I have 140Pounds what shall i buy?

[benjanini61]

Hey guys im going to upgrade my CPU and either buy ram or PSU along with it. Im pritty sure im going to get the Phenom 960T as its a great CPU for the price and that leaves me 40 left on new ram or PSU. Do you think a new PSU is more important as my current one isnt a proper brand name and is probably holding back my OC abilities.
If you guys can recommend any PSU's up to 45pounds or even CPU that you think im better off getting that would be a great help.

My current rig:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Casecom 6988 with 2 140mm and a 92mm fans
Asrock N68C-S UCC
4GB DDR3 1333mhz Kingston ram
MSI Twin Frozr III PE R6950 OC to 900/1350
Amd Athlon II X4 640 OC to 3.590Ghz
G7 Power Extreme 680w PSU

 

[benjanini61]

Or getting this Asrock n68-vs3 fx and an FX 4100 could be another choice but im not so sure its worth going to BD

 

[FinneousPJ]

Neither is worth it over your overclocked Athlon IMO. If you feel you need an upgrade go for Sandy Bridge. I'm surprised though - your system should be able to run anything.

 

[Uther39]

Hey guys im going to upgrade my CPU and either buy ram or PSU along with it. Im pritty sure im going to get the Phenom 960T as its a great CPU for the price and that leaves me 40 left on new ram or PSU. Do you think a new PSU is more important as my current one isnt a proper brand name and is probably holding back my OC abilities.
If you guys can recommend any PSU's up to 45pounds or even CPU that you think im better off getting that would be a great help.

My current rig:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Casecom 6988 with 2 140mm and a 92mm fans
Asrock N68C-S UCC
4GB DDR3 1333mhz Kingston ram
MSI Twin Frozr III PE R6950 OC to 900/1350
Amd Athlon II X4 640 OC to 3.590Ghz
G7 Power Extreme 680w PSU

I can only recoomend bying these products to upgrade your ram
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Processors+-+AMD/AMD+Phenom+II+-+Socket+AM3/AMD+Phenom+II+X4+Quad+Core+960T+Black+Edition+95W+Edition+3.00GHz+%28Socket+AM3%29+Processor+-+Retail+?productId=47177

Then you will need one of these

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Coolers+-+Air/CPU+Coolers/Cooler+Master+Hyper+212+EVO+Quiet+CPU+Cooler+?productId=47248

Which will enable you to OC your 960T to around 4.0ghz

then buy this
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Memory+-+RAM/DDR3/Dual+Channel+-+%281600MHz%29/GeiL+Black+Dragon+8GB+%282x4GB%29+DDR3+PC3-12800C9+1600MHz+Dual+Channel+Kit+%28GB38GB1600C9DC%29+?productId=47442

 

[wr6133]

http://www.cclonline.com/product/60911/OCZ-ZS550W-UK/Power-Supplies/OCZ-ZS-Series-550W-80-Bronze-Power-Supply/PSU0243/

About 4 quid over your budget though

 

[13thmonkey]

120 GB SSD and 4 more GB of RAM

 

[chinchilla_bob]

Unless you are happy spending say £50+ on a PSU then don't bother, it's a false economy buying cheap. I do however agree with wr6133's suggestion if you are going to go for a PSU. A better quality PSU will help keep your overclocks stable (may not increase overclocking ability as it's down to the stability of the lines and current/power draw per line but if there is more current available per line than your current PSU then yes it may help)

Other than that it's a decent rig what you already have, if you go for thr 960T then memory is cheap enough these days, suggest you drop in another 4GB memory, although you won't notice a massive leap in gaming from the memory increase but will help. Beyond 8GB and returns diminish, even go backwards. 8GB is definately a sweet spot. I actually lose 2 FPS by having 16GB over 8GB in BF3 but I do a lot of media work and in the grandscheme of things 2 FPS is nothing.

I like uther39 suggestions

 

[chinchilla_bob]

The only reason people today are buying 8gb od ram for there gaming rigs is because DDR3 is so cheap $30-$40 gets you an 8gb kit but 4gb is all that is need to run game just perfectly and you will notice no difference in 8gb because games do not even use 4gb.

Games may not utilise more than 4GB in isolation but background applications in addition to the game itself (if you have background tasks or apps running) can push this beyond. My FPS went up as a result the first time I jumped from 4GB to 8GB on a 64 Bit operating system. Most benchmark testing don't take this into account. I run lots of applications and often take a break from what I am doing to immerse myself in a game for an hour or two before reverting back. If you just turn your PC on, play a game and then turn it off then yes, 4GB is spot on

 

[DelroyMonjo]

Yeah, hold back a few quid and buy your mother something nice..

 

[Plasmid]

The only reason people today are buying 8gb od ram for there gaming rigs is because DDR3 is so cheap $30-$40 gets you an 8gb kit but 4gb is all that is need to run game just perfectly and you will notice no difference in 8gb because games do not even use 4gb.

