- Jun 27, 2011
- 8
- 0
- 18,510
Ok so time has come to update this PC that some 6 years ago was a beast and back then completely ripped my wallet into pieces.
The pc today is however massively outdated, and that's probably an understatement as it's sporting an AMD Athlon64 3400+, GA-K8NF-9 nForce4 Mobo, 2GB of Corsair XMS DDR400 RAM and a Sapphire Radeon X850XT Platinum Edition GPU. It has done it's job very very well for all this time but it's about time I start upgrading.
Why upgrading you ask? Well, I don't need a new harddisk(updated regularly), don't need new drives(same story), don't need a new PSU (550W PSU is installed, albeit 6 years old), don't need a new case since I'm still very happy with this one (Thermaltake Tsunami Dream), except for some fan replacement and a solution to fitting the hard drives without the HDD-Cage to accomodate for the new GPU, and I also don't need a new screen.
Looking at the state of things, I mainly use my pc for sim racing. rFactor 2 is coming out and I want to be ready for a super-smooth experience. F1 2010 and the new F1 2011 should be playable on max settings, as well as Dirt3. I have some other games I want to play and overall I just need good (not perfect) graphics performance.
Since I haven't got much time for gaming anymore, I don't need a super-high end gaming PC again, but I want to make this one last a few years again before upgrading.
So, the budget is about 400-500 Euro's, let me know what you think. All hardware needs to be available on www.alternate.nl.
I was personally thinking of this setup:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965; € 109,90
Having read up a bit, I really don't see why I need to spend more money for 2 additional cores that I am probably not going to see the benifit of, in the form of the X6 1090T(€142,90). Correct me if I'm wrong!
MOBO: ASRock 870 Extreme3; € 73,90
I'm a bit at a loss here. 870, 880G, 890FX, I haven't yet found a concise description saying look, this is the one you need. I heard good stories about this motherboard, but is it essentially the right choice for this CPU? I am not going to overclock. I do however want a good board and if that means paying more money, then let me know. I do want to have Crossfire possibility, but that seems pretty standard these days.
GPU: SAPPHIRE RADEON HD6870 (11179-09-20G); € 142,90
Having had this Sapphire X850XT PE for that many years I am leaning towards buying from the same brand again. Having read the latest article on the 6000 Radeon Series, I definitely want to go with the 6870, the 69 series being too expensive and the 67 series a bit too low-end for my taste. This seems the perfect compromise between the two. This one is clocked to normal specs.
Other options are:
- MSI R6870 Hawk; € 149,90; "Military Class II components"? I can hardly believe this is of any benifit and will discard it as pure marketing. Again, clocked to normal specs.
- XFX HD6870 (HD-687A-ZNFC); € 139,90; again, clocked to normal specs
- XFX HD6870 Dual Fan (HD-687A-ZDFC) € 149,90; clocked to normal specs but with a dual fan.
- XFX HD6870 Black Edition (HD-687A-ZDBC); € 159,90; slightly overclocked to 940/4600 VS 900/4000.
Other brands are currently not in stock at alternate.nl for this particular card.
MEMORY: GeIL 4 GB DDR3-1333 Kit (GB34GB1333C7DC, Black Dragon); € 45,99
From what I know, premium memory with low timings still is essential to gaming experience. Again, correct me if I'm wrong. I've been out of reading up on PC stuff for many years
.
4GB should be enough, at least from what I have read. I will always have the option to go to 8 if necessary. OS is going to be Windows 7 Ultimate x64, if that is of any use. Again, correct me if I'm wrong.
CPU Cooling: Scythe Mugen 2 Rev.B; € 34,99
Having read the stories about the stock AMD cooler on the 965 is quite noisy and bad cooling-wise, I opted for this CPU cooler. It was included in some builds I've seen here and I like the fact that I can switch the fan around the cooling block to my own preference for optimal airflow.
Case Cooling: Tell me; € ?
I need new case coolers. The ones I have are old, noisy, and impossible to clean. The case has 1 120mm intake fan, 1 120mm exhaust fan, and 1 side fan at 80 mm. 6 years ago noise didn't matter to me. Now it does. I want to have relatively quiet fans, but NOT at the expense of good air displacement. I'm trying to find the 50/50 or 60/40 solution to it, the latter being displacement/noise. Since the case is transparent I wouldn't mind a LED fan. I also need a nice fancontroller for even more control on wether or not I want to have good airflow vs more silence.
