Upgrading to a better rig

Bigglesworth

Bigglesworth

Bigglesworth

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Joined
17 Mar 2015
Posts
2
Hi everyone.

First time poster and I have it on good authority that the Overclockers forums are great for advice with new builds.

I built my own PC a few years back and it's clear its time for an upgrade. I only use my PC for gaming and Dragon Age Inquisition runs ok at best(not as good as i'd like), but I plan to play The Witcher 3 (a huge step further than DA:I in terms of a system hog).

My current system is:
  • Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandy Bridge)
  • MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti
  • 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance
  • 2TB Hitachi hard drive
Powered by a 550W OCZ ZS Series
All housed in a Fractal Design Core 3000 Mid Tower.

I plan to transfer the hard drive(with OS), disc drive and RAM at the very least. I know that I bought the last of the i5's and an upgrade would mean a new motherboard. My budget is £500-£550, with the possibility of stretching to £600, what would be the best I could get for my money/current components?

Thanks in advanced :D
 
I'm not too sure about that power supply so a new one might be a good idea. An SSD is always a great upgrade, especially if you put the OS on it - speeds things up a great deal.
Finally the CPU and RAM should be fine (as long as the CPU is overclocked), so the final upgrade should be in the graphics card department, with which you'll see a marked improvement in gaming performance.
Here are some possible buys :D :
YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Radeon R9 290X LE Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £239.99
1 x Crucial BX100 250GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT250BX100SSD1) £72.98
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £51.95
Total : £374.52 (includes shipping : £8.00).



This comes in well under budget but should be a very worthwhile upgrade.
Another option:
YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £455.99
1 x Crucial BX100 250GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT250BX100SSD1) £72.98
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £51.95
Total : £590.52 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
Make sure you have a good cpu cooler, overclock it the chip (Many go over 4GHz), then go with something along the lines of Andreas.96's first suggestion.
 
Cooler advice, if you are going to overclock:

Prolimatech Megahalems Black + 2 x Akasa Apache Black
K2 MountDoom
One of bigger Noctua fans.

I am a big Megahalems fan and I am sure it will do the job nicely.

As for the rest, I agree that 290X is a good choice if you have limited funds, same for SSD - but I would add a bit bigger PSU, just in case you want to add something in the future or re-use it in different rig.
This one is on offer this week:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-011-SF&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=2466
 
Thanks for the advice guys!

I have no knowledge or experience with over clocking my chip. My concern with it is that the space I have is limited and keeping the tower ventilated is an issue. I am definitely goin to get an upgraded PSU and possibly the GTX 980.

With the cooling advice Bart Hunt, will it all fit in my current tower?
 
The heatsink clearance in that case is pretty low, 160mm, but you should be able to fit Megahalems (158.5mm).
Can't find the K2 a t OCuk anymore, but you will be fine with Megahalems.
As for the PSU length, your case allows up to 160mm with the fan at the bottom, the PSU I linked have 150mm so you should be fine.

ps. You will have to remove the upper HDD cage in order to fit that 290X, as per case specs at manufacturers site here:
http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/core-series/core-3000-usb-30
 
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