Upgrade CPU/RAM/Mobo/SSD for £250-£350

mchr3k

Distinguished
Oct 25, 2010
15
0
18,510
Approximate Purchase Date: Next 1-2 weeks

Budget Range: £250-£350 (including shipping)

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Coding, browsing the web, watching movies, gaming

Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts to Upgrade:
* CPU - currently Core2 E6750, would like a Core i3/5/7.
* RAM - currently 2GB DDR2, would like 4-8GB DDR3
* Motherboard - currently Zotac ITX GeForce 9300, I would like at least 6x rear USB ports and at least 4x internal SATA connections.
* Wifi - currently built into my motherboard, presumably I'll need to get a cheap USB wifi adapter.
* (Optional) SSD - I currently use 2x large HDD, I would like at least 40GB of SSD space to store at least my IDE and code source on.

Parts which I already have:
* Silverstone Sugo SG02-F MicroATX case
* Silverstone Strider Modular 600W PSU
* GeForce 8800 GT GPU
* 2x SATA HDD
* 1x SATA Bluray drive

Do you need to buy OS: No

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: ebuyer.com, dabs.com, amazon.co.uk, I'm happy to buy from elsewhere.

Location: Edinburgh, UK

Parts Preferences: None

Overclocking: No

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: A single monitor at 1440x900 or 1280x720 or occasionally two monitors at similar resolutions.

Additional Comments: I would prefer a quiet PC.

Why Are You Upgrading: My current PC runs my games and apps fine but is quite old and would benefit from an upgrade. I am particularly keen to get an SSD to speed up compile times while coding.

The only real issue which I currently have is that my PC often stalls with the GPU fan running at 100% at POST time. This is solved by turning the PC off for several minutes and booting from cold. I have tried replacing the GPU and saw no difference so I have always assumed that it as a CPU/Motherboard problem. once booted my current PC had always been stable.
 

malbluff

Honorable
Something like this (plus wi-fi) would give good performance, and meet your needs. I would say that, whilst obviously more, the 128GB version of the SSD is better value.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£143.38 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock H77 Pro4-M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£66.11 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£31.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Storage: Samsung 830 Series 64GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£58.37 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £299.85
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-11-16 21:30 GMT+0000)
 

mchr3k

Distinguished
Oct 25, 2010
15
0
18,510
I got an excellent quote from @malbluff a month ago. I wonder if anyone can confirm whether this quote is still the best buy for my budget? I wouldn't like to miss any upgrades which have become available in the last month or any particularly good deals which are currently running.

Thanks.