So not true monolithic, I use about 3gb on idle just browsing. When I go to gaming I can use up to 6 gb. So yes 8gb is a must for gaming.

 

[randomkid]

@Monolithic, just speak for yourself. If your PC activities do not incur more than 4GB RAM then good for you. But do not call other people's application "junk". They run it for a reason & they have configured they PC RAM for that also... to each his own.

@Benjanini61, I agree with 13thMonkey. Stick with what you have & just get an SSD. It will give you the most improvement in gameplay. I have it & there is almost no wait when loading Skyrim or any other game in between scenes...

 

[Uther39]

ERR back on topic please people.

 

[13thmonkey]

The only reason people today are buying 8gb od ram for there gaming rigs is because DDR3 is so cheap $30-$40 gets you an 8gb kit but 4gb is all that is need to run game just perfectly and you will notice no difference in 8gb because games do not even use 4gb.

can you explain to me why my system uses 5GB when playing BF3? there will be swap files being used if I only had 4GB, I'm not understanding where this myth is coming from, put teamspeak + temp monitoring on a second screen + battlelog etc. and you'll go beyond 4GB easily, perhaps not by much, but it doesn't take much.

 

[benjanini61]

WOW thanks for all the comments guys, and so fast!!
Can anyone1 tell me whether my PSU needs changing or not tho coz ive heard some bad reviews on it. And Finneous surely it is worth changing to the 960T it has great OC abilities and actually posses L3 cache (6mb). And to Uther39 will my current arctic freezer pro 7 not be enough to get me to 4GHZ??

 

[wr6133]

I've used a freezer 7 in the past I swapped to a 212. The Freezer does a good job but i found it got loud at hefty OC's. You may as well keep it though and maybe put any spare £ toward an extra 4GB RAM.

I agree that a 960T would be a good upgrade and get one while they are still around it will last you longer than the Athlon.

Your PSU is sort of a weak link there so as you can afford a better one you might as well. I linked an OCZ PSU earlier, I have used this brand alot and never had issue with them. If you can stretch the Budget a few more £ you can even get one of their modulars.

*edit to add* If your lucky the 960T will give you 6 cores and become a 1605T

 

[davidgermain]

ssd maybe but more ram deffo.

 

[13thmonkey]

you see, I use my machine for more than just gaming, its a general purpose machine, like most of them are. So I either spend 10mins everytime I want to game turning loads of stuff off, or I spend another £20-30 on a bit more RAM, as it stands I have 6GB, which is enough. They are meant to be used, not constantly adjusted.

 

[FinneousPJ]

I agree a dedicated gaming system shouldn't need more than 4 GB RAM. In my system however I have 12 GB and currently, doing nothing really, I'm using 3.66 GB of it. I wouldn't buy a general use computer today with less than 8 GB.

 

[Spoony]

Fishing Rod and bate.

sail out on the river onthe back of your girlfreind, if you had one

only kidding, look on www.scan.co.uk they have some deals for bundles at the moment, some good some bad but really good for around 140/160

 

[hella-d]

140 Pounds Of What? J/K <----- American

 

[wr6133]

140 Pounds Of What? J/K <----- American

140 lbs of pron and cigars in a bucket

 

[tenshin111]

Neither is worth it over your overclocked Athlon IMO. If you feel you need an upgrade go for Sandy Bridge. I'm surprised though - your system should be able to run anything.

I agree. You will not see much improvement in overall performance if you switch from a Quad Core Athlon to a Quad Core Phenom.

Better get yourself an SSD (put your OS and most often used games/apps there) and extra 4GB of RAM - you will be amazed how much difference it makes!

 

[Onus]

For general use, I'd favor the SSD over any other upgrade. Your motherboard is old, and only runs at 2000MT/s (modern ones do 5200MT/s), so any upgrades aren't going to reach their full potential. By the time you add in mobo replacement, you may as well be building a new rig entirely. In that case, regardless of how sad you may find it, the simple truth is that there is no longer any price point at which Intel does not outperform AMD.
Whatever you get, make sure it is something that you can move into your next build. RAM qualifies, although with 4GB already I wouldn't say you're hurting. A HD6950 is also a very nice GPU; unless you have a 30" monitor or are planning to play games across multiple screens, I think you've reached the point of diminishing returns. The PSU definitely qualifies, and if you've got a cheap generic now, would probably be a good idea. Not as visible, because it doesn't affect performance in any way you can measure, a good PSU is probably the best choice. Even if you aren't stressing the one you have, I've seen cheap PSUs blow because the wind changed direction, and sometimes (i.e. often) they take other parts with them when they die.

 

[Onus]

140 lbs of pron and cigars in a bucket

Hmmm, at 140 pounds, I'd be more inclined to guess it's a bag of hammers.

 

[wr6133]

naaa just a VERY big bucket