Upgrade Time: Totally Confused

[sosolidshoe]

Hey chaps, I'm about to embark on an upgrade spree for my machine, which is coming up on two years old now(and wasn't exactly cutting edge then, heh). Having checked the required info thread;

I do a lot of stuff on this thing, but the only focus of the upgrade is gaming performance, as the current setup is slipping below the minimum specs for stuff coming out in 2011(and it chugs as it is; E5200, 2 gigs basic RAM, 9600GT gfx card).

My budget is flexible, as I'll be buying in stages over the next month or so, but it is limited, so I'm looking for the best price-performance ratio I can find.

I'll be sticking with the current case(Coolermaster Elite 335), PSU(OCZ Stealth XStream 600W), and drives(80 gig HDD, bog standard liteon DVD), unless I absolutely have to upgrade in line with the new parts. I have access to 64 bit windows 7 through my university, so that's covered.

For ref, I'm in the UK, and would prefer to order from UK/EU retailers, I've been stung by Customs ordering parts from the US before.

Ok, so on to my confusion. First, CPU. My options are; Stick with my current socket 775 motherboard(ASUS P5Q SE iP45) and buy a faster dual core for around £150, such as the E8500. Or, I can buy a new motherboard, and pick up a core i5. The issue then becomes, which motherboard, and which socket? And how much extra will it cost me, obviously I'd read that, for gaming at least, Quad Core isn't a huge deal, and it might be better to go for a dual core with a higher clock, would you agree with that?

As for the graphics card, I've been looking at the 6850, which seems about the right price point(£130-150), but I'm not sure if my PSU has the meat to run that and the new CPU, and I've no real idea which of the different versions of the card is good(ideally it would be one that exhausts from the back of the case, rather than into the main cavity, as I'm lacking a side fan atm).

Finally, the RAM. I'd rather not frankenstein my current sticks with some new ones, but sadly I can't buy the same stuff again as it's only available through amazon who I'm steering clear of. If someone could recommend a good 4 gig package with decent performance that's not hugely expensive, that would be great.

I think that's all(ahaha), cheers folks.

 

[tiraides]

To make things easier for all of us, please answer the questions listed in the "Asking for Build Help?" sticky. Be as brief and concise away possible. Additionally, please answer these questions:

- Which stores are you buying parts from?
- Which games are you playing? At what level of visual quality?
- Outside of gaming, what's the most resource-intensive program you'll use?

For question #1, please indicate how much AT MOST you're willing to spend.

 

[sosolidshoe]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming, scripting in the G.E.C.K. tool for Fallout 3/NV.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
£350, +/- a few quid for a really good bargain, and yes that's including shipping. The RAM will be bought separately, but should be as cheap as possible.

3) Where do you live?
UK

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc.
CPU, GFX, RAM.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
As above.

6) Will you be overclocking?
Unlikely, unless there's enough left in the budget for aftermarket cooling.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
24" 1920x1080 BENQ.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Over the next month or so.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
Nothing over what I currently have, I would only replace the mobo if necessary to support a new CPU.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes. Win7 64bit.


- Which stores are you buying parts from?
I normally use www.ebuyer.com, but any reputable UK or EU retailer will do.

- Which games are you playing? At what level of visual quality?
I know it's not considered a valid answer but...everything Mass Effect 2, Fallout 3, Assassin's Creed 2, Arkham Asylum, Starcraft 2, Civilisation 5, EvE Online, would all be representative. Most of them currently run on medium settings, and I'd like to push it as high as I can within the budget. Mostly I'm just concerned that my current rig won't be able to handle upcoming games like Deus Ex 3.

- Outside of gaming, what's the most resource-intensive program you'll use?
Biological statistical modelling software, but it's not a concern as far as this upgrade goes, I'm only interested in gaming performance.

 

[Dangman]

drives(80 gig HDD,

Wait your OS is on a 89GB drive? Time to upgrade that drive man. 80GB drives are slooow. In fact, even if you do a CPU + mobo upgrade, that 80GB drive is so slow, it's still gonna be as if you're on your old PC. I recommend this fast hard drive:
£41 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Ok, so on to my confusion. First, CPU. My options are; Stick with my current socket 775 motherboard(ASUS P5Q SE iP45) and buy a faster dual core for around £150, such as the E8500. Or, I can buy a new motherboard, and pick up a core i5. The issue then becomes, which motherboard, and which socket? And how much extra will it cost me, obviously

Socket 775 is not an option. Unless you can get a used Q6600 or Q9550 for £70 and £100 respectively, getting any new Intel socket 775 CPU is a waste of money. Due to your low budget, your best bet for a CPU upgade would be AMD. Specifically this setup:

£114 - AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition CPU
£60 - Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H AMD 880G HDMI mATX Motherboard

I'd read that, for gaming at least, Quad Core isn't a huge deal, and it might be better to go for a dual core with a higher clock, would you agree with that?

Disagree. Depending on the game, a quad-core makes a huge difference. Out of the list of games you listed, the only games that do not scale well with quad-cores would SC2 and Eve Online. However if you're running multiple Eve Online clients, thats when the quad-core comes in handy with that game.

So basically, go for a quad-core. More and more games are becoming very quad-core friendly.

As for the graphics card, I've been looking at the 6850, which seems about the right price point(£130-150), but I'm not sure if my PSU has the meat to run that and the new CPU, and I've no real idea which of the different versions of the card is good(ideally it would be one that exhausts from the back of the case, rather than into the main cavity, as I'm lacking a side fan atm).

