PC upgrading questions, please help poor 'ol P

[little P]

Ok, so my pc sucks. Lets get that out of the way first. My decent PC (along with thousands of pounds of other equipment) was stolen a year and a half ago when we were burgled. So this one has been cobbled together out of old parts from friends all chipping in at the time. I've had to put a new psu and gfx card in it last year and more ram a couple of months ago to get it up and running. It plays simcity, supreme commander, max payne 3 etc. fine but it doesn't cut it playing Arma 3 etc. and I wanted to give it a bit of extra va va voom without breaking the bank.

So here are the specs:

MOTHERBOARD: ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+ 3Ghz
RAM: Corsair DDR2 4Gb
GRAPHICS: Nvidia GT430 1Gb (stop laughing d00k)
PSU: Fried - Needs replacing! Currently some unbranded p.o.s.
OS: Windows 7 64bit

It's been suggested I could get a decent performance boost from just upgrading my gfx card. I'm not looking to break any benchmark records here, just get decent framerates for the more modern games.

My psu is on it's way out and has been for a while, so I need to upgrade that too. Problem is, I have no idea what wattage rating I would need, and it does affect the price.

Here's the psu that I've been looking at: http://www.corsair.com/builder-series-cx600.html What I'm not sure of is do I really need 600W?

And this is the gfx card that has been suggested to me, and to be fair is getting rave reviews from every review site I look at:

http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-650ti-boost

My question here is what the hell brand of it do I get? I'm not up on the PC hardware world, but found this site reviewing the different versions, I'm just a little wary that certain sites might be pushing certain brands etc. Here's the article:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/geforce-gtx-650-ti-boost-roundup.html

So there you have it, I was hoping I could get the opinions of the fragtards who know about this sort of stuff, and if you have anything else to add Ogami etc. please do!

Cheers guys (and gals) :icon_cool:

 

[Rockycore]

Whats your budget for upgrading?

 

[JohnnyK]

Yeah, we need to know your budget. Everything but the OS is pretty outdated, but you could get by with incremental upgrades I guess.

OTOH for 500 USD (probably around 350 quid) you could build something like this which is a decent budget gaming rig.

 

[Ogami Itto]

There is some more info required for us to give our best help TBH, what size screen are you trying to push? Is the hard drive is fully functional and do you have enough space? What size is the unbranded POS, it could have good innards inside, all you can do is try.


Johnny, I like that build except for the vid card cause at the $150 price point 650 Ti Boost kicks it to the curb, thus I'm going to stick with that recommendation. I personally didn't like Xbit's recommendations as they're pushing you towards a higher price point and that's not the purpose of this exercise. I would go here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127728

Nice reviews, twin frozer cooler, 2GB version, even better price right now. I know you can't do Newegg, but hoping you can find a similar deal in the UK. The PSU will probably be required and would recommend 600W as the GPU requires 450W in and of itself.

So to explain, no there is too much, so to sum up, $230 before rebate, $205 after and as long as that processor can provide fill rate, which I believe it can (Duke help me out here), then you can get 85% (150% if your just talking frames) of the performance of that other build. ArmA is notorious for requiring CPU horsepower so that could be an issue, but for half-price, its worth trying it out for yourself as you can do the mobo/cpu/memory upgrade later if you find the quid and want to.

 

[little P]

Ok, to answer your questions, (and thanks for the help!)

- The monitor is a 1080p 22" running at 1920x1080

- The budget is £200 or under

- This is just to get me by, within the next 6 months my money situation will be a lot better so I can go crazy at some point after that (looking forward to that)

- What do you mean by "is the hard drive fully functional"? I mean it works fine no problems, sure I could do with more space but I can upgrade that later I guess? Right now I have the main drive with games and os on, and 3tb for all the other stuff on external drives.

- The psu is an E-Data 300W

The msi 650ti I can find for £156 shipped, there are other variants, for example;

http://www.dabs.com/products/zotac-geforce-gtx-650-ti-boost-993mhz-2gb-pci-express-3-0-hdmi-8LJM.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc%20product%20search&utm_content=Q200&utm_campaign=Components%20and%20Storage%20-%20Graphics,%20TV%20Tuners%20and%20I/O%20-%20Graphics&origin=pla

This is "zotac" and is £130

or this;

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-gigabyte-gtx-650-ti-boost-oc-28nm-pcie-30-(x16)-6008mhz-gddr5-gpu-1032mhz-cores-768-dport-dl-dvi

this is £135 shipped...

I'm confused?!

Surely it's all the same card, so why the different prices, and how the hell do I know which one to go for?!

ie. which one to go for out of all of these?

http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/gpu-nvidia/geforce-gtx-650-ti-boost-pci-e-30-768-cores

scan.co.uk is widely accepted as the best place to go for pc components over here.

