$600 to spend on upgrading most parts

[arctic618]

Approximate Purchase Date: e.g.: next 2 weeks

Budget Range: 550-600

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, Surfing, watching movies

Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts to Upgrade: CPU, motherboard, ram

Do you need to buy OS: No

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.ca, ncix.ca, canada computers

Location: Toronto, Ontario

Parts Preferences: none

Overclocking: No

SLI or Crossfire: No

Why Are You Upgrading: Need a new computer after 5 years and some upgrade to it

Already have: Fractal Case (matx), Power Supply (OCZ Stealth X Treme 600W), GPU (Radeon HD5770), HD (WD Green)


Intel 330 Series Maple Crest 120GB:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-167-121&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=2#scrollFullInfo

G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231546

MSI Z77MA-G45 mATX LGA1155 Z77 DDR3 2PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 SATA3 DVI HDMI VGA USB3.0 Motherboard:
http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=69840&vpn=Z77MA-G45&manufacture=MSI%2FMicroStar&promoid=1360

Intel Core i5 3550 Quad Core Processor LGA1155 3.3GHZ Ivy Bridge 6MB Retail:
http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=70542&vpn=BX80637I53550&manufacture=Intel

want to keep RAM as low profile, any comments would be helpful, compatibility issues ? or perhaps better value ?

thank you very much people

 

[nekulturny]

I'd think about upgrading the video card at some point. You didn't mention what you're upgrading from, but more than likely that video card is showing its age at this point. Might even be better off holding off on the SSD to make room for the a video card upgrade depending on what games you're playing.

 

[arctic618]

playing on SC2, D3 and league of legends.

not sure what i should upgrade my graphics to

SC2 is pretty laggy for me though i think that might have more to do with my processor

 

[mattangle]

This is just my opinion, but you might consider switching from intel to amd, if you are just playing games like sc2/ds/lol you aren't going to see any difference and you can get a lot more bang for your buck out of amd at this budget range. I agree with nekul too, graphics card probably before your SSD. What graphics card are you running?

 

[arctic618]

Radeon hd 5770 i figured 600 was good for changing the processor and motherboard, i figured i could still use my GPU for a bit longer

 

[nekulturny]

Its true that for the kind of games you're playing, doing an AMD build probably would be more than sufficient, however, the problem with that is, in my opinion there are no microATX motherboards in the AMD variety really worth considering, at least the last time I checked. Go ahead and pull the trigger on the CPU mobo, RAM upgrade and decide then if your GPU needs a replacement.

SC II is a little CPU intensive, but not greatly so. But like I said, you're trying to have the cart before the horse going with an SSD before a video card upgrade.

This would be a pretty awesome video card upgrade, but again it is overkill for the games you're looking to play

http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=69585&vpn=R7850%20Twin%20Frozr%202GD5%2FOC&manufacture=MSI%2FMicroStar&promoid=1261

You could save a few bucks going with this CPU instead. The 3550 isn't really any better. Certainly not 20 extra bucks worth of performance from it.

http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=70543&vpn=BX80637I53450&manufacture=Intel

 

[obubdeno]

playing on SC2, D3 and league of legends.

not sure what i should upgrade my graphics to

SC2 is pretty laggy for me though i think that might have more to do with my processor

Just got finished talking to another poster about this. Blizzard games such as SCII, D3, WoW are all very very cpu intensive. And all of these games are run better by Nvidia graphics cards. It shows in the benchmarks. So With that said, do you live anywhere near a microcenter? Because You could get an amazing deal for all 3 for $300. If not Here is what I recommend.

CPU:
i5-2500k http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072 $219.99

OR

i5-3450 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116506 $199.99

Motherboard: Since your not O/C or SLI/Crossfire

ASRock H77M LGA 1155 :http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157303 $74.99

Memory:

G.Skill Ripjaw Series 8gb (2x4gb) 1600mhz (PC-12800) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314 $45.99 Customer Award Winning.

Now thats: $340.97 or $320.97 Depending on CPU Choosen. I would now look into a new GPU with the extra funds. We have $230-$280 depending on your budget and cpu you choose.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314 With that benchmark lets look for a Nice GTX 560 Ti . Will run what your looking for well in a blizzard game without going to far into budget.

GPU: MSI GTX 560 Ti http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127594 $224.99 -- $204.99 after rebate.

So that brings us to total:

With 2500k: $565.96 -- $545.96 after MIR

With 3450: $545.96 -- $525.96 After Rebate


That will bring you everything you need to play your games on max settings comfortably! Hope I could help

 

[nekulturny]

Just got finished talking to another poster about this. Blizzard games such as SCII, D3, WoW are all very very cpu intensive.

Any modern CPU will max out Diablo 3.

How do you figure Nvidia runs Diablo 3 better? The 7850 is a better card than the 560 TI, and Diablo 3 is no different.

All of these video cards easily put out enough average frame rates to exceed the standard computer monitor's limitation. 60hz monitor=60FPS btw, which means, the video card could put out 1000FPS, you'd only ever see 60 of em.

Now AMD CPUs do suffer a bit on StarCraft II, I'll concede that point.. And if you really want WoW benches, I'll find them, but honestly my 550 TI can max that game out lol.

 

[obubdeno]

No offense, thats not how blizzard benchmarks work. In wow for instance those are done with someone flying on a mount with no population around them with no spells going on, when that happens you will not be able to get anywhere near those numbers. Benchmarks will be benchmarks, you need to see the real world results.

 

[nekulturny]

I've played WoW before, lol. My Phenom II build handles it just fine, although I didn't really like it that much. As far as how benchmarks are concerned, a lot of benchmarks are done that way actually, on most games, they're almost always done on a single player, since multiplayer benches can be inconsistent. Hell, I played the original Diablo before some of the members on this forum were even born. I'm quite familiar with Blizzard products.

Blizzard games are not GPU intensive, some of them can be a little CPU intensive, but not really.

Heres the actual article:

http://www.techspot.com/review/532-diablo-3-performance/

Blizzard has somewhat of a reputation for making highly scalable titles that run on virtually any gaming rigs, so that's largely what we expect from the developer's latest offering...

We used Fraps to measure frame rates during a minute of gameplay from Diablo III's first act.

----

CPU
http://www.techspot.com/review/532-diablo-3-performance/page5.html

They said the 17 FPS might seem noticeable, not sure how that could be when they're all putting out over 100FPS. But oh well. I'm not really trying to argue about it though, but you can see in the articles they downclocked the CPUs to simulate server lag and Raids and such.