Upgrade

fobose

fobose

fobose

Soldato
Joined
6 Dec 2005
Posts
5,193
Location
Cambridge, UK.
Hi Guys,

I am in desperate need of an upgrade and fed up with the rig in my sig when it comes to gaming (currently playing 7 days to die alpha on low/medium settings). I mainly like FPS games.

I am going to reuse the following:

Case: Antec P182
SSD: Intel 520 180GB
OS: Windows 8 retail
GPU: Nvidia GTX 570 (I bought this on the MM as I was planning a decent upgrade a few years ago but never got around to it)

I was thinking of upgrading to the following:

Gigabyte Z97X-SLI - Devils Canyon Core i5 4690K Bundle **£12 Saving**
TeamGroup Vulcan RED 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED316G2400HC11CDC01)
EVGA Supernova G2 650W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply
Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler

Total : £468.50

Does this look like a good combo, would my money be better spent on other components? I am gaming at 1680x1050 and don't think I will be upgrading my monitors any time soon.

Is it a bad idea to keep my existing GPU? Should I invest in a new one? I like my current one as it stays silent even after a 6 hour gaming session!

Many thanks,
fobose
 
You'll see an improvement in games, but not a big one. The bottom line is the 570 is a 5 year old card with less than 2gb VRAM so it really doesn't matter what CPU you pair it with, you won't get great performance in today's games.

Looking at your choices, you're over-spending on that PSU by a fair margin - a quality 550w would do fine. Also, 8gb will be more than sufficient.

The upgrades you've suggested are fine choices overall but should be seen as a work in progress until you can afford to stick a decent GPU in too. But if you really wanted to get everything now then with a few small tweaks and a little more money you could.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £179.99
1 x HIS Radeon R9 380 IceQ X2 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H380QM4GD) £169.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £61.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2400HC11CDC01) £49.99
1 x SuperFlower FX 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - Black £49.99
1 x Raijintek Aidos Direct Contact CPU Cooler £14.99
Total : £536.54 (includes shipping : £8.00 Ex.VAT).

 
Thanks for the advice ExRayTed. I will change the ram to 8GB. I am keen to stick with a modular PSU though and I think the EVGA one looks the best out of whats available.

Am I right in thinking the Radeon R9 380 is about on par with a GTX 960? I was planning on going for a GTX 970 in a few months, but I might just add it in now if you don't think I will benefit too much if I keep my existing GPU.
 
The R9 380 is basically a 285 with minor tweaks. For the price you get 4gb VRAM and decent performance considering the low cost. The GTX 960 4GB is a marginally better card, runs cooler and consumes less power but is around £50 more. If you can stretch to it then it would be my choice.
 
Hello,

I received all my goodies yesterday, but I don't have enough time in the evenings to strip my old PC and complete the build so all I have done is installed the CPU, heatsink and ram in preparation. The weekend awaits to get everything in :)

I've got a couple of Q's if any one can help. The PSU has an 1x8pin CPU connector and a 2x4pin connector. The mobo says ATX 2x4pin on the board, so I would assume I need to use the 2x4pin PSU connector, or can I use either? They are daisy-chained on the same PSU lead so I might prefer either or depending on which looks best (case tidy reasons :D).

Also, I've been backing up my OS drive as I am going to be reusing it. Kinda wish I just bought a new drive now in case anything goes wrong as I could revert back to my old setup. Anyway, I am going to be installing windows 8.1 from a USB drive which I've already setup using the win7 USB/DVD download tool. I know its probably the wrong section to ask in, but can I use the USB 3 ports to do this? I've read online that USB 3 drivers are required. I can't find any for my gigabyte Z797X on their website so maybe this isn't an issue for newer motherboards now?

Thanks in advance!
 
In answer to your first question, yes - either connector will be fine.

As to your second, you'll need to use the USB 2 socket at the top of the board. Also bear in mind that Windows sometimes has real issues installing from certain USB 3 memory sticks even when USB 2 sockets are used. I had to buy a cheap USB 2 stick just for installing Windows from.
 
Excellent, I thought that would be the case but thought I would double check.

Ah ok, thanks for the heads up. I will pop the bootable image on to a usb 2 memory stick as a backup.

Many thanks,
fobose
 
I managed to clean out my old system components and get all the new ones installed yesterday evening.

So far everything seems to be working as it should, with the exception of my case fans running at very low RPM (350 ish). I've changed the bios setting for each fan to manual, and selected the max speed setting but they still only run around 600 RPM. They are 3pin fractal design fans (about 5-6 years old), I think they were rated around 1000-1200rpm ( they were quiet ones as I like a silent system). My temps seem low so maybe they ramp up if the temps increase?

P.S on another note I thought I would try booting windows from my USB 3 memory stick via the USB 3 ports and can confirm that definitely did not detect the memory stick. However it did work in the USB 2 port as you mentioned above ExRayTed.

*edit* I was being a doosh... I did not set the "full speed" option, doh.
 
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