600€ upgrade budget

[Gantoise]

Approximate Purchase Date: Asap

Budget Range: 600€ (+- 800$)

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming (world of warcraft, battlefield 3 and diablo III in the future)

Parts Not Required: Mouse, keyboard, monitor


Country: Belgium, could go to holland to buy parts as it's cheaper.


Overclocking: Yes / No / Maybe (No idea what that is ;()

SLI or Crossfire: Yes / No / Maybe (^)

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments: I would love to have this pc being able to to play games smoothly on ultra graphics

Current parts:

Intel r core tm i7cpu 920@ 2.67 ghz (8cpus) 2.7 ghz
Ram 4096
gtx 260
500gb
(let me know if you need something more, I'm a big hardware noob!)

 

[chippies]

I think your CPU and RAM should still be fine so I'd suggest a new graphics card. For that budget, you could get an nVidia GTX 580 or an AMD Radeon HD6970. If you can wait until your local shops have stock, rather buy the AMD Radeon HD 7970. Have a look here for prices: http://www.lasystems.be/ComponentsVideocards/category/106_170.html?sort=desc&filter_id=161

and here: http://www.lasystems.be/ComponentsVideocards/category/106_170.html?filter_id=2853.

Since the Radeon HD7970 is the latest graphics card to be released, and much more powerful than the previous generation of cards, it should be good enough for a few years.

 

[Gantoise]

I think your CPU and RAM should still be fine so I'd suggest a new graphics card. For that budget, you could get an nVidia GTX 580 or an AMD Radeon HD6970. If you can wait until your local shops have stock, rather buy the AMD Radeon HD 7970. Have a look here for prices: http://www.lasystems.be/ComponentsVideocards/category/106_170.html?sort=desc&filter_id=161

and here: http://www.lasystems.be/ComponentsVideocards/category/106_170.html?filter_id=2853.

Since the Radeon HD7970 is the latest graphics card to be released, and much more powerful than the previous generation of cards, it should be good enough for a few years.

Hey, thanks for your reply.

The 7970 costes 550€ and the Gtx 580 costes 450€ - Do you really think it's worth paying more for that amd card? According to this site http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html the Gtx, who is the cheapest of the two, is rated better in the performance charts. But as I said, I'm a big hardware noob so don't shoot me if I'm being dumb!

Oh also, would there be anything else I should purchase or change (I could go over that budget a bit) that would significally improve gaming performances?

 

[chippies]

Have a look at http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html and the Radeon 7950 review on TH: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7950-overclock-crossfire-benchmark,3123.html. The Radeon 7970 outperforms the GTX 580 all the time. I've never used www.videocardbenchmark.net so no idea about their quality.

You might also need to buy a new power supply, depending on how much power your current one can deliver. Since you didn't post the power supply specifications I can't comment.