Upgrading or A new build?

pure22 · 30 Dec 2011 at 17:12

So a few years ago now i build my 1st pc, lots of fun and it went rather well. Back in the picture now looking to upgrade as things are beginning to slow down. Currently i'm running;

Q6600 at 2.8GHz
P5Q Pro motherboard
4gb ram
ATI 4850 512mb overclocked
650w corsair PSU

This has ran like a dream for a long time but the memory is really starting to lag as i'm still on vista >.<. I started looking into just upgrading my ram and changing to win7. Then looked at the newer CPUs and GPUs. Pretty sure with better cooling my Q6600 can go a lot faster than what it is now, but im not sure its worth it with all the new hardwear about. So im a little stuck on what to look for now.

The changes im thinking about are;

New motherboard
8gb ram
new graphics card
new CPU cooling
win7

Im pretty sure my PSU could take those changes. But im not sure that its worth upgrading everything else and leaving what is now quite an old CPU in there. If anyone has any thoughts about this or suggestions they would be lovely.

quick edit: Budget, around £800

Zynck · 30 Dec 2011 at 17:21

Do you have an idea of a budget?

And I'm not sure about keeping the CPU. It's just that it's socket 775, and that's sort of outdated. I would go with socket 1155 with a motherboard like this

With a 2500k, or, if the budget doesn't stretch far enough, a 2100/2120 (These won't overclock, though)

As for memory I'd take these.

A pretty popular specced CPU cooler is the Gelid Tranquilo, however it's out of stock, so you could go with the Corsair A50 or something alike. Or even a watercooled one, but, again, I'm not sure of your budget.

GPU - all depends on how much you spend on everything else and your budget, of course.

pure22 · 30 Dec 2011 at 17:33

Strangely enough i'm pretty sure thats what i was looking at last night. Budget, i'd rather not hit over £800 ish really with a new CPU, but i'm not to sure what you get for the money now. I was looking into the, no maintenance water cooling areas as it seemed, safe i suppose

Zynck · 30 Dec 2011 at 17:56

Hmmm... Then I'm thinking you should invest on new mobo, cpu, ram and something like a H60. Save some money from that £800 and you should consider waiting for the AMD 7000s, which are due out soon.

But they do come out quite pricey at the start, and you need to wait a while before they drop to a more reasonable price. So I'd go with something like this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS ATI Radeon HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £209.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £81.38
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Bitfenix Raider Tower Case - Black £73.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £64.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA2011/1366/1155/1156/775/AM2/AM3) £62.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £47.99
Total : £789.30 (includes shipping : FREE (add the vat175 code at the checkout))

I assume you already have a HDD and ODD you can reuse from the previous build.

You can crossfire with this motherboard, albeit at a 16x/4x bandwith for the cards. Some say this isn't enough but really you only lose about 5% compared to a 8x/8x motherboard, which is usually more expensive.

Case is up to your taste, so take a look around for one that catches your eye.

The GPU is pretty damn ugly (In my opinion anyway

) but it should serve you very well. Mind that if you decide to go nvidia you will have to go with a slightly more expensive motherboard if you ever want to SLI.

Speaking of dual-card configurations, you can also add a 750W PSU if this is something you'd like in the build, as 600w may not suffice for two high-end cards.

beejjacobs · 30 Dec 2011 at 17:58

Zynck said:
Hmmm... Then I'm thinking you should invest on new mobo, cpu, ram and something like a H60. Save some money from that £800 and you should consider waiting for the AMD 7000s, which are due out soon.

But they do come out quite pricey at the start, and you need to wait a while before they drop to a more reasonable price. So I'd go with something like this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS ATI Radeon HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £209.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £81.38
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Bitfenix Raider Tower Case - Black £73.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £64.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA2011/1366/1155/1156/775/AM2/AM3) £62.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £47.99
Total : £789.30 (includes shipping : FREE (add the vat175 code at the checkout))

I assume you already have a HDD and ODD you can reuse from the previous build.

You can crossfire with this motherboard, albeit at a 16x/4x bandwith for the cards. Some say this isn't enough but really you only lose about 5% compared to a 8x/8x motherboard, which is usually more expensive.

Case is up to your taste, so take a look around for one that catches your eye.

The GPU is pretty damn ugly (In my opinion anyway ) but it should serve you very well. Mind that if you decide to go nvidia you will have to go with a slightly more expensive motherboard if you ever want to SLI.

Speaking of dual-card configurations, you can also add a 750W PSU if this is something you'd like in the build, as 600w may not suffice for two high-end cards.

Seems good, but why add a PSU if he has a Corsair 650W already?

Zynck · 30 Dec 2011 at 18:04

Oops! Missed that bit. That's even better then, adds quite a bit more to the budget. With that extra money I'd either invest on a GPU with more VRAM, or/and a higher end motherboard. Something like...

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus ATI Radeon HD 6950 DirectCU II 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £227.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £159.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Bitfenix Raider Tower Case - Black £73.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA2011/1366/1155/1156/775/AM2/AM3) £62.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £47.99
Total : £820.91 (includes shipping : FREE).

£803 with VAT175.

pure22 · 30 Dec 2011 at 18:05

Zynck said:
Speaking of dual-card configurations, you can also add a 750W PSU if this is something you'd like in the build, as 600w may not suffice for two high-end cards.

