Ok, so my system is now approaching 4-5 years old and is starting to seem a little tired - having issues with the GFX card and maybe one of my HDDs etc - so feel it is time for a upgrade over the next few months. Anyway, basically I don't really have a set budget at the moment but would like some input on the more techy members we have here as to what would be good to buy so I can start saving accordingly I will probably be using www.ebuyer.com to purchase bits and pieces so if you guys can maybe make up a PC from there that would be great (I'm UK based) Cheers guys (Sidenote: This was my first nVidia GFX card and I have to say I really haven't been that impressed with it so would prefer going back to ATi but that depends on what is best at the moment and best to go with the system) ------ Current spec: Processor: Q6600 Quad Core 2.4GHz w/ Artic Cooling Aftermarket heatsink and fan. RAM: 4Gb DDR2 OCZ Platinum GFX: GeForce 8800GT 512Mb Motherboard: Asus P5N-E SLI Chipset: nVIDIA nForce 650i SLI Soundcard: Currently none - use onboard Realtek sound xD Case: Antec 900 PSU: Hiper 580W Windows 7 32-bit (Yes i know i should have got 64-bit but the 32-bit was free at the time... -_- ) HHDs: 2x Maxtor 80Gb IDE (Roughly 8-9 years old) 1x Maxtor 500Gb SATA (3 years old)
I am sure enigma will chim in here but if you want you can look at my system specs in my sig and go from there ... Sokar has the same set up as me except a 460 graphics card ... and i know nightmarelx has the same but with a 2600k instead Its a great rig and i have no issues with anything right now ... only thing it will ever need is a new gfx card in the future but ill prolly just SLI maybe
Well since you didnt post a budget, I kinda just picked things out with no limit in mind but tried to be somewhat sensitive to money. If it is way over budget then let me know and I can go with lesser parts: Antec Dark Fleet tower: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/227150 Kinda cool looking, I prefer more of a "sleek" look myself but this case still looks nice, has a ton of great features, has good build quality, and fits the color scheme I went for Antec 900w high-current power supply: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/246658 I didnt exactly pic this just cause the case is also Antec, just worked out that way. Antec makes good PSUs and have been around a LONG time. Also, the color scheme on it went nicely with the tower. You want an overbuilt PSU since you never want to have a power issue, and with the loss of power over the years due to component degradation, overbuilt is always better. Lite-On DVD burner: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190838 Nothing special here. Any cheap one that does everything will do perfectly fine. ASUS Sabertooth P67: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/260646 This is a really nice board. It has top quality components and a 5 year warranty. It was the same price as the "Pro" board so you might as well get this better one. ASUS makes the best boards for socket 1155 motherboards, Gigabyte is a close second though. Intel 2500k: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/251596 This is a really great processor. It is only a quad core with no hyper-threading. If you want hyper-threading then just upgrade to the 2600k. The "k" model is for overclocking, and trust me you definitely should do that. These processors overclock like nothing before them. At stock voltages you can normally hit 4.2GHz perfectly safe. And an extra 1GHz at no cost is always a good thing Cooler Master Hyper 212: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/245376 Never used this myself, by Erock has it and says he loves it. Seems perfectly capable and cheap Corsair Vengeance RAM, 8GB: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/262585 With socket 1155 it is all about the MHz. Timings dont matter so you want the fastest RAM you can get. Thats why I picked out this 1866MHz RAM. If you can afford it, get 16GB of this, if not then 8GB is fine too. AMD/ATI 6970: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/251207 This is a very fast card and has the best price/performance ratio by far of any card out right now. Plus you said you wanted ATI so thats a good thing too. It is a really nice card and plenty fast. Intel 160GB 320 series SSD: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/261745 If you can afford it then this is the way to go for a OS drive and a game or two. Store all your other random crap on a 1TB mechanical drive so you dont ever run out of room. This SSD is very reliable and has a HUGE lifetime. real world lifetime tests prove that the NAND chips in this drive are capable of writing more than 80TB of data to the drive before the chips die. This rating is far higher than even Intel advertises the lifetime to be. The controller is proven capable as well as it is the same controller as the last Intel G2 drives. If you cant afford the Intel, try and get this one: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/265354#specification It is good, just not quite as good as the Intel. Also less space. And a 1TB mechanical drive: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/193712 This is a very fast mechanical drive. Unfortunately it gets very hot too. Install it somewhere that a fan blows directly on it. This drive is for all your other stuff that doesnt need to be on a SSD. It is much faster than your current mechanical drive so thats good, perfectly capable of playing the random games you have that arent your top played games. Total comes out to: £1113.09
Thanks for the reply guys. Going to have a good look through all the bits and pieces that you posted Enigma but at a glance the price doesn't look to be too bad at the moment although I'm going to have to start saving xD Originally i was probably going to be looking at a budget of around £850 all in but don't mind stretching that if it will help the system work that little bit better and last longer so I don't need to upgrade for a while. However, I may decide to keep my current case if everything will fit in it (I notice you went for a full size case, Is it going to make a huge difference or was it primarily for cooling etc?) and also the LG DVD drive I currently have as it works fine.
