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Upgrade this for £500?

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Hello All.

I was pointed to this website by a good friend of mine and have been doing a load of research using it over the last few days/weeks but want to ask a couple of questions before I commit to an upgrade in the next week or so. I am more of a software guy so hardware and all the numbers that go with it really goes over my head.

First of all im currently using an off the shelf PC, I know its not the best hence the need for upgrading but it was all I could afford this time last year.

Ill get the basics out of the way. This is what im working with:

HP Pavilion p7-1015uk ( http://tinyurl.com/ctr7puf ) <--- PC breakdown.
Intel Core i3 2100
4GB Ram
500GB internal HDD (65% full)
600GB external HDD (80% full)
64-bit Windows Home Premium
Integrated Graphics
Resolution 1920x1080

I play an array of games often but the main ones are WoW, Diablo 3 and I will be buying BF3. I will want to run all these on Very high/Ultra settings if possible. I also use photoshop a lot for work, I dabble with video editing, Im terrible for leaving loads of tabs open in chrome whilst doing other things and I watch lots of movies. I've also never ran a game before at ultra or even high quality and would love to say I can to all my gaming buddys.

Ok so for the question. What would you do to my system with £500?

I have a good idea of the upgrades I want but as I said before I dont know a great deal about hardware and by posting what I want (which ive previously done) i'll just get yes or no feedback. Im interested though in what you would do with my money? Someone who knows about systems and what they are talking. This isnt me being lazy as I have done the research and have a good idea of what I want but I really would like some input from elsewhere and a different view on things.

All I will say is I want and need a graphics card.

Thanks and any feedback is welcome.

Jase.

More about : upgrade 500

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Interesting for £500 it might be better just to start from scratch again as you're limited by the OEM motherboard, case and psu.

You have 3 options as i see it:

1. Only upgrade cpu, gpu, ram and if you have money maybe an SSD
Most power at cheapest price but greater chance of compatibility problems (space and PSU wise)

2. Change everything
Most expensive but a good case and psu will stay with you for ages

3. Change everything but keep: cpu, ram, HDD's and peripherals.
A decent balance between the 2 but does saddle you with a dual core cpu and only 4gb ram, although gives you a solid base for upgrading in the future.

I'm not sure what i would do in your position i would probably take option 3 as getting out of the case/psu combo you have now is important imo, and you can always upgrade again later.


I'll suggest options for each of these but as i'm off to work soon it'll be tomorrow for 2.
I have no idea what the dimensions are in your case and indeed what the cooling system is so please be aware that my suggestions may not fit and you would be silly not to measure out when using an OEM case.
All parts are from aria.co.uk.

1.
16GB Mushkin Enhanced BlackLine Frostbyte #993995 (4x4GB) 1600 (PC3-12800)
XFX Core Edition Radeon HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel Core i5-2320 3.00GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail
OCZ Vertex 4 128GB 2.5" SATA-III Solid State Hard Drive
Delivered for £493.00

lots of ram for your photoshop, fast ssd for scratch disk for photoshop, hd 7850 for gaming (a little concerned your psu may not get on well with it tbh, if you can give us the wattage table on it that would be very useful, also the connectors it has) and a quad core i5 (couldn't get in an i7 with an SSD).

2. TBC

3.
GIGABYTE GA-Z77-D3H Intel Z77 Socket 1155 DDR3 PCI-Express Motherboard
550W OCZ ZS Series 80PLUS Bronze Power Supply
Fractal Design Core 3000 Black Midi Tower Case
MICROSOFT Windows Home Premium 7 SP1 64-bit EN 1pk - OEM [GFC-02050]
ARIANET Radeon HD 7850 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Mushkin Chronos 120GB 2.5" SATA-III Solid State Hard Drive
Delivered for £505.73 slightly over but necessary

You may probably won't notice much difference in day to day tasks as your cpu and ram are the same but with a 7850 gaming will be exceptional and the better case and psu will last for many years. unfortunately upgrading the motherboard does mean you'll need a new windows 7 license which makes things more expensive. The price could be lowered by getting a cheaper case but as it is used professionally i wanted something smart and not with leds everywhere.

