PC upgrade advice please...

[PowerPie5000]

A friend of mine wants to upgrade his old 775 based system but is on a very tight budget (around £200!). Basically he just wants to upgrade the CPU and GPU without having to also change the PSU or RAM and he can't afford a whole new system.

His current spec:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 @ 2.33Ghz
Motherboard: Asrock 4Core13333-Viiv (Intel P965 chipset)
GPU: Geforce 8800GTS 640Mb (the old 149W G80 version)
RAM: 4 x 1GB Crucial DDR2 667Mhz
HDD: Seagate SATA-II (can't really remember the size but i think it's 500GB)
PSU: Hiper Type-M 530W (not one of the dodgy Hiper's)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium x64

And these are the bits i'm recommending:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (Oc'd to 3Ghz) or a Q9550 running at stock (maybe even the 65W 'S' versions if i can find them, including the Q9505s with 6mb cache).

GPU: Radeon 5770 or 6770 (both exactly the same as far as i'm aware).. Or a Geforce GTX 550 Ti

He's using an Arctic Freezer Pro 7 CPU cooler which may be borderline for an Oc'd Q6600 (G0 stepping). All the GPU's i've mentioned draw considerably less power than his curent volcanic 8800GTS (149W max)... The Radeon 5770/6770 is 108W max and the Geforce GTX 550 Ti is 116W max. If i manage to get a 65W Core 2 Quad Q9xxx CPU then i'm guessing his PSU should be fine as it handles his current setup fine... Any advice on this is more than welcome

Cheers

EDIT: forgot to mention he mainly uses his PC to play WoW, CoD Black Ops and a few other games. His monitor supports either 1440x900 or 1600x900 resolution (can't quite remember). He doesn't need a PC that will run them maxed out, but would like to run them smoothly with average settings.

[PowerPie5000]

So will a 530W Hiper Type-M PSU power a PC with any combination of CPU & GPU mentioned in the above post? It's got dual +12V rails (12V1 @ 20A and 12V2 @ 17A) That works out to be 28A combined (+12V is 336W).

Cheers

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Some games like WoW may actually run better on an E8400 than a Q6600. The Q6600 has the same amount of L2 cache per core as the E6550. OTH,games like BFBC2 would run better on the Q6600.

However,I would overclock the E6550. My E6320 could easily hit 2.8GHZ!

You could then get an HD6870 or GTX560 for around £140. It you want to play it safe you can get an HD6850 1GB for around £120 as these tend to use only one PCI-E power connector.

I would put the rest of the money into an upgrade fund.

[PowerPie5000]

Some games like WoW may actually run better on an E8400 than a Q6600. The Q6600 has the same amount of L2 cache per core as the E6550. OTH,games like BFBC2 would run better on the Q6600.

However,I would overclock the E6550. My E6320 could easily hit 2.8GHZ!

You could then get an HD6870 or GTX560 for around £140. It you want to play it safe you can get an HD6850 1GB for around £120 as these tend to use only one PCI-E power connector.

I would put the rest of the money into an upgrade fund.

I'm not sure how his motherboard would cope with FSB speeds above 1333mhz (333Mhz)... It's an old (but very reliable) Asrock board using an Intel P965 chipset. He's also set on getting a quad core chip (unless i find a 3ghz+ Wolfdale at a bargain price) .

Do you think his Hiper PSU will cope with a GTX 560? I think they are rated at around 170W and my XFX 6870 is rated at 150W. Also he will probably end up with a 95W Q9550 CPU unless i can find a 65W version at a reasonable price (even the Q9505s will do).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I'm not sure how his motherboard would cope with FSB speeds above 1333mhz (333Mhz)... It's an old (but very reliable) Asrock board using an Intel P965 chipset. He's also set on getting a quad core chip (unless i find a 3ghz+ Wolfdale at a bargain price) .

Do you think his Hiper PSU will cope with a GTX 560? I think they are rated at around 170W and my XFX 6870 is rated at 150W. Also he will probably end up with a 95W Q9550 CPU unless i can find a 65W version at a reasonable price (even the Q9505s will do).

Good point. An HD6850 1GB would be a safer bet and they tend to consume less power than a GTX460 1GB:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4002/a...asus-xfx-msi/7

It seems the E6550 has a 1333MHZ FSB unlike my old E6320 which has a 1066MHZ FSB. I would look at a Q9300 or Q9400 if you want to get a quad core as these are under £100 on Ebay. OTH,you can get an E8500 dual core for under £60 on Ebay.