Actually re-reading the conclusion on that round up of the 650ti it says the msi and gigabyte cards got the recommended award. So maybe that gigabyte one is the one to go for?

decisions decisions!

 

[mondo]

Never had problems with gigabyte cards, they're pretty safe bets.

 

[Kenadian]

I can tell you first hand that MSI has some of the worst Tech Support I've ever run across and I've dropped them as a vendor since. I've also lost 2 video cards within the course of 1 year and both were high end from their "Twin Frozr" and "Twin Frozr II" lineup.

I've since switched to EVGA as I hear nothing but good thins about both their products and services.

 

[JohnnyK]

Johnny, I like that build except for the vid card cause at the $150 price point 650 Ti Boost kicks it to the curb

Good call; I definitely underestimated that card. This definitely seems like a great card at that pricepoint

- The monitor is a 1080p 22" running at 1920x1080
- The budget is £200 or under
- This is just to get me by, within the next 6 months my money situation will be a lot better so I can go crazy at some point after that (looking forward to that)
- The psu is an E-Data 300W

The PSU needs to be upgraded as well IMHO if you want a new card; the Ti Boost has a TDP of about 150W alone.

So get a good modular PSU (600W or above so you can potentially SLI in the future; I'm happy with my SuperFlower, but that would exceed your budget) and a 650 Ti Boost (or Boost superclocked) if you want to upgrade anything now. The cheaper 650s are non-boost or run lower clock speeds and are significantly slower. I'd also stick to the 2GB model

scan.co.uk seems down atm, so I can't help you there - my personal choice for nVidia cards would also be EVGA, so http://skinflint.co.uk/evga-geforce-gtx-650-ti-boost-superclocked-02g-p4-3658-a923238.html seems a good bet.

 

[little P]

Thanks guys, I've weighed it all up and have ordered the Corsair 600w psu and gigabyte 650ti 2gb boost, as it's on special from dabs.com

Here's hoping I'm on my way to decent framerates!

I can upgrade my cpu etc. later and sli the cards if necessary, by which time they'll be cheaper I guess...



d00k - hurry up and get your mega machine fixed d00d! I'm on my way!

 

[JohnnyK]

Congrats!

gigabyte 650ti 2gb boost, as it's on special from dabs.com

Can you link it? I can only find non-boost 650 Tis from Gigabyte on dabs.

 

[little P]

http://www.dabs.com/products/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-650-ti-boost-1032mhz-2gb-pci-express-3-0-hdmi-oc-8LN7.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc%20product%20search&utm_content=Q200&utm_campaign=Components%20and%20Storage%20-%20Graphics,%20TV%20Tuners%20and%20I/O%20-%20Graphics&origin=pla

Please tell me I haven't fudged up... :icon_confused:

 

[Kenadian]

Wow that's a nice card. It's really great to see Vendors finally embracing aftermarket cooling a bit more because reference cooling is just so inferior comparatively.

FYI little P, the rig is back up and running but I'm still not sure why? Hopefully Asus Tech Support can shed some light on why a nonsensical change made all the difference in the world.

 

[JohnnyK]

Looks fine, can't find it in the list for some reason though.

 

[Ogami Itto]

Personally I use EVGA and have been very happy, but they tend to stick with stock cooling. I had heard MSI was doing better in the customer support end lately, no experience with Gigabyte but I'm happy with the selection as well. You're going from nVidia to nVidia card so there shouldn't be too many gotchas in that process, just follow the instructions exactly. Here's hoping for some much better frames!

 

[Kenadian]

I think for the most part EVGA tends to stick with reference or slightly modified cooling on most but I believe their Signature Series of Cards all have modified dual cooling solutions.

That was actually why I initially chose MSI over EVGA as MSI had the Twin Frozr Series where EVGA had nothing to offer. After having 3 MSI Cards fail on me though I've learned my lesson and have switched completely to EVGA.

I think MSI makes great Video Cards that run well for a while but I don't believe they have very good build quality because there seems to be little to no longevity in their cards.

...either that or I'm just unlucky with their products as I was with Seagate Hard Drives.

Whatever the case may be, I've switched to EVGA and have not had an issue since.

I still miss BFG though, they made good cards as well.

 

[little P]

Well done getting the beast going mate, the virus I uploaded was only a 24 hour thing so it's all good

 

[Kenadian]

Well done getting the beast going mate, the virus I uploaded was only a 24 hour thing so it's all good

Dammit if I knew you gave it to me I just would have gone to the clinic and got some cream to clear it up.

Well now I know