Well my original idea and plan is/was to upgrade, Graphics card, PSU and RAM.

Anything else like case, motherboard I would do next time I have the money. I really dont want to buy a new computer as of yet my idea is to upgrade this and roll all the upgrades over to a new system/tower in the next year or so as money is tight and lump sums to spunk are few and far between.

I'll tell you what I was thinking but I would still like everyones idea on what they would do.

Between 12GB - 16GB Ram eg: http://www.ebuyer.com/342446-crucial-12gb-ddr3-1600mhz-...

A 600w PSU: http://www.ebuyer.com/269259-corsair-600w-cx-series-v2-...

And a palit GTX 670 Jetstream: http://www.ebuyer.com/369664-palit-gtx-670-jetstream-2g...



In the near future I would upgrade to i5/i7 depending on money
Then after that a new case and motherboard and move it all over to that.

For now the aim is to game as im really not enjoying fair graphics on WoW and cant even consider buying BF3 till I upgrade plus I need the RAM as I said for Photoshopping.

Thanks again.

if your going for a GTX 670 Then you will have to go for a 700W PSU as i dont think the 600W will do the job. Or you could go for the graphics card metal orient said the AMD Radeon HD 7850 which will be compatible with the 600W and it still is a great GPU.
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I was under the impression 600W would be ok, maybe 650W?

I personally want a Nvidia GTX card as ive always heard good things and its what ive had before and never had a problem.

jasieboii said:
Well my original idea and plan is/was to upgrade, Graphics card, PSU and RAM.

Anything else like case, motherboard I would do next time I have the money. I really dont want to buy a new computer as of yet my idea is to upgrade this and roll all the upgrades over to a new system/tower in the next year or so as money is tight and lump sums to spunk are few and far between.

I'll tell you what I was thinking but I would still like everyones idea on what they would do.

Between 12GB - 16GB Ram eg: http://www.ebuyer.com/342446-crucial-12gb-ddr3-1600mhz-...

A 600w PSU: http://www.ebuyer.com/269259-corsair-600w-cx-series-v2-...

And a palit GTX 670 Jetstream: http://www.ebuyer.com/369664-palit-gtx-670-jetstream-2g...

In the near future I would upgrade to i5/i7 depending on money
Then after that a new case and motherboard and move it all over to that.

For now the aim is to game as im really not enjoying fair graphics on WoW and cant even consider buying BF3 till I upgrade plus I need the RAM as I said for Photoshopping.

Thanks again.


Well that seems sensible although you won't need a GTX 670 to play bf3, my stock 6950 is fine on ultra, you might look at a GTX 570 (as they're dropping significantly) or a GTX 660 when it turns up. Consider AMD as well though as they offer good value, currently i'd say a 7870 woudl fir the bill nicely as it's a fair bit faster than a GTX 570 and only £30 more.

You'll need 16GB of ram as 12GB is triple channel not dual channel (a pity given how cheap triple channel is now). Power wise a 550W psu will have you covered e.g. an XFX Core 550W but don't plan a, multicard setup on it.

Again i'd say make sure you measure up your case as you may find standard parts do not fit.

As a suggestion for cheaper system:
XFX 550 Watt Core Edition £50
http://www.dabs.com/products/xfx-550-watt-core-edition-...

Corsair 16GB (4 x 4GB) Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz £78
http://www.dabs.com/products/corsair-16gb--4-x-4gb--ven...

XFX ATI Radeon 7870 1GHz £230
http://www.dabs.com/products/xfx-ati-radeon-7870-1ghz-2...

Total price £357.96

Nice one mate, thanks for taking the time and I think I might just have to consider getting a lesser card. That way I can buy a HDD within my budget as its needed. I did think around 500W - 600W would be enough.

Saying that, whats the reason not to get the GTX 670? Overkill? Will it not give me more years gaming buying the best card I can now?

Well my main reason was cost, and the GTX 670 is £100 more, now you are getting fantastic performance for that and the price/performance metric are almost equal for each so i think the cheaper card is better if budget is a concern. It's not like a 7870 is a slouch. Waiting for the GTX 660 would be a good idea as it's supposed to have close to GTX 670 performance at a 7870 price.
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