[PowerPie5000]

Ok, got a Radeon 6850... Now i just need to snag a CPU off ebay as the prices for brand new 775 quads is a bit expensive . I've seen a couple of 3.33Ghz E8600 chips at good prices, how are these at running games such as BFBC2, Black Ops etc.? Or should i just get him a Q9xxx quad and be done with it?

1GB Radeon 6850 = 127W
Core 2 Quad Q9xxx (ideally at least 2.66Ghz) = 95W
Core 2 Quad 9505s (2.83Ghz, 1333FSB, 6Mb cache) = 65W
Core 2 Duo E8600 (3.33Ghz, 1333FSB, 6Mb cache) = 65W

Hopefully a Radeon 6850 along with a 95W CPU will be ok with his 530W Hiper PSU (28A combined on the +12V rails). The rest of his system is pretty lean with only 1 x HDD, 1 x optical drive, 4 x 1GB DR2 sticks and he's using onboard Realtek audio. AMD actually have his PSU listed as 'certified' (model HPU-4M530) and i assume they mean a fully loaded system when they state PSU requirements?

[duffster]

How much power are you expecting the graphics card to use?

diskdrives use <= 7W each, RAM is pretty negligible, and I'd be surprised if the motherboard used more than 10 or 20W. Fans don't use much either.

For comparison, I've got an i5 system (4 core, using onboard graphics, 1 HDD) which pulls 40W from the wall socket at idle, and 105W with all the CPU cores maxed out.

And an E8200 (dual core, with low spec graphics card, 4HDDs) which uses 80W at idle and about 120W with both CPU cores maxed out.

Obviously, I don't have a high power graphics card in there, but you can see that the power usage is actually pretty low. I have 80+ efficiency PSU, which helps somewhat I'm sure.

My measurements are from the wall socket, and so include the power used by the PSU.

[PowerPie5000]

I've gone ahead and bought a brand new 2.83Ghz Core 2 Quad Q9505s (the 65W version)... I think his PSU will be fine with this CPU and a Radeon 6850 (along with all the other 'low powered' components).

I managed to get the CPU (new) for £110 inc p&p and a barely used 1GB Sapphire Radeon 6850 for just £75!... Well within his £200 budget

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I've gone ahead and bought a brand new Core 2 Quad Q9505s (the 65W version)... I think his PSU will be fine with this CPU and a Radeon 6850 (along with all the other 'low powered' components).

I managed to get the CPU (new) for £110 inc p&p and a barely used 1GB Sapphire Radeon 6850 for just £75!... Well within his £200 budget

Where did you get the CPU and GPU from??

[PowerPie5000]

Where did you get the CPU and GPU from??

I put in a best offer of £110 for the CPU on ebay and got automatically accepted (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2807105760...84.m1439.l2649)... Who knows, maybe i could have got it cheaper if i entered a lower offer!

I bought the GPU from a friend who recently managed to get a Geforce GTX 570 at a bargain price! So he sold me his 6850 at a decent price

[scaryjim]

I've gone ahead and bought a brand new 2.83Ghz Core 2 Quad Q9505s (the 65W version)...

Shame, I was about to let you know that I've got a Q6600 that I'll be selling in the next week or two...

[PowerPie5000]

Shame, I was about to let you know that I've got a Q6600 that I'll be selling in the next week or two...

I'm sure you'll easily find a buyer for it (especially if it's the G0 version) but thanks anyway. I think the Q9505s is more suited for my friends PC as it has lower temps, lower power consumption and doesn't need to be oc'd as 2.83Ghz will be fine. The Q6600 on the other hand will need to be Oc'd to around 3Ghz which means higher temps, higher power consumption and will most likely require a new CPU cooler as my mates Arctic Freezer 7 Pro would be borderline.

[martinsteve]

An HD6850 1GB would be a safer bet and they tend to consume less power than a GTX460 1GB

[Alicarve]

got them for some good prices there

[Reefer86]

yeah grab a 6850 1gb great card imo and would be a decent jump

[PowerPie5000]

In the end i think i was right to question the 530W Hiper PSU... His PC randomly freezes or shuts down when anything graphically intensive is running! It's not the GPU as i tested it in my rig and it was fine. I've gone ahead and ordered him a 550W XFX Core Edition PSU which has a single +12V rail that can output 44A (compared to only 28A combined wth his old 530W Hiper... Which could even be less due to capacitor aging!). Hopefully this new XFX PSU should be fine.

I ordered it from Dabs.com as they were the cheapest and it comes with free shipping! This is the first item i've ordered from them, so lets hope it all goes smoothly

http://www.dabs.com/products/xfx-550...m_content=Q200