looking to upgrade for~£450

[Borodin]

Hello all, I'm new to these Boards and looking for some advice regarding a core rebuild of my aging (steam driven ) gaming rig that will hopefully do another 4 years service without too much tweaking.

Current core components are :

Athlon 3000+(Thunderbird) 2Gb DDR2 and an Asus A8N Premium Mobo..

Case, PSU (650w Hiper) & HDDs are all to be kept for now. I also intend to keep the Nvidia 8800GT graphics card and replace it when funds become available in New Year. One slight limitation is I have XP PRO & run drives in RAID, so will need a Mobo that supports an FDD..at least initially. Upgrade to Win 7 64bit may also happen at same time, funds allowing.

I'm looking to replace these with either:

i5 760 + P55 Mobo capable of symetrical Crossfire + 4Gb PC1600 Ram
or
i7 930 + X58 Mobo + 6 Gb PC1600 Ram

I Would consider Phenom II path, but a little unsure regarding longeivity of the AM3 platform..

Saw these on Scan's Today Only deals:

Intel Core i7 930 D0
6GB (3x2GB) Corsair XMS3, DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600) Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.65V Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Rev 2 - £411.24

Intel Core i7 950 Bloomfield
6GB (3x2GB) Corsair XMS3, DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600) Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.65V
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Rev 2 - £433. 55

I hope to have ~£150 - 200 for the Graphics card in January, so an HD6850 or GT460 1Gb look pretty likely to round things off..

So, thoughts on the above or any suggestions gratefully received, after scanning the Boards here I'm sure the kowledgeable & freindly folks here can give me a nudge in the right direction

Thanks

[nibbler]

Well socket 1156 is now EOL and Sandy Bridge will be socket 2011 iirc so AMD seems almost more secure as a socket that yuo can upgrade.
For me, 6 AMD cores at £140 is too good an offer to resist.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would look at the following parts:

Phenom II X4 955BE ~ £114

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190673

MSI 870A-G54 ~ £65

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/205849

Has the SB850 southbridge with SATA3.0 support and can do RAID 0,1,5 and 10. The motherboard also supports USB3.0 too.

4GB 1600MHZ DDR3 ~ £57

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169240

HD5870 1GB ~ £190

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/248887

The HD6870 is around 8% slower than an HD6870 but does slightly better tessellation performance.

Some of the Hiper PSUs can cause problems after a few years. I would consider getting a new PSU if it is one of the affected models.

I would look at one of these Antec PSUs which are made by Seasonic:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/245671

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w-...-12v-120mm-fan

[Phage]

Apologies, but C5th inbox is full.

You may remember you suggested some bits for me a while ago. Just like to say how much I appreciated it, and have ordered a 955BE-based system from an Aus supplier. Interestingly with a an Antec PSU...

Cheers.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Apologies, but C5th inbox is full.

You may remember you suggested some bits for me a while ago. Just like to say how much I appreciated it, and have ordered a 955BE-based system from an Aus supplier. Interestingly with a an Antec PSU...

Cheers.

Glad to be of assistance!

[garin94]

I would look at the following parts:

Phenom II X6 955BE ~ £114

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190673

Just a little correction for you, it's an X4 not an X6

[Borodin]

Thanks for the replies. I wasn't aware that Sandy Bridge was looming large, thought it was similar timescale to Bulldozer, so AMD looks more attractive for sure

Had a think about the setup Cthe5 suggested, this is what I've come up with so far:


4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.65
Gelid Tranquillo
Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T

£318.38

Gone for the X6 on grounds i may need the extra cores in the future, Gigabyte board as it supports FDD for sure and never had problems with Gigabyte previously, not certain about the MIS..

Leaves me a little wiggle room for a PSU or Win 7...

Thoughts folks?