While that PSU does have an a limit of only 500W, it should still be enough for the HD 6850. I recommend this:
£135 - PowerColor HD 6850

Finally, the RAM. I'd rather not frankenstein my current sticks with some new ones, but sadly I can't buy the same stuff again as it's only available through amazon who I'm steering clear of. If someone could recommend a good 4 gig package with decent performance that's not hugely expensive, that would be great.

I recommend this set:
£35 - Crucial 2 x 2GB DDR3 1333 RAM

The above (excluding the hard drive) should be about £344 plus shipping. Yes probably a little over but totally an excellent bargin.

 

[sosolidshoe]

-snip-

Cheers man, I hadn't even thought about going AMD.

On the HDD: My 80gig drive is SATA2 and 7200rpm already, will the bigger cache make that big a difference? Also, I have an external 1TB drive for file storage, so I don't really need all that room for the OS drive, what do you think of getting a small SSD?

On the Mobo: The one you listed seems to have quite a few bad comments, SATA port failures and the like. Also, it only seems to support a single case fan; I already have two fans(front intake, rear exhaust), and ideally I want to add a third(side exhaust) - am I going to need to buy an add on fan controller?

Final point; if the CPU is a 125w, and the GPU is minimum 450w, once I add the HDD, USB HDD and the DVD drives, won't that put me over? I don't want to risk blowing the thing up

Thanks for your help chief.

 

[Dangman]

On the HDD: My 80gig drive is SATA2 and 7200rpm already, will the bigger cache make that big a difference? Also, I have an external 1TB drive for file storage, so I don't really need all that room for the OS drive, what do you think of getting a small SSD?

It's not just the cache size that'll make a difference: It's also the high platter density, newer platter architecture, new platter design, etc. That Samsung 1TB drive is easily 4 to 5x faster than your current 80GB drive as a result.

If you're willing to pay the higher costs, go for the Crucial C300 64GB SSD.

On the Mobo: The one you listed seems to have quite a few bad comments, SATA port failures and the like. Also, it only seems to support a single case fan; I already have two fans(front intake, rear exhaust), and ideally I want to add a third(side exhaust) - am I going to need to buy an add on fan controller?

Depends on whether or not A) if the fans in your PC are exclusively 3Pin and B) whether or not you want to manually control fans speed.

Final point; if the CPU is a 125w, and the GPU is minimum 450w, once I add the HDD, USB HDD and the DVD drives, won't that put me over? I don't want to risk blowing the thing up

No it won't. That 450W for the GPU is for the ENTIRE system + the video card, not the video card alone. Even then it's inflated to account for thousands of shitty PSUs out there.

 

[4LC4PON3]

wow i never thought id see an 80GB this day in age. That easily needs to go. also the GPU wont use no where near 400 watts of Power. A 6850 at full load uses about 229 watts

 

[sosolidshoe]

Well, thanks again Danny, I stand corrected and enlightened

Alas, all my fans are 3-pin, so I will need to grab a controller if I want to add the side fan, but that I can consider later.

Tomorrow, I make my first purchase, and have decided to grab the CPU and the mobo. I'll be sticking with your recommendation on the CPU, but that mobo's got some mixed reviews, so what do you think of this MSI 870-C45? Price is right, seems to support everything I need(SATA2, 45nm 125w Phenom II's, the x16 PCI-E port, DDR3 support), and has that auto-overclocking feature as a bonus.

 

[Dangman]

Tomorrow, I make my first purchase, and have decided to grab the CPU and the mobo. I'll be sticking with your recommendation on the CPU, but that mobo's got some mixed reviews, so what do you think of this MSI 870-C45? Price is right, seems to support everything I need(SATA2, 45nm 125w Phenom II's, the x16 PCI-E port, DDR3 support), and has that auto-overclocking feature as a bonus.

Decent enough mobo. Wouldn't trust the auto-overclocking feature though.

 

[sosolidshoe]

Well chaps, thanks to the advice here I purchased the above CPU and mobo, plus 4gigs of Mushkin RAM(new board is DD3, old was DDR2).

Then I caught a hefty case of the stupids. I rebuilt the machine, and I forgot to switch out the drivers installed on the old HDD with XP. Quelle surprise, it wouldn't boot. So I hauled the PSU and graphics card back out of the case, set up the old rig on my desk, and switched mobo and sound drivers, then put it back in the new setup. Still borked. Tried again, now it won't boot on either system :/

I can't do an XP repair install, as I get my OS through my University with an academic home-use license, and they take the disc back when you're done. They've now upgraded to Windows 7, and I've got a copy of it, but I wanted to make sure with you better informed chaps - If I run a custom install of Windows 7 64bit over my 32bit XP drive, my old files and programmes will be saved in a Windows.old file when I get into the new OS, right?

 

[Dangman]

I can't do an XP repair install, as I get my OS through my University with an academic home-use license, and they take the disc back when you're done. They've now upgraded to Windows 7, and I've got a copy of it, but I wanted to make sure with you better informed chaps - If I run a custom install of Windows 7 64bit over my 32bit XP drive, my old files and programmes will be saved in a Windows.old file when I get into the new OS, right?

Correct.

 

[sosolidshoe]

Righto cheers Danny. I tried an XP repair install(borrowed the disc of a neighbour), alas that's only bought me access to the drive in safe mode, trying to boot normally gets the loading screen for exactly five seconds, then a short flash of a BSOD and it reboots.

I'll just have to wait until monday and run the windows 7 upgrade :/