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Upgrade all or part of system

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  • Intel i5
  • Graphics
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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September 4, 2014 8:49:13 AM

Hi guys,

Any advice would be great cheers.

I'm currently looking round at possibly upgrading my PC and I've tried reading about for ideas whether I should or not and to be honest all I've accomplished is giving myself a head ache.

My current system is - sorry if i forget anything
i5-2500k - not overclocked
GA-H61M-S2V-B3 motherboard - was really cheap and horrible tbh
8gb ram
Nvidia 660ti
power supply is 550
case is a antec 300 - i do want another as this is about dead
Monitor is Benq gw2760s at 1920x1080

My main use is gaming really ( titanfall, planetside 2, total war, lotro ) i do use photoshot for work but not a great deal as i use the Mac mostly for it.

I like to upgrade ever 3 - 4 years really so my choice has to last me awhile, I am planning on waiting to see if the new nvidia 900 series is worth looking at or if it brings the price of the 780's down a little.

Any advice on what to replace or not would be great guys thanks and apologizes if i picked the wrong sub-forum for my post .


More about : upgrade part system

September 4, 2014 8:57:30 AM

don't buy anything......... but if you need to buy something.............. bigger graphics card.
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September 4, 2014 9:03:01 AM

^ Agreed. You wont notice enough a difference between your i5 an a new haswell one to justify the price.

Bigger/better graphics card would be your big thing.
If the mobo is handling your needs I would just keep it instead of buyin a new board for already discontinued socket.
Other thing you could do is get an SSD drive, wont help gameplay, but overall system will be more responsive.
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September 4, 2014 9:31:48 AM

Thats great cheers guys for the response.

Would you keep the CPU at stock or consider overclocking it ?. I've never done it before so something to look in to if you thought it would be a good idea.
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September 4, 2014 12:47:54 PM

a little more speed never hurts. but you can also ruin your investment.
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September 4, 2014 2:00:17 PM

Follow your plan and wait, it's soon...Tantalisingly soon.
Does that MB support overclocking? If it does, then it's a free performance boost (if you ignore the better cooler cost) but do some research first, as Swifty_morgan points out, you can damage the system by getting too heavy handed.
General rule on overclocking: Don't touch the voltages.
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September 5, 2014 8:32:14 AM

cheers for the replies guys,

I've just been watching a few old reviews on my poor rubbish Mobo and they all seem to say that it doesn't support overclocking. I had a quick look in the bios and i can get it too 3.7mhz max.

now that i kinda feel a little meh, would you keep your advice the same or consider now upgrading it.
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September 5, 2014 12:34:03 PM

A BIOS update may release more overclocking headroom/features but with fairly weak 4 phase CPU power circuitry that MB isn't really a good choice for a strong overclock, so yes, changing it would be a good move.

My advice: Swap the MB/case and add a better CPU cooler during the operation, then OC and see how much extra performance has been lurking inside the system, at least a couple of the games you mention in your first post are very demanding of the CPU.
If the performance still isn't what you're hoping for, keep an eye out for the new Nvidia releases, they're about a month and a half away, probably less by the time you've sorted the OC and if they're as good as the GTX750 they'll be worth the wait.

One last point: Exactly what power supply is installed? They're not created equal and cheap PSUs don't mix well with overclocked hardware.
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September 5, 2014 1:06:03 PM

Just had to check what my PSU is, turns out i was wrong its a OCZ stealth Xtreme 2 500w think it could probably do with replacing as well.
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