This config totals out at € 414,68.
Any more additions, advices, or anything else for that matter will be appreciated!
The pc today is however massively outdated, and that's probably an understatement as it's sporting an AMD Athlon64 3400+, GA-K8NF-9 nForce4 Mobo, 2GB of Corsair XMS DDR400 RAM and a Sapphire Radeon X850XT Platinum Edition GPU. It has done it's job very very well for all this time but it's about time I start upgrading.
Why upgrading you ask? Well, I don't need a new harddisk(updated regularly), don't need new drives(same story), don't need a new PSU (550W PSU is installed, albeit 6 years old), don't need a new case since I'm still very happy with this one (Thermaltake Tsunami Dream), except for some fan replacement and a solution to fitting the hard drives without the HDD-Cage to accomodate for the new GPU, and I also don't need a new screen.
Looking at the state of things, I mainly use my pc for sim racing. rFactor 2 is coming out and I want to be ready for a super-smooth experience. F1 2010 and the new F1 2011 should be playable on max settings, as well as Dirt3. I have some other games I want to play and overall I just need good (not perfect) graphics performance.
Since I haven't got much time for gaming anymore, I don't need a super-high end gaming PC again, but I want to make this one last a few years again before upgrading.
So, the budget is about 400-500 Euro's, let me know what you think. All hardware needs to be available on www.alternate.nl.
I was personally thinking of this setup:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965; € 109,90
Having read up a bit, I really don't see why I need to spend more money for 2 additional cores that I am probably not going to see the benifit of, in the form of the X6 1090T(€142,90). Correct me if I'm wrong!
MOBO: ASRock 870 Extreme3; € 73,90
I'm a bit at a loss here. 870, 880G, 890FX, I haven't yet found a concise description saying look, this is the one you need. I heard good stories about this motherboard, but is it essentially the right choice for this CPU? I am not going to overclock. I do however want a good board and if that means paying more money, then let me know. I do want to have Crossfire possibility, but that seems pretty standard these days.
GPU: SAPPHIRE RADEON HD6870 (11179-09-20G); € 142,90
Having had this Sapphire X850XT PE for that many years I am leaning towards buying from the same brand again. Having read the latest article on the 6000 Radeon Series, I definitely want to go with the 6870, the 69 series being too expensive and the 67 series a bit too low-end for my taste. This seems the perfect compromise between the two. This one is clocked to normal specs.
Other options are:
- MSI R6870 Hawk; € 149,90; "Military Class II components"? I can hardly believe this is of any benifit and will discard it as pure marketing. Again, clocked to normal specs.
- XFX HD6870 (HD-687A-ZNFC); € 139,90; again, clocked to normal specs
- XFX HD6870 Dual Fan (HD-687A-ZDFC) € 149,90; clocked to normal specs but with a dual fan.
- XFX HD6870 Black Edition (HD-687A-ZDBC); € 159,90; slightly overclocked to 940/4600 VS 900/4000.
Other brands are currently not in stock at alternate.nl for this particular card.
MEMORY: GeIL 4 GB DDR3-1333 Kit (GB34GB1333C7DC, Black Dragon); € 45,99
From what I know, premium memory with low timings still is essential to gaming experience. Again, correct me if I'm wrong. I've been out of reading up on PC stuff for many years
.4GB should be enough, at least from what I have read. I will always have the option to go to 8 if necessary. OS is going to be Windows 7 Ultimate x64, if that is of any use. Again, correct me if I'm wrong.
CPU Cooling: Scythe Mugen 2 Rev.B; € 34,99
Having read the stories about the stock AMD cooler on the 965 is quite noisy and bad cooling-wise, I opted for this CPU cooler. It was included in some builds I've seen here and I like the fact that I can switch the fan around the cooling block to my own preference for optimal airflow.
Case Cooling: Tell me; € ?
I need new case coolers. The ones I have are old, noisy, and impossible to clean. The case has 1 120mm intake fan, 1 120mm exhaust fan, and 1 side fan at 80 mm. 6 years ago noise didn't matter to me. Now it does. I want to have relatively quiet fans, but NOT at the expense of good air displacement. I'm trying to find the 50/50 or 60/40 solution to it, the latter being displacement/noise. Since the case is transparent I wouldn't mind a LED fan. I also need a nice fancontroller for even more control on wether or not I want to have good airflow vs more silence.
This config totals out at € 414,68.
Any more additions, advices, or anything else for that matter will be appreciated!
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