Updating my PC

[Vincenoir]

My PC is getting on a bit and cutting out quite often. I've got an £800 budget to work with although i would like to minimize that as much as possible.

My graphics card is the newest thing i have, an ATI Radeon 4870, so i could probably get away with using that but i'm not married to it or anything. The rest of the specs aren't really worth mentioning :>

So i looked at Scan and threw together some bits and pieces. Wasn't very scientific.


I could shave £45 off with This GPU if there won't be any big difference in the long term. Maybe my current card is good enough for a while longer too.

Am i making any glaring errors? I'm not in any big rush i can still play WoW fine for the most part. Minecraft is a different story....i try to load the same level twice and instant computer death followed by 20 minutes of hammer hitting until it magically works again. You don't want to know the stuff i've tried to get it to the first boot screen

[Roper]

I’m thinking of doing the same in the new year. That seems to be similar to the sort of thing I’ve been looking at, I don’t have much to add and will wait for the experts to arrive, but I’ll watch with interest.

[Commando]

I'd recommend swapping the Western Digital hard drive for a Samsung Spinpoint, as far as I know they're consistently rated better in all areas. Also it has double the capacity and costs less.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/ss1tb-sa ... ms-ncq-oem

[ash]

Retail CPU and buying a CPU cooler?

I'm still using the stock cooler on mine =) not sure how hot i5s get..?

and personally.... I would not buy windows

The ram is not the fastest you can get for that mobo (it looks like)

Ian is right about the hard drive but then I've never used Samsung drives...

is 650W standard these days? Seems a bit excessive!

CPU + mobo match up okay too!

seems alright - is your current GFX card a DVI one? otherwise you will probably be running off a standard cable, image quality might be off

[Woolfgar]

ive also been looking at purchasing a new PC seen as upgrading the laptop is almost impossible.

my uncle has just purchased the following - recieved it all ok - saved himself £70 by not having a legit windows license installed by the company:

http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/viewPrd.a ... roduct=766

for the money, I dont think I could build it myself for that and it handles everything thats been thrown at it - full resolution and so far all ok - he upgraded the processor to the X4 965 for £16 but plenty of options

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black
8GB DDR3 1333
1TB S-ATA II
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB

its a really decent site, the bloke who runs it is sound and helped my uncle (who knows nothing about PC's) without ripping him off.

for a Budget of £800 this site has some amazing machines

i5 760 varient - better spec than you put in the image and cheaper price.
http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/viewPrd.a ... ategory=94

[Roper]

Retail CPU and buying a CPU cooler?

With the last two I've built I havent used the stock cooler, not because I wanted to overclock but just to keep it quieter. Though I guess maybe the stocks are better these days?

Ian is right about the hard drive but then I've never used Samsung drives...

I'm also a fan of the Samsung drives.

As far as windows, I started to find all the genuine advantage crap a PITA, though I guess I'm not up to speed on ways around such things...

[Heeuge]

If you can hang fire for a few more weeks Intel are due to release their SandyBridge range during the CES show in early January.

The i5 2400 outperforms even the i7 980X Extreme in WoW according to Anandtech previews. Preview pricing structures show the i5 2400 at the same point as the current i5 650 (ie it might well be cheaper than the 760 you've specced for at the mo). Despite the Jan 5th NDA a few shops in Malaysia have already put some on sale - the 2400 was selling for a direct conversion price of £125. Factor in the extra BritTax and sub £150 is possible, confirming it's bang-for-buck potential.




There are, as ever, a few caveats to consider when waiting for the newest new tech. The CPUs use a new socket size, LGA-1155. This is not to be confused with the current 1156 - they're not interchangeable.
The new boards will be pretty much the same specs as the current ones - still no native USB 3 support (though 3rd party chipsets might still be wedged in) - so shouldn't cost too much more. It runs the newer SATA 6Gbps speeds though so adding a PCI-E USB 3 card at a later date won't impair performance.

AMD/nVidia are currently having a bit of a battle with both releasing their latest GPUs in the last month or two. The prices of their older generations have tumbled as a result so you can get a decent whack for your money. The 4870 is still a pretty decent card (as is the nVidia 460) but for £130ish you can get the latest generation of AMD card, the 6850. The 6850 consistently matches or outperforms the nVidia 460, for example by a good 10/15fps in Starcraft 2 while being cheaper, quieter and less power-hungry.

