.99
1 x Gigabyte H77M-D3H Intel H77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £74.99
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £24.12
Total : £535.08 (includes shipping : FREE).


No point in a H77 board, it won't let you overclock the CPU.

A Z77 board can be had for the same price ~£5. That lets you overclock.

No brainer really.

The first spec looks good, just add a z77 board and a 3570k. I don't see why you'd buy a 2500k brand new, for only a fraction less than the 3570k.
 
Ok so I had a look and found that the 3570k is about +£10 more than the 2500k, so I would go for that, as for the board what is this one like http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-388-GI ?

A good idea to go for the 3570k.

That board is really good but i'd say very much out of your budget.

Are you wanting to go SLI?

If not, this will be perfect.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £189.95
1 x Sapphire HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £179.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128D/EU) £85.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-DS3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £74.99
Total : £542.32 (includes shipping : £9.50).



Top of your budget but you can sell you GTX 460 for a fair £70.

The 7850 will blow you away and it overclocks well.

You can overclock the CPU with this board, just re-use you exsisting cooler. :)
 
OK thanks for all the help, I still dont know if I will be going for SLI at some point.
I will post up what I am thinking of getting soon, Budget might be £650 if I sell my old Board and chip along with some other bits.
 
A good idea to go for the 3570k.

That board is really good but i'd say very much out of your budget.

Are you wanting to go SLI?

If not, this will be perfect.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £189.95
1 x Sapphire HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £179.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC128D/EU) £85.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-DS3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £74.99
Total : £542.32 (includes shipping : £9.50).



Top of your budget but you can sell you GTX 460 for a fair £70.

The 7850 will blow you away and it overclocks well.

You can overclock the CPU with this board, just re-use you exsisting cooler. :)

I was going to quote the exact same basket :P
 
Ok so here is what I will be getting with in a few weeks

YOUR BASKET

1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £189.95
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost £85.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-DS3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard£74.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-15000C11 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1866C11D3P1K2/8G)£53.99
1 x Ozone Strike Gaming Mechanical Keyboard£79.99
Total : £496.31 (includes shipping : £9.50).

I also need a new keyboard, And thought that the extra 8GB could not hurt.

So any thoughts on that lot ?
 
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