i'm thinking of upgrading my pc after my hols
currently i have
intel dual core e6400
2g of ram
300gb sata2 hard drive
soundblaster audigy 2
geforce 9600gt (512mb)
heres what i'm thinking of getting
either intel i7 or high end amd
8gb of ram
1tbt hard drive
hd4870x2 or 2 hd4870's
looking at a price tag of about a grand
any info wud be great
I got both a I7 rig and a Phenom II
The I7 has a bit more power to work with, tho i gotta admit i like the Phenom II system better, it just seems more responsive to me..
Remembe if you go I7 you will be going for Triple channel ddr3 :D so 6 or 9 gig solutions..
For the 4780x2 or 4870 Crossfire..
The 4870x2 uses less power and scales a tiny bit better then the crossfire bridge solution..
If you want, i can try fixing up a setup for you lateron
you got any preferences in online shops?
Right sorry to disturb the apple cart but i7 imho isn' worth it at the mo.
Yes ddr3 has come down but Toby bought a case, i7 cheapest cpu,MB and ram for £900+.
No new psu or graffy card, yes he had dual 8800gtx's but these are thirsty beasts now.
What i did was i had a e6300, 680i board, 8800gts and 2gb ram pc 8500.
I decided that i7 would be about 1000 ish or a bit lower but i usually buy mid end and the middle i7 and high end chips are too expensive.
So i kept my board and spent £300.
An aurora 570 long edition, rare find
8gb ocz platinum ram pc 6400 (same price as 4gb pc8500) £54 (usually £120 as its a quad matched set)
q6600 95 watt edition £135 (usually 172 plus £10 postage on ocuk)
Now my 8800gts 640mb will be the next part to ditch but this will be when it grinds to a halt.
I was told that i7 parts were going to crash in the summer. Intel have quashed such rumours. I will adopt i7 or which variant in 2-3 years time. If your boards up to the task why ditch it. New i7 boards are £300 still for a decent one and chips start at £240 ish so thats £500 gone already. Do a small upgrade for new graffy, ram and cpu i.e. max them out like i have done then sit on your rig for 2-3 years.
I have to disagree Ghost. £160 for the mobo, £225 for the CPU and £70 for 6GB of tripple channel Ram gives a total of £455 for the entry level system.
The ram has drastically dropped in price farily recently making the setup affordable.
Keeping a motherboard only saves the £160, a high end quad is over £200 and 4GB of dual channel ram is upto £50. So there's only £200 in it for a jump to the next gen CPU and 6gb of faster ram. I see it as a case of upgrading to i7 or waiting.
The i7 have better performance than the high end quads in alot games.
I'm on a Q6600 and my next jump will be to an i7 system (when I get money either from a PhD placement or a job if I don't get accepted - probably won't be buying until after christmas time because my system is good enough for now).
As for getting 2 4870's I'd get the X2 instead. As that leaves the ability to bolt in another card later and is better performing if I remember rightly.
I've not used an AMD since my 4200X2 (which as far as I can tell was the last time they were genuinely competative on price and performance - just before Core 2 stormed the market) so I don't know what they're like now but benchmark wise I'd stick with intel, that and everytime I'd upgrade with amd they'd change their chip set so I'd need new mobos each upgrade, I'm still bitter.