Upgrade or new build

Hi Guys,


I am thinking of either upgrading my current rig or actually starting afresh and building a new one from scratch, and was just after a bit of advice. I use it for gaming mainly, but also do a bit of surfing, you tubing etc. I could justify a spend of around £1000 for a new rig, but am happy to re-use any parts of the old one if anyone thinks it’s worthwhile. I guess that, as gaming is my main use, my priorities is to ensure either the upgrade or new rig can play games such as Far Cry 3, FM13, Shogun 2, Dishonoured, big RPG’s etc on highish settings and would definitely want to be able to run the new GTA when (or if) it ships on PC.

My current rig is:

Phenom II X4 955BE
Gigabyte MA770-UD3 revision 2
4gb PC2-8500
Samsung F1 1tb
MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 Twin FrozR II OC 2048MB
Corsair HX450W 450w
Antec 300

Any advice would be appreciated.

Many thanks!

What resolution do you game at? I notice you have a Black Edition processor, so I assume it's already overclocked?

I have a second PC which is similar spec: 3.6Ghz Core2Duo, 4Gb DDR2, 5850 1Gb graphics card, gaming at 1080p. It plays Far Cry 3 well enough, with the graphic options turned down a bit (medium quality, no AA). You could try updating just the graphics card to start with, & see how your current system copes? Personally I'd budget for an SSD too, but that won't speed your games up (just reduce loading times). Depending on the card you buy, you might need to get a slightly higher power PSU (550-650W perhaps).

These days I would say that it is almost always better to start from scratch.
Any viable upgrades are typically too small to really notice.

You can build a very nice computer indeed for £1000.

Any thoughts on what you would do with the old system? Sell it? Reuse it?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by opel80uk

Hi Guys,


I am thinking of either upgrading my current rig or actually starting afresh and building a new one from scratch, and was just after a bit of advice. I use it for gaming mainly, but also do a bit of surfing, you tubing etc. I could justify a spend of around £1000 for a new rig, but am happy to re-use any parts of the old one if anyone thinks it’s worthwhile. I guess that, as gaming is my main use, my priorities is to ensure either the upgrade or new rig can play games such as Far Cry 3, FM13, Shogun 2, Dishonoured, big RPG’s etc on highish settings and would definitely want to be able to run the new GTA when (or if) it ships on PC.

My current rig is:

Phenom II X4 955BE
Gigabyte MA770-UD3 revision 2
4gb PC2-8500
Samsung F1 1tb
MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 Twin FrozR II OC 2048MB
Corsair HX450W 450w
Antec 300

Any advice would be appreciated.

Many thanks!

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Try some of the games on your current PC and see how they run??

This is what I do and it has saved me a decent amount of money.

Hi Guys, thanks for your replies.

Jimbobgod1969 – I normally game at 1920x1080, and to be honest I haven’t overclocked the CPU. Am I able to keep the system stable on the stock CPU fan?

Willzzz – If I were to build from scratch I would reuse any parts that I could to keep the cost down, and then probably flog what is left over, depending on how much I could get. If it’s not much, I would probably keep it as a spare PC, just in case.

CAT – Yeah, I do have those games and they are playable, although on the RTS’s & RPG’s I do get a certain amount of jerking when zooming out and panning across the landscapes. Would you hold out for a while, till the games being released are not playable on the system?

Thanks again!

dude just wait another 6 months to a yr .. overclock what you have and you will find them better ..even with a small overclock ..
you may want somthing like a ssd but good to have these days ..but not worth buying new just yet ..

Wait for Haswell imo.

Not so much because Haswell is going to be that special, but because it gives you a good timing for an upgrade.

When I say reuse I was really talking about the whole system, it wouldn't really be sensible to resuse any of the parts in a new system.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Willzzz

Wait for Haswell imo.

Not so much because Haswell is going to be that special, but because it gives you a good timing for an upgrade.

When I say reuse I was really talking about the whole system, it wouldn't really be sensible to resuse any of the parts in a new system.

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Why not? He could stick with the case and HDD..

Its a really good board.

I would only change CPU/mobo/ram in one move and then GPU in another. two upgrades. gg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by opel80uk

CAT – Yeah, I do have those games and they are playable, although on the RTS’s & RPG’s I do get a certain amount of jerking when zooming out and panning across the landscapes. Would you hold out for a while, till the games being released are not playable on the system?

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Could you list the RTS and RPG games??

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dacads

Why not? He could stick with the case and HDD..

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Well he could, but then he'd be left with a load of bits rather than a complete PC that someone else could use or he could reuse at another location or for a different purpose. He said he wouldn't mind keeping it as a spare, this would be somewhat inconvenient without a case/hdd, it's not like these are expensive items.

Best to sell them off and subsidise an upgrade.