Worth a upgrade?

Associate
Joined
5 Dec 2008
Posts
505
Location
Peterborough
Hello People, im thinking about a upgrade, was wondering if i would see a major diffrence in this upgrade from my current rig in my sig.

At the moment my rig is ok, but prob struggle on some new games,

I use my pc mainly for Generall windows use, some games, watching HD movies, and some encoding. And is the spec i have choosen any good?

Any info would be great

Cheers


XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £308.99
(£268.69) £308.99
(£268.69)
Samsung PB22-J 128GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (MMCRE28G5MXP-0VB) £234.99
(£204.34) £234.99
(£204.34)
Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail + Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Game £208.99
(£181.73) £208.99
(£181.73)
EVGA X58 SLI Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £205.99
(£179.12) £205.99
(£179.12)
Corsair Dominator 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-14400C9 (1866MHz) Tri-Channel (TR3X6G1866C9DF) £154.99
(£134.77) £154.99
(£134.77)
Xigmatek Red Scorpion S1283 CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775)
 
Soldato
Joined
23 Apr 2009
Posts
11,973
Location
Cheshire
To be honest, in all of the applications except encoding the i7 rig won't make much difference at all, all you really need is a graphics card upgrade and possibly overclock your CPU a bit more to get stellar performance in games.

I believe an SSD would be a good idea if you can afford it as it will speed up your day-to-day computing.

As for which graphics card, a 5870 like you picked is a good idea (could always drop down to a 5850 for a bit less performance and a lot less money). However, I would wait for the ASUS cards to hit retail as the "voltage tweak" which overclocks the cards while under warranty looks fantasic.

If you need a good cooler for overclocking your CPU further, this one is great value and this one is the top-end option.
 
Associate
Joined
30 Jul 2007
Posts
979
Location
Surrey
+1 with andi about getting an SSD to boost general windows performance - consider getting a small OCZ Vertex or similar around 30/32GB (possibly 60/64 if you have the money and several key programs) to work just as an O/S drive.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
5 Dec 2008
Posts
505
Location
Peterborough
Thanks for the Info, im trying to stay away from Asus products, i got my 3820x2 gone for a RMA so this might be resolved if they replace the card with a new one. The RMA with asus is a pain in the time taken to get a replacement, I know there products are good but need a good warranty as well, so if they sent me a 4890 there would be no point upgrading. I have tried to clock the cpu over 3.2 ghz but it wont do any higher.
 
Back
Top Bottom