Large tower just makes everything fit easier and allows for more fans to push air around. You can either use a full size or medium tower, although a medium tower is a tight fit.
Ok well I may use my current tower initially which lowers the total cost then upgrade that new one like a month later. Also with regards to the processor what does hyperthreading actually do and is it worth an upgrade to it? I'm also going to have to factor in the cost of a new windows 7 64bit since mine is currently only 32bit. (unless there is a way to upgrade them?)
I just replaced my full tower 932 with a CM 690 II Adv. case and I love it, although if you do air cooler and have a massive heatsink then you won't be able to put a fan on the top slot of the side panel, but I'm going to get some water cooling soon so that's future proofing for me I'll be able to put one. I'm not a huge fan of Antec cases, that Dark Flight looks a little.. well bulky! Of course, its a full tower. Cooler Master has a great line of stuff as well (not saying Antec has "bad" cases, I've just owned them before and enjoy CM more) especially their "Sniper" and "Scout" chassis are nice and decently priced.
if you are doing gaming only and basic stuff then stick with the 2500k hyper threading just gives 2 threads per core but games and 90% of programs out there will not utilize it and yes your gonna need to get a full version of win 7 64 bit the cooler is great in a push pull config ... i have antec 300 case so its a VERY VERY tight fit and a PITA to get anything in but once its in the cooling is great
As Erock said, hyper-threading is giving each processing core 2 threads to work with instead of 1. It cannot process both at the same time, but if the processor has to wait on data for 1, it switches to processing the other. This is a more efficient use of resources because the processor doesnt have down time when processing a worker thread and it has to wait on some piece of data. You see the largest benefit from this in video encoding and compression jobs. Like if you are compressing/un-compressing a large .RAR or .zip file, or encoding a high-def video. Having the HT makes the processor about 12 degrees (celcius) more hot than the 2500k which does not have the extra threads. Thus you need a better cooler to overclock a 2600k than a 2500k. Also with more processing threads, you dont get as high of an OC because it has more that has to remain stable. Either way, both are just quad cores. But the 2600k has more resources to process things with. If a game/application is not coded to use those resources though, they go to waste. Any game coded for multiple cores will utilize the HT. But unless a game is specifically optimized for HT use, then it still doesnt work really efficiently. Honestly since you like black ops and all that, 2500k is better. You might remember my thread about the i7 users and hyper-threading when it comes to Modern Warfare games and others of the same engine? No one here got a fix from turning off HT while playing, but I have seen 6-7 people who have had serious performance issues that were fixed simply by disabling hyper-threading while playing BO.
I don't know about the new Intel chips but I disabled HT on my x58 platform to help with temps @ 3.8ghz and I haven't noticed a decrease in performance in the games I've been playing, which included WoW, TF2, Black Ops, and a few F2P games. If there is, its negligible or like you stated those games don't really take advantage of it. I really really want a 2500k but can't seem to sell my x58 platform, I'm jealous of you guys. I might just wait for 2011 to come out
Quick question guys do these 2 fit? http://ark.intel.com/products/38512/Intel-Core2-Quad-Processor-Q8400-(4M-Cache-2_66-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB) http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2842#sp
yes.... but why would you buy such an outdated processor now days? Rubius can explain to you how limiting a CPU of that speed would be on a modern graphics card
OEM windows lazy to call Microsoft and change mobo, or show me a better cpu for that mobo with a reasonable price. theres this CPU http://ark.intel.com/products/42920/Intel-Core2-Quad-Processor-Q9505-(6M-Cache-2_83-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB) but its way OP, and im using this site to buy parts http://ipon.hu/ just use a translator
Well if you have a 775 socket and old CPU it isnt even worth buying a new CPU that is so old. Just save and get a new MB and CPU in a little bit. You can use everything else the same if you have to do all you would need to replace is the two parts.
btw my comp atm: CPU fan: COOLERMASTER Hyper TX2 RR-CCH-L9U1-GP PC case: COOLERMASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP PSU: COOLERMASTER Real Power RS-620-ASAA-A1 620W Modular MB: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DS3R CPU: INTEL Core2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz 775 BOX RAM: OCZ 4096Mb DDR2 800Mhz Titanium KIT GPU: ATI SAPPHIRE HD6790 1GB GDDR5 PCIE HDD: SEAGATE 1500GB 7200rpm 32MB SATA2
Eww ocz ram.. too bad there out the ram bussiness.. now its all about corsair =D.. (i just upgraded my ocz ram) lol.. Still very nicee. =).