Basket looks rather nice thank you

I'm not really planning to crossfire or sli so do you think the 650w PSU i have currently would power well enough? And i currently have an Antec 300 which will probably fit everything in, especially with the bright baby blue GPU. With the big black side on this case i still wouldn't need to worry about the message cable management as well.

Edit: As im struggling with the quotes people reply with the same thing im typing. What type of higher end motherboards would i be looking for though? If im not planning to do anything special is it worth the money?

Zynck · 30 Dec 2011 at 18:09

Aaah good old Antec 300

And yup, a 650W will be enough. Corsair is a very competent PSU manufacturer, I would trust that it could handle a high-end GPU. As long as it has at least 2 PCI-E 6 (or 6+2) pin power connectors it should be fine.

EDIT: If you're not planning on crossfire/SLI then the Z68AP I specced earlier will do very well, it's a great overclocker and a very popular motherboard here with reason!

beejjacobs · 30 Dec 2011 at 18:15

You don't need to spend that much if you're not going to Xfire or SLI. This motherboard will be fine. Also the RAM suggested by Zynck is more expensive and basically the same (and with a water cooler the height doesn't matter.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI ATI Radeon HD 6970 2048MB Twin Frozr III GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Supplied with Dirt 3 PC Game** £275.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £81.38
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 620 CPU Watercooler (Socket Intel LGA 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AMD AM2 / AM3 / AM2+ / AM3+) £46.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B) £39.98
Total : £704.32 (includes shipping : £10.00).

EDIT: don't forget to get free shipping and 17.5% VAT using the voucher code on the main OC page

Zynck · 30 Dec 2011 at 18:19

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 580 DirectCU II 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £371.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £81.38
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Corsair Hydro H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA2011/1366/1155/1156/775/AM2/AM3) £62.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £47.99
Total : £812.32 (includes shipping : FREE).

£795.4 with VAT175

That's the updated basket without the case or PSU with a much beefier GPU.
The GPU measures 10.5" or so, and the Antec website says the 300 can take up to 11", although this means the GPU may interfere with any HDDs that are on the same level. Provided you move those out of the way to another drive bay, I'm guessing (hoping!) that it'll fit. If you don't want to spend as much , go with the previously-specced 6950.

Guess you could fill the rest of the budget with some led fans for the front or something

EDIT: Or if you want to save even more, go with the rig above which is looking ace

Thank you for noting the RAM height, beejjacobs, forgot it wouldn't be a problem with the cooler.

pure22 · 30 Dec 2011 at 18:26

Zynck said:
That's the updated basket without the case or PSU with a much beefier GPU.
The GPU measures 10.5" or so, and the Antec website says the 300 can take up to 11", although this means the GPU may interfere with any HDDs that are on the same level. Provided you move those out of the way to another drive bay, I'm guessing (hoping!) that it'll fit. If you don't want to spend as much , go with the previously-specced 6950.

Guess you could fill the rest of the budget with some led fans for the front or something

EDIT: Or if you want to save even more, go with the rig above which is looking ace Thank you for noting the RAM height, beejjacobs, forgot it wouldn't be a problem with the cooler.

That is a much beefier GPU. Is there much between the 6950 and the 6970? apart from £50 lol

Idleman · 30 Dec 2011 at 18:27

beejjacobs said:
You don't need to spend that much if you're not going to Xfire or SLI. This motherboard will be fine. Also the RAM suggested by Zynck is more expensive and basically the same (and with a water cooler the height doesn't matter.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI ATI Radeon HD 6970 2048MB Twin Frozr III GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Supplied with Dirt 3 PC Game** £275.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £81.38

You could also add an M4 64gb ssd, just a tad over budget.
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 620 CPU Watercooler (Socket Intel LGA 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AMD AM2 / AM3 / AM2+ / AM3+) £46.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B) £39.98
Total : £704.32 (includes shipping : £10.00).

EDIT: don't forget to get free shipping and 17.5% VAT using the voucher code on the main OC page

You could also add an M4 64gb sssd, just a tad over budget.

Zynck · 30 Dec 2011 at 18:32

This much.

You used to be able to flash a 6950 to a 6970, although this isn't possible with newwer models. However, with your PSU, you could still overclock the 6950 if it ever lacks performance - which it won't unless you play at huge resolutions and really stress it

And I would agree with Idleman, I don't have an SSD myself but everyone swears by them, they'll speed up booting, multi-tasking as well as loading/rendering levels in games, and they just make your system a bit faster overall.

pure22 · 30 Dec 2011 at 18:37

Ohh dear the SSDs. I worried that if i buy a small one i'll end up wanting far to many to have all sorts on :L but i suppose one for win7 and a few essentials is a good idea. Thats a wonderful comparrason website there as well thank you. Not to sure that the difference is worth the money myself. I dont tend to play on 2560x1600

pure22 · 30 Dec 2011 at 19:54

On another though of upgrading, whats the best thing to do with unused parts? Keep them in the cupboard in case things go wrong? Or is there another option?

Zynck · 30 Dec 2011 at 20:24

You can always keep them aside if you ever need to find out whether a component's bust or something.

But if it's useless you could always try selling it. Once you hit 250 posts and have hit 3 months since registering, you can enter OCUK's Member Market and try to sell the stuff there.