Upgrading after years-help please

soprano

soprano

soprano

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4 Mar 2010
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Hi guys, just joined (took days of email verification:mad:) however here now and keen to get some advice from all you experienced people.

I got a Lian Li case 4 years ago and decent components but as I'm totally out of touch could you advise whats best for a gaming pc (FPS) that also does picture and video and work stuff so needs to be quiet.

Basically I need to get a new MOBO/GFX card (Nvidia please)/ CPU (intel) and RAM/sound card and update from win XP to Win 7:)

seems a lot I know which beggars another question, should I just buy a ready made system?

thanks for any advice
 
anyone would be foolish to recomend you an NVidia card atm mate, ATI are better and cheaper, Id strongly recomend looking at a 5850
If you want to stick to Intel you can look at an i5 based system, i5 750 cpu with a P55 mobo, RAM wise you want 4 gig of dual channel DDR3, do you really need a dedicated sound card? most mobo's have perfectly adequate onboard unless youre an audiophile/into music/sound etc
Have a look at my guide in my sig/at top of page for a couple of £1000 builds, one intel one AMD, they include case/psu but drop these out and use the money for win7 home premium 64bit retail
And welcome btw
 
You haven't mentioned your monitor and what resolution it supports, no point spending anything if you are using a 19" monitor running at 1280x1024 (like i was!)
 
95thrifles said:
anyone would be foolish to recomend you an NVidia card atm mate, ATI are better and cheaper, Id strongly recomend looking at a 5850
Click to expand...

In terms of price/performance ATI have the edge atm but the reason I was recommended an NVidia card by a friend is that he does computer repairs for a lot of people and he's seen far more 4000 and 5000 series ATI cards dying than GTX 200 series. I'm not sure if I made the right call with going for a gtx 260 but it doesn't seem massively different in terms of value for money than the 4000 series (bought mine 2nd hand though).
 
Its all personal preference as far as video cards surely?

Last ATI card I had was a 9800pro, which was much better than the Nvidia cards of the time, however it's the only video card I've ever had that went wrong. Twice.


Personally I wouldnt touch another ATI card with a long pole :)
 
Personal preference can come into it somewhat but at the end of the day both brands offer products that do the same thing so logically you should go for whichever is better value for money. The GTX 295 for one is seriously over priced atm.
 
thanks guys, great advice, why an i5 and not i7?
why win7 64 home instead of professional
Comfortable with nVidia so what card ie 285?

what about buying one of the OC gaming rigs like Goliath?
 
The current nvidia cards do not support dx11, so you won't see all the goodies in games like avp, bc2 etc.

i5 and i7 are almost identical in terms of gaming
win7 home does all you need, unless you actually need one of the features from professional.

What monitor you currently use and at what resolution?
 
I'd agree with buying one of the OC rigs if you need to start from scratch, unless you particularly like building/OC'ing your own machine :)
 
i5 and i7 are fairly identical in terms of performance the only thing i can think of is the 8x 8x PCI express slots if you were thinking of going SLI/Crossfire I would go for a i7 for the 2x 16x PCI express slots instead of 2x 8x you get on i5 boards.
 
MonkeykingZX said:
really?
Nvidia drivers fries yoru card


but seriously there's no point sticking to one company if you want the most for your money, you owe them nothing and they're really not great value for money atm
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ok I'm willing to be persuaded, I had one ATI card years ago and issue after issue after issue but they are hopefully better now. I'm totally out of touch with them so what would the ATI equivalent of the GTX 285 be?

@EnderXi, thanks thats sound advice
@Showboat, I didnt know that so ATI would be better then
@BrandyShot, the OC rigs seem a very good option so thanks for the affirmation.

My monitor is a 22" widescreen LG that does up to 1680x1050
 
The 5850 costs slightly less (depending on which manufacturer) the 5870 costs slightly more than the 285. The 5850 will still rip through any game atm though especially at your resolution.
 
5870 sounds like the one to go for, bit nervous guys as only had nVidia for years (apart from 1 ATI card that had probs:mad:) anyone had issues with this one or do I go for it with the OC Vanquish build:eek:
 
The 5850 is better than the GTX285, and cheaper. Surely that's a no brainer! (Unless the 5870 can be fitted into your budget easily, or you'll be playing on very high resolutions).
 
Right, as you need RAM, a CPU (and therefore a cooler?), Motherboard and a GPU - this is what I've come up with:

Basket.jpg


A sound card tends to come down to personal preference - have a look over in the 'Sound City' section for some useful advice.

As you said it was also for video work, I though - 'hmm, encoding, i7 then.' Mainly because of the Hyperthreading ability it has, that the i5 doesn't.

Then I stuck 12GB RAM in there - I don't know what kind of work you'll be doing, so feel free to save £125 and go for 6GB instead - then put that money towards a sound card.

The 5870 is the card to have at the moment, and with the recent price rises looks to be a 'better' deal than the 5850.
 
Marvin said:
Right, as you need RAM, a CPU (and therefore a cooler?), Motherboard and a GPU - this is what I've come up with:

Basket.jpg


A sound card tends to come down to personal preference - have a look over in the 'Sound City' section for some useful advice.

As you said it was also for video work, I though - 'hmm, encoding, i7 then.' Mainly because of the Hyperthreading ability it has, that the i5 doesn't.

Then I stuck 12GB RAM in there - I don't know what kind of work you'll be doing, so feel free to save £125 and go for 6GB instead - then put that money towards a sound card.

The 5870 is the card to have at the moment, and with the recent price rises looks to be a 'better' deal than the 5850.
Click to expand...

looks good marvin and sound advice thank you, as I'm no techy I will take on board your advice and get some of it in an OC machine as they know what they are doing. Thanks again, wish I could do it myself but thats life
 
that looks like the worst bang for buck upgrade ever

since this is your first upgrade in a while why jump all the way to the top then watch the price fall? upgrade when really needed , that gpu is overkill for your screen and you don't need an i7 or ddr3 at all
 
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