Re-tooling my Desktop - is my proposed upgrade a smart one?

[1000possibleclaws]

Well I'm currently waiting on a nice sale to hop on, but this is my plan. Do you guys think any of these choices are not good? I don't have much hardware knowledge, this is basicaly just going by word of mouth and limited research


1) i5 2500k (I've heard this is pretty standard. I think some have slightly different specs? Is there any I should aim for, or should avoid?)

2) New Mobo. Maybe I'll try and find a package deal that comes with a 2500k, or else I don't really know much about these. Should I just go down the list of its functions, or is there anything I should read into?

3) 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (I'm just going by what someone recommended. RAM is cheap and I assume this is good?)

4) PSU. I'm planning on getting a 620-750 watt modular PSU, whatever happens to have good reviews and is on sale during my order

5) GPU: would be replacing my 8800GTS, probably with an AMD card because I think those give you more bang for your buck. I still haven't read into this yet, because I guess it's something I can always invest in at a future date, if I can't get together enough money right now. Also hoping for a price drop as a new series just came out (?)


btw my goal is to use this mainly as a gaming PC. I am getting so frustrated that my Battlefield lags even on low settings, and I want to finally be able to play GTA4 at a normal resolution.

[mjmacky]

You could buy Intel if you want to pay a lot more for getting slightly more. If you're set on AMD graphics than why not an AMD processor and AM3+ motherboard? I would actually make a recommendation, but no one takes my suggestions seriously. People really love to throw their money away.

[1000possibleclaws]

A 2500k is around $200, what's the AMD equivalent that I would be comparing benchmarks to? I'm pretty broke (except apparently I get either $800 or $1600 from the govt for being a student, depending if its retroactive, so I may have some money :D) I'd definitely research the AMD version as a consideration.

[cirrus]

i5 2500K is a good choice. Pair it with the Asus Sabertooth P67, Corsair Vengeance RAM 2 x 4GB or 2 x 8GB, Coolermaster silent Pro PSU and your choice of GPU (sorry not much knowledge about these)

[mjmacky]

A 2500k is around $200, what's the AMD equivalent that I would be comparing benchmarks to?

AMD FX-8120 3.1 GHz 8 core http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103961
*AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 6 core http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103851
AMD Phenom II X4 quadcore 975 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103923

That shortlist was based only on what I see Newegg currently selling

The new FX series is using AMD's new Bulldozer architecture. Since it's brand new, I would not personally go for except for 1 reason... 8 cores. If you were encoding, then I'd recommend the FX hands down at its current price, but I wouldn't place my bets on games efficiently utilizing 8 cores just yet. When Skyrim was released, there was little benefit of a quadcore over a dual core, i.e. it was not optimized for more than 2 parallel threads. I put an asterisk next the middle choice because it's a balance between where we currently sit for multi-threaded optimization and future-proofing.

In practical terms though, your graphics card is going to matter much more than your processor, and that's mostly why I recommend an AMD setup. Intel gives you more bang per Ghz, but the $ isn't linearly scaled, thus AMD gives more bang for the buck. Fuck I hate using cliched phrases, why did I just do that? Anyways, the convention is Intel-nVidia, AMD-ATI (especially since they've merged), but is in no way the rule of law. Up to you.

My personal setup is AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE, ATI Radeon HD 5770, 4 GB RAM, regular SATA disks, I have no complaints or symptoms of envy. I could afford to go higher in price, but just can't rationalize the wasted funds.

[clocker]

I agree with much of mj's opinion but can't recommend an AMD platform if it means being saddled with the gawdawful nVidia chipsets.
The Intel ICH SATA/RAID controller crushes the nVidia equivilent and storage performance impacts gameplay quite a bit, does it not?

[megabyteme]

I, too, agree with Mack's comments. I haven't built anything in over a year, but if I were, I would follow the same ideas, and go with products on Newegg that have over 100 reviews- especially motherboards. Some of them have 300-400 reviews. The info supplied in those reviews is soo often a huge time/frustration saver. Look for the people who truly know what they are talking about in these reviews. Some will mention replacement drivers, flashing BIOS, pairings with specific chipsets, working/non-working RAM, etc. Listen to those.

Go with tried-and-tested products. Listen to reviews that will give you an idea of how much trouble a particular system/board will be. Find out what people are pairing with them. It takes time, but reading reviews- even as boring as that can be) will save you LOTS of money and (more importantly to me, anyway) frustration...

Good luck!

[1000possibleclaws]

Well I did a bit of GPU research and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna buy the AMD HD6850, which is much better than my 8800GTS and is only $120-140. It looks like it benefits great from crossfire so there is a bit of futureproofing going this route.

I've looked into those processors you've recommended macky, but not in enough detail to really find out the performance drop in gaming against the 2500k. I'll try and find some benchmark comparisons before I make my order. It's gonna cost about $750 so I think I may order 1 piece at a time when they're on sale, and no processors or mobos are on a good sale at the moment so no rush for me.

[Quarterquack]

Well I did a bit of GPU research and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna buy the AMD HD6850

Definitely a good choice.

What you want is to get a "reference" model 6850. It has ONE fan towards the front of the board as opposed to a double fan design.

There exists a BIOS flash that will "unlock" the 6850 into an AMD 6870.

EDIT: A lot of people crossfire two unlocked 6850's to get the equivalent power of a 6970, to maximize their gaming ability. It's one of the most popular "setups" right now.

[1000possibleclaws]

Hey thanks, that's good to know! I've never done a BIOS flash before. Do you need to download some soft of software and you can do it through the BIOS menu on startup? Or is there actuay physical tinkering done to the GPU?

