Need help with choose pc upgrade

[nasorpc]

hi guys,

i am about to give my current pc to my best friend (i promised, so can't back down now) and i need help with upgrading my pc.

my current pc spec:-
amd phenom ii 955 black edition
msi 770-c45
4gb ram
His hd5770 1gb graphics card
mid-tower pc case


i'm selling only the tower without hard drive.

I'm only wanting slightly better than what i currently have, but my problem is that i don't know what cpu, gfx card and motherboard are slightly better than my current spec. Can anyone please help me?

thanks!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What hardware and software do you need and what is the budget?? What do you use the system for??

[nasorpc]

it's going to be used for the odd gaming, but mainly for video/photo editing. i really don't want to pay more than £400. Could you also please tell me the difference between phenom, fx and the A** processors as i am very confused. Which one is better if i could pay upto £90 for cpu?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What parts can you re-use and do you have a copy of an OS??

You will need to spend at least £70 to £80 to get a new card which will equal your HD5770,and around £80 to £90 if you want something a bit better.

[nasorpc]

thanks for your help mate. i already have windows 7 and 8. Other than hard drive, monitor, keyboard & mouse, nothing else.

Would you know the differences between the cpu's mate? I don't want to pay more than £90 for cpu. Also what motherboard can you recommend?

[nasorpc]

Here is the spec i could build:-

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition + heat sink - £76
PowerColor HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB GDDR5 - £88
Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 - £50
Crucial 8GB DDR3 1866Mhz Ballistix Tactical - £45
BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - £29
XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' PSU - £40
Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD - £54
Samsung SH-118AB/BEBE SATA 18x DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM - £15

What do you think? How good is this compared to my current system spec?

Is there anything that you would change to gain performance/save energy or money?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Here is the spec i could build:-

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition + heat sink - £76
PowerColor HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB GDDR5 - £88
Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 - £50
Crucial 8GB DDR3 1866Mhz Ballistix Tactical - £45
BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - £29
XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' PSU - £40
Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD - £54
Samsung SH-118AB/BEBE SATA 18x DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM - £15

What do you think? How good is this compared to my current system spec?

Is there anything that you would change to gain performance/save energy or money?

I would get the following CPU,motherboard and RAM instead:

http://www.ebuyer.com/409191-amd-fx-...-fd6300wmhkbox

http://www.ebuyer.com/436858-biostar...herboard-ta970

http://www.ebuyer.com/342352-crucial...d1609ds1s00ceu

If you get this HD7770,you will get Farcry3 and Sleeping Dogs free:

http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-am...=hd7770&src=16

[nasorpc]

I would get the following CPU,motherboard and RAM instead:

http://www.ebuyer.com/409191-amd-fx-...-fd6300wmhkbox

http://www.ebuyer.com/436858-biostar...herboard-ta970

http://www.ebuyer.com/342352-crucial...d1609ds1s00ceu

If you get this HD7770,you will get Farcry3 and Sleeping Dogs free:

http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-am...=hd7770&src=16

Thanks very much for the spec mate. Compared to the 965 BE cpu, what are the advantages of this FX cpu?

[kompukare]

Here's that CPU vs your old one in Anandtech bench:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/88?vs=699

Or Passmark (single score):
AMD Phenom II X4 955 4026
AMD Phenom II X4 965 4326
AMD FX-6300 Six-Core 6602

Or even here:
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/AMD-Phenom-I...vs-AMD-FX-6300

Note that any of those CPUs can be overclocked too. You might want to read up on some CPUs reviews.

[scaryjim]

Here's that CPU vs your old one in Anandtech bench:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/88?vs=699

Intriguing, the FX6300 even wins in the lightly threaded first pass of x264. Guess that finally makes the old Phenom II range genuinely redundant!

[kompukare]

Intriguing, the FX6300 even wins in the lightly threaded first pass of x264. Guess that finally makes the old Phenom II range genuinely redundant!

Eventually! But I think the reason they stopped improving the 'stars' core in Llano had less to do with BD being a good idea and more to do with their new architecture being easier to re-work: not much (any?) handlayout so making it far easier to tweak and scale. Both BD, bobcat and jaguar are meant to be easy to scale with synthetic layout. This probably costs them a bit in terms of die area and max speed though.

[nasorpc]

thanks for the info guys...doesn't the fx6300 have integrated gpu? if so, whats it like?

[kompukare]

thanks for the info guys...doesn't the fx6300 have integrated gpu? if so, whats it like?

No FX's don't have integrated video. Trinity (A4/A6/A10) on FM2 motherboards do, and their graphic performance is quite good: around HD 6670 level but depending on RAM speeds (dual channel DDR3 @ 1866+ is a lot faster than single DDR3 @ 1600 for instance). THG recently did a comparision:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/memory...w-32623-8.html

[nasorpc]

Thanks for clarifying that kompukare mate. I also need a fast SSD drive for windows boot up, nothing too expensive. I plan to use:-

1. SSD to boot up and if possible have all major programs running from it
2. Use my current 500gb drive for additional stuff like games and files.
3. Later buy an external 2 or 3tb harddrive (with ethernet option????) to store/backup large amounts of data and share files, such as movies around the house.

What do you think? Is that a good idea? If not, why not?

So what SSD do you recommed?

[shaithis]

All SSDs are fast, it's hard to eyeball speed differences between them. I would take a look at the reliability reviews and results.

[nasorpc]

All SSDs are fast, it's hard to eyeball speed differences between them. I would take a look at the reliability reviews and results.

Right thanks! I like the spec that CAT-THE-FIFTH posted, but i would like a final clarification between cat's spec and the following two specifications i have compiled:-

SPEC 1
AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor
Asus F2A55 AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual CHannel Kit

SPEC 2
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail
Samsung Green (MV-3V4G3D/US) 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3

WHICH ONE IS THE BEST in your opinions?