Upgrade Advice?

[jim]

I'm looking to upgrade my PC, and was wondering what you guys reckoned. I'd say £600 is probably the absolute maximum I'm prepared to spend right now, but I don't mind doing one part and hanging on a while to do others.

My system currently looks like this:

Antec P180
Hiper Type-R Modular (580w)
Gigabyte P35-DQ6
No processor
8800GTS (320mb)
OCZ Reaper 8500 (2x1gb)
X-Fi Music
Ultra-120 Extreme
Vista x64
Plus 6 120mm fans (one for the Ultra-120) and a Spinpoint F1 1tb

I've currently got no processor because my e6750 died, so that's first on my list (I've got my eye on a Yorkfield), probably 4gb RAM and maybe a new graphics card, as I'm hoping to move to 1900x1200 soon and I play quite a few games on this machine. Also I'm not really sure that the Hiper will cut it (my first Type-R blew, so this is a refurb replacement), so is it worth getting a different PSU?

I'm can't say I fancy overclocking it - I've never had the greatest experience with it, but if you reckon it's worthwhile then maybe. (And before you ask, my e6750 died at stock settings )

What do you reckon is the best thing to do with it at the moment, bearing in mind even if I don't hurl £600 at it I need to get it back on its feet?

[Hawker1986]

Well if your planning on this keeping you going a while then I guess an upgrade wont hurt assuming youve got nothing better to do with £600 . Otherwise just get an E5200 and carry on as you are. If your doing the upgrade I would wait a couple of days as intel have just cut the prices of their quads, so its worth waiting for that to filter over to us, get a Q9550, an extra 2Gb of the same RAM you have now, Corsair 650W PSU, and a 4870 and I would say that sorts you out nicely, i just specced that up on ebuyer and its comes to £520.

Hawker

[jim]

The Corsairs are pretty good PSUs then? I didn't think they'd been in the power supply business all that long, but if they're reliable then that's great - as I said I'm a bit nervy since the Hiper failed on me

Thanks for the advice, that Q9550 is at a pretty nice price point and should outdo the old e6750 pretty easily, just have to hope the price falls a bit in the next week then it'll be perfect.

[tonpal]

I would follow Hawker's advice and bung in a E5200 for the next 8 or 9 months until Core i5 (Lynnfield) comes out. I wouldn't waste money replacing your PSU if it is running ok. Even Corsairs can fail.

You could even take a look at Phenom II. The Phenom II performs nearly as well as a Q9400 and is a very attractive price. That would mean a new motherboard, of course.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Phenom II is pretty good for the money. You can a 2.8ghz Phenom II 920 and a 790GX motherboard for around £250. If you went with the 3.0ghz Phenom II 940 Black Edition ,motherboard and a heatink it would be closer to £300. A Q9550 can be had for under £240 so as long as your motherboard is compatible it maybe a better bet.

For a graphics card as long as you pay under £230 an Nvidia GTX260( the 216 shader version) is probably the fastest card for around £200 to £250. If you can a GTX280 for around this pricepoint then it is even better. The HD4870 1gb is also a good contender.

[jim]

Thanks for the advice - I reckon I'll probably go for the Q9550 and slot that into this motherboard, get a Corsair HX620 (relegating the Hiper Type-R to a test PSU), and then upgrade to 4gb RAM. I think I'll hold off on the graphics card at the moment, and just bide my time until I see a deal that catches my eye - I'm sure I can manage with the 8800 GTS 320 for at least a couple of months.