Upgrade advice

aN.Droid · 16-07-2011 3:15pm #1

hey there, Looking to upgrade my current rig with something a little newer.

Last upgrade was about 3 years ago so its time for a change :P

I have the case, the hard drives the disc drive and all the other bits.

Need ram, cpu, GFX card motherboard and I think I may upgrade my PSU aswell but I don't think I will right now as it should do ok. heres my current PSU link

Anyway not looking to break the bank. Just looking to spend to bones of 200-350 euro or so

What I am looking at so far.

gfx card: link (My current card is an 8800 GTX, great card but showing it's age at this stage. Could I expect much of an improvement with this card?)
Ram: link (Maybe 2 sets of them not decided yet if I will need it)
Motherboard: Undecided, hoping you guys can help me out
CPU: Also undecided. Want bang for buck, maybe an unlockable amd?

Thanks for any input you can give!

Tea_Bag · 16-07-2011 3:37pm

the link to your GPU doesnt work. not sure about the PSU to be honest.

aN.Droid · 16-07-2011 3:41pm

Link works fine for me but: http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/8224042/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd-6870-1-gb-gddr5.html

Also the psu happily powers an 8800 and c2d system so id say it will be fine for a mid range upgrade. I'll be upgrading it anyway its just not on the top of the upgrades so ill wait for more cash to come my way

Tea_Bag · 16-07-2011 3:45pm

Total build cost: €347.30 + €30 shipping
Club 3D Radeon 6850 1024MB, AMD Radeon HD 6850, PCI-Express €129.48
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Box, Sockel AM3 €92.25
MSI 870A-G45, Sockel AM3, ATX, PCIe €56.14
4GB-Kit Corsair DDR3 PC1600 C9 Classic €28.41
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W €41.02

if your PSU checks out ok, then you can drop the one i listed and get 8gb of ram, but you wont really need more than 4 anyway.

aN.Droid · 16-07-2011 4:10pm

Looks like a solid upgrade but would the graphics card in that be as good as the one for pixmania?

Found the 6870 on amazon too:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-6870-GDDR5-Graphics-Card/dp/B004R7MTPQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1310830111&sr=8-2

More expensive but free shipping so actually cheaper

Monotype · 16-07-2011 6:12pm

That PSU is rubbish. It's one of the bad coolermaster ones. I recommend you change immediately. The 450W amazon is more capable.
HWV have 6870s below €150.

aN.Droid · 16-07-2011 7:02pm

Monotype wrote: »

That PSU is rubbish. It's one of the bad coolermaster ones. I recommend you change immediately. The 450W amazon is more capable.
HWV have 6870s below €150.

Really? It has been working just fine for about 3 years now even when I over clocked my system a while back. If it really is that bad though I will upgrade it.

Anyone else out there heard anything about my PSU?

Skerries · 16-07-2011 7:08pm

i heard it was saying bad things about you behind your back

aN.Droid · 16-07-2011 7:29pm

Skerries wrote: »

i heard it was saying bad things about you behind your back

The bastárd! How can I ever trust another PSU now! Back to hamster power it is!

aN.Droid · 17-07-2011 6:49am

Right now what is the best 6870 i could get sub 200 bucks?

Tea_Bag · 17-07-2011 1:25pm

Limericks wrote: »

Right now what is the best 6870 i could get sub 200 bucks?

you dont. you can get a 6950 in that budget.

aN.Droid · 18-07-2011 4:15pm

hey can anyone reccomend a motherboard that has AAC features for under 80 bucks? I have decided to get a 555 x2 and unlock it to an x4

Monotype · 18-07-2011 4:51pm

As far as I can remember, I think any board with SB710 and above has ACC.
I think the X2 phenoms aren't priced well. You can often get an X3 for the same price and there's less risk. Of course, (unless you're lucky) you won't get the benefits of the phenom such as the L3 cache - but if you don't get any unlocks, the AII X3 will be better than a PhII X2.

Where are you buying? Is that €80 delivered and are you getting anything else?

aN.Droid · 18-07-2011 5:00pm

I'm buying from amazon because of the free shipping it is coming to roughly what its gonna cost from HWVS and I can pay with my creditcard.

I think I might just spend the 50 quid extra on a 965 black edition. If I get this what motherboard would you reccomend that would work with this ram: http://www.memoryc.com/computermemory/ddr3/8gbgskillddr3pc3128001600mhzripjawseries.html

Or if you could suggest better ram then by all means please do

Monotype · 18-07-2011 5:42pm

No, that RAM looks great - don't forget to get 5% off with the code in the bargain alerts thread. Also take a look to see if there is a significantly cheaper 955 as sometimes they're a good bit better value than the 965.

I haven't got time to check for boards now but I'll take a look later.

I would recommend looking at the 880G or 870 boards. If any are available, take a look at 970 boards too (AM3+ board). Many of the 870 and 880Gs are compatible with the AM3+ processors. Try to get one with SB850 if it fits into the budget. This will guarantee SATA 6Gbps which will be good for SSDs and USB 3.

Monotype · 18-07-2011 7:27pm

Total build cost: £343.77 (inc Delivery £7.99 and VAT £57.30)
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black, Deneb Core, S AM3, 3.2GHz, 8MB Cache, HT 3600MHz, 125W, Retail|£88.74
520W Antec High Current Gamer. 80Plus Bronze, 135mm Quiet Fan, ATX12V 2.3 EPS12V V2.91 PSU|£55.18
1GB Asus HD 6850 DirectCU, 4000MHz GDDR5, GPU 790MHz, 960 Stream Processors, 2x DVI/ HDMI/ DP|£128.02
Gigabyte GA-870A-USB3L, AMD 870, S AM3+, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 2000(OC), SATA 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, ATX|£62.24

That's from scan.co.uk. Delivery is £12.34 unless but goes up after 20kg or something. I think it would work out better than amazon.
That looks like a good feature filled board, the PSU is decent - it's a rebranded/tweaked Seasonic.
Always check the today only page for offers.
http://www.scan.co.uk/todayonly/index.aspx
I see the PSU listed there for £3 cheaper today.

aN.Droid · 18-07-2011 8:57pm

thanks for your help!

For the sake of 11 euro I am going to go with the 965 I think. Has anyone heard anything about the motherboard? it looks great though from what I found online.

I never check scan that often and never seen that today only page. it's great!

Jonny7 · 18-07-2011 10:17pm

Limericks wrote: »

thanks for your help!

For the sake of 11 euro I am going to go with the 965 I think. Has anyone heard anything about the motherboard? it looks great though from what I found online.

I never check scan that often and never seen that today only page. it's great!

Those parts quoted above come to about 30 euros cheaper on hardwareversand.de, inc the 30 euro delivery

Would prob arrive a little quicker from scan though

Monotype · 18-07-2011 10:46pm

Ah, I know now why the board seemed liked good value - there's only two RAM slots. It's a good board apart from that. If that bothers you, I could choose a different one, but the next ones are about £10 more. It seems that two RAM slots is coming back into fashion. You only saw it in the extreme low end boards in recent years.

Serephucus · 19-07-2011 12:09am

Monotype wrote: »

Ah, I know now why the board seemed liked good value - there's only two RAM slots. It's a good board apart from that. If that bothers you, I could choose a different one, but the next ones are about £10 more. It seems that two RAM slots is coming back into fashion. You only saw it in the extreme low end boards in recent years.

That doesn't really matter though, eh? Get a 2x4GB kit and you're set. That's assuming 8GB is worth it. 90% of things are still fine with 4.

Upgrade advice

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