I've probed and flashed a 360 hdd which was a bit of a pain but end result was satisfying, how much effort does this take?

also, is there a list of manufacterers that sell these cards as 'reference', or something searchable in the item description to easily tell?

[Quarterquack]

...

Ehhh never mind, I had a brain fart sorry.

It's the 6950 that can be unlocked. The 6850 was only advertised as having a higher pixel shader processes on unreleased manufacturer BIOS*. There was talk of rips/release but they never materialized. God these stories really do a number to memory when you start memorizing each of them. Sorry, again.

Go with the 6950 not the 6850. Now that the 7970 is out, and soon the 7950, the 6950 price should go down. Go for that. As for "easy to tell" a lot has to do with the singular fan, 2GB RAM, and an AMD logo being present on near the connector of the card. Otherwise there's no other ways to tell. You can e-mail the reseller for confirmation.

As for how much effort it takes, judge for yourself (http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159), but I'd say it's pretty easy since it's simply software based.

* - You can flash the 6850, but you don't really get the 6870 in the process, just the upped clock speeds, and for reference the 6870 behaves a lot like the 6950 in XFire, since you seem to be interested in that.

[MikeB]

You could buy Intel if you want to pay a lot more for getting slightly more. If you're set on AMD graphics than why not an AMD processor and AM3+ motherboard? I would actually make a recommendation, but no one takes my suggestions seriously. People really love to throw their money away.

amd/intel cpu/gpu combo makes no difference. Fact is AMD GPU used to be ATI only a couple years ago if that. So back then they were producing stuff independantly and AMD is still building stuff from ATI's base.



4) PSU. I'm planning on getting a 620-750 watt modular PSU, whatever happens to have good reviews and is on sale during my order


Get any Antec/Corsair you can afford, don't skimp out, a good pus will last 5-10 years, and will protect your system and deliver enough power for the 2500k. A cheap PSU will risk blowing your CPU and mobo and be hoisy and shit.

Uf you're constrained by budget, get a non-modular corsair, over a cheapo modular.

A good roomy case with be3gind the backplate cable management can let you hide the cables pretty easily too.



5) GPU: would be replacing my 8800GTS, probably with an AMD card because I think those give you more bang for your buck. I still haven't read into this yet, because I guess it's something I can always invest in at a future date, if I can't get together enough money right now. Also hoping for a price drop as a new series just came out (?)


AMD 6970 is the best bang for buck, can be soft modded to perform like the 6990 too (about $40 more expensive).

With that setup (and with you cpu/ram/mobo slection) you can play bf3 in flying speed no problem.

[1000possibleclaws]

Problem is the 6970 costs about $200 more than the 6850 and I am already really stretching my budget by buying a GPU. Don't think I can afford it even if it gets a hefty price drop!

I guess an option would be to hold onto my 8800 for the time being and see how far the 6970 drops, and do that upgrade another day. Would be hard to do because I think the GPU upgrade will have the biggest impact, but I guess I can always see how things are first and cross that bridge when I get there.

[mjmacky]

amd/intel cpu/gpu combo makes no difference. Fact is AMD GPU used to be ATI only a couple years ago if that. So back then they were producing stuff independantly and AMD is still building stuff from ATI's base.

As I clarified in post #5, it is not the rule of law. There are still some things to consider. Boards built for AMD processors tend to support Crossfire (ATI graphics linking) more often than SLI (nVidia graphics linking), and similarly with Intel supported boards and their leaning towards SLI over Crossfire. Basically, your board options become more limited when you mix them. If the board you've got your eye on supports the linking technology you want, then it's not really an issue. The other thing to consider is that you can use Catalyst to update your AMD based chipset drivers in addition to your graphics drivers.

[lovewalrus]

quite honestly the best upgrade i did to play battlefield was getting an SSD....

i am in the first 5 loading a map everytime now!!! :cool: good times

p.s. it has not made me any better at the game though

[1000possibleclaws]

amd/intel cpu/gpu combo makes no difference. Fact is AMD GPU used to be ATI only a couple years ago if that. So back then they were producing stuff independantly and AMD is still building stuff from ATI's base.

As I clarified in post #5, it is not the rule of law. There are still some things to consider. Boards built for AMD processors tend to support Crossfire (ATI graphics linking) more often than SLI (nVidia graphics linking), and similarly with Intel supported boards and their leaning towards SLI over Crossfire. Basically, your board options become more limited when you mix them. If the board you've got your eye on supports the linking technology you want, then it's not really an issue. The other thing to consider is that you can use Catalyst to update your AMD based chipset drivers in addition to your graphics drivers.


Yeah I'd definitely read the specs on the mobo before purchasing it to make sure it does Crossfire. BTW the 2500k is on sale for $210 today which looks tempting. My friend is telling me to wait for a bundle deal that packages a mobo with the CPU, but Idk if it's worth waiting I'll have to look into mobo sales this weekend.

[bijoy]

A 2500k is around $200, what's the AMD equivalent that I would be comparing benchmarks to?

AMD FX-8120 3.1 GHz 8 core http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103961


This is a badass processor. Avoid it. Waste of money.


btw my goal is to use this mainly as a gaming PC. I am getting so frustrated that my Battlefield lags even on low settings, and I want to finally be able to play GTA4 at a normal resolution.

In which resolution you intend to play those games?

[mjmacky]

AMD FX-8120 3.1 GHz 8 core http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103961
This is a badass processor. Avoid it. Waste of money.

I think you're confused about what the ass does to bad.

[Quarterquack]

This is a badass processor. Avoid it. Waste of money.

I think you're confused about what the ass does to bad.

That was a badass comment.

Go easy on Bijoy. Chances are, he stole that comment.