With the rest of the bits & bobs you've put on your list, plus swapping the 500gb HDD for the 1TB one you obviously meant to click , here's a spec with the mobo/CPU placeholders using current equivalently priced parts:




In summary - wait till January!


PS - oem CPU fans aren't noisy at all but 3rd party models will be noticeably quieter if you get the right one. It's not something I bother with any more but each to their own!
PPS - I'm pretty sure win 7 can be found legitimately cheaper than the £74 that Scan charge......

[ash]

only issue I can see with taking new technology is possible firmware/driver issues, but theoretically it could cause the prices of the current stuff to drop?

[Heeuge]

As tech matures and gets superceded prices will inevitably fall. Buying based on fear of immature drivers would mean you'd always get 'previous generation' hard and software. That's fine for the corporate market where stability is a primary concern over performance but we should be targetting the best bang for buck.

You need to be very careful about the nomenclature used by the CPU / GPU sellers. The AMD 6850, for example, performs below the 5850 - in theory an older architecture - in a number of tests but is £30/40 cheaper, runs cooler and more power efficiently and therefore quieter. If you took it purely on FPS scores then it looks like a backward step from AMD since you'd expect the 6850 to be faster than it's name predecessor. Pricewise though the 6870 takes the place of the 5850 and comfortably matches/beats it while maintaining that cooler, more efficient design.

I'm not as tapped-in to the driver scene as I once was but there's been no major outcry about unusable cards due to beta/glitchy drivers for a while. CPUs especially will be fine on release, the motherboards aren't using too much new stuff in these expected models.

[Vincenoir]

I think i can wait, maybe get the new PSU to stop the cut outs in the short term. I wasn't sure about windows but i should probably buy a legit copy for once in my life? Still running XP on this machine but the CD has cracked and i'm not sure where to acquire a new copy :p. Good catch on the hard drive.

Thanks a lot for the information and your time. You picked the two games that i own too so that makes me even more confident!

I actually forgot CPU's come with a stock cooler, i think i was recommended to get a seperate one when my CPU was new but i've always been scared it would dismount and smash my graphics card..it's massive

[cronulus]

Concerning the OS. My younger brother is still at university and at his school they have special deals for fully legit copies of Microsoft software (i payed around 60 euros for ultimate). If you could find a kind soul who would be willing to do the same thing that would be awesome!

[Feetnibbler]

as for needing xp my mate has a decent copy im sure i could send u a disc in mail or something upto you

[Demonheart]

Hey, sorry for highjacking this thread but I don't want to start a new one for this so here goes. I bought the following laptop, as I needed one for uni:

HP Pavilion dv6-3011so

Processor: AMD Turion II Dual Core , 2,3GHz, CPU memory 2MB L2a
RAM: 4GB DDR3 @1333 MHz, max 8gb
HDD: 640gb
GFX Card: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 1GB
Screen: 15,6" LED, max resolution 1366 x 768
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
Aluminium case

It cost me 599€, which is fine considering stuff in Finland is rather expensive. Even basic laptops with DDR2 RAM and crappy integrated GFX cards are easily 400€+, so I'm happy anyway. Anyone wanna comment on my purchase? The games I will be playing are WoW and Starcraft 2.

[Heeuge]

Anyone wanna comment on my purchase?

Not sure what you're expecting people to say here other than 'great job!' - it's not like me replying with 'christ on a bike you got ripped off with that spec for that price' will make you send it back and get a better one! **



Back on topic, it's been discovered that the new ATi 6950 is identical to the more expensive 6970 in all but bios - ie it's software restrained rather than hardware. A bios flash should bump you up to bigger and better things free of charge. \o/





** Not that I'd say that, though personally I'd prefer a higher res screen for a 15" laptop

[Roper]

Although I also plan to wait it looks like my graphics card may have other ideas, and seems to be on the way out. Lots of screwey graphics in WoW, and an example from my desktop here:



Very much like the last time it died, thought I might get it replaced under the lifetime warranty again but it seems BFG are being liquidated.

Soooo, although I'm not going to buy the rest yet I guess I may need to go ahead and get a new card. Whats the current mid range card of choice? I'm thinking £150-£200 budget, though could probably go a bit over if necessary? Also whats the situation with sockets, my current PC is about three and a half years old so I guess the PCI socket has improved? Are they backwards compatable, all be it with poorer performance?

As an alternative, I do want to be able to pass my old PC on, so will need another card for that anyway. Any suggestions on a cheapish replacement for my 8800gtx? Guess I should be able to get something fairly cheap that will perform as well?

Grateful for any advice.