Looking for upgrade advice

Carl Wolsey · May 7, 2014

I'm looking to upgrade from my Phenom II x4 955 black edition and Gigabyte 770TA-UD3 motherboard. Budget is between £150 and £200. Mostly I'm wanting to later upgrade the graphics card to something newer (currently 5850) but my current motherboard only has PCIE 2.0. Mostly I game with it, but occasionally do 3d work.

Danbuscus25 · May 7, 2014

well, any graphics card will work in any gen slot, so a new 3.0 card will work in your board, and any board that has 1 pcie x16 slot.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£76.79 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.45 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£74.27 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£49.98 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £226.49
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-05-07 19:47 BST+0100)

its a bit over budget, but im assuming you have ddr2 ram (i may be wrong, and if i am then get the fx 8320) and i included a good cooler and mobo to overclock with.

logainofhades · May 7, 2014

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£127.16 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock H87 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£60.32 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £187.48
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-05-07 20:29 BST+0100)

Danbuscus25 · May 7, 2014

^ also a good option, a bit more expensive but also a bit faster.

Carl Wolsey · May 7, 2014

No what I have is DDR3 at the moment. I'm not sure what speed, CPU-z says "VS2GB1333D3" so I assume its DDR 1333 - sound about right? Will running a card thats PCIE 3.0 run slower in my 2.0 slot?

logainofhades · May 7, 2014

You have an AM3 motherboard, so yes your ram is ddr3. You will be fine with any 3.0 card in a 2.0 slot.

Danbuscus25 · May 7, 2014

ok, so if you have ddr3 ram then i would go with what logain suggested, and a 2.0 slot will be just fine for a 3.0 card, the only drawback is limited bandwidth, but that most likely wont apply to the card you are getting.

Carl Wolsey · May 7, 2014

If I go with logains option can I just keep my current memory?

Danbuscus25 · May 7, 2014

yes. how much do you have?

Carl Wolsey · May 7, 2014

Only 4GB, as I said cpu-z reports it as:

Do you have recommendations for cooler or is stock fine?

Danbuscus25 · May 7, 2014

well, you wont be overclocking with that cpu and mobo so the stock cooler is fine. i would try to buy an identical kit of ram to what you already have, for a total of 8gb.

Carl Wolsey · May 7, 2014

Thankyou both very much. Didn't know who to pick since you both helped a lot but I guess I technically went with logains suggestion. I found a stick to match my current one. Wish I could have picked two solutions because you were both very helpful.

Danbuscus25 · May 7, 2014

no problem

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