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Thread: Possibly Time for Some new kit....

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    Possibly Time for Some new kit....

    Hi All

    I'm thinking it may be about time to upgrade my i7 920 rig into something a bit newer and hopefully more power efficient. I think I got a bit carried away when I brought it initially with the i7 so I've been thinking about going i5 for the new one. Planning on using existing everything else which is in my sig and I've got some of this memory that I was planning on using to keep costs down.
    My 6950 is more than adequate for the gaming I do occasionally and I've got no plans on doing anything crazy with the PC (like HyperV or VMware workstation) for a while yet. Processor wise I was thinking i5 4690K and motherboards is where I've got stuck. Something with decent USB3 and SATA 3 connections and a decent bios would be great but nothing that's going to break the bank (I'm thinking sub £100). I've always preferred Asus boards (and I think you can get some cashback on them when buying certain processors currently too).
    Thanks!

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    Senior Member watercooled's Avatar
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    Re: Possibly Time for Some new kit....

    What are you looking to improve with the upgrade, performance-wise?

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    • marshalex's system
      • Motherboard:
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      • CPU:
      • Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.8Ghz
      • Memory:
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    Re: Possibly Time for Some new kit....

    Not really about performance, more about power efficiency and getting some of the new features available like SATA 3 etc

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    Senior Member watercooled's Avatar
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    Re: Possibly Time for Some new kit....

    You'd have to consider how much money you're spending, to probably save far less than that...

    E.g. how often is your system on, and does it spend a significant amount of time sitting with the CPU a full load e.g. rendering/encoding?

    It's often the case with builds like this, that you're spending several hundreds of pounds in order to save maybe a few tens per year.

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    • marshalex's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Asus P6T bios 1303
      • CPU:
      • Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.8Ghz
      • Memory:
      • 12GB Kingston Hyper X DDR3 1600MHz
      • Storage:
      • Samsung 840, WD Caviar Black 640Gb, WD Caviar Blue 1TB
      • Graphics card(s):
      • XFX Radeon HD 6950 XXX @915 MHz
      • PSU:
      • Antec TruePower New 650W
      • Case:
      • Coolermaster CM690
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 7 Professional x64
      • Monitor(s):
      • Dell ST2210
      • Internet:
      • Sky Fibre 38MB

    Re: Possibly Time for Some new kit....

    Quote Originally Posted by watercooled View Post
    You'd have to consider how much money you're spending, to probably save far less than that...

    E.g. how often is your system on, and does it spend a significant amount of time sitting with the CPU a full load e.g. rendering/encoding?

    It's often the case with builds like this, that you're spending several hundreds of pounds in order to save maybe a few tens per year.
    Doesn't come on that often. Started doing a bit of gaming again lately but nothing too taxing.
    As I'm hoping to reuse everything else I've already got I'm thinking this shouldn't cost much more than £300

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    Evil Monkey! MrJim's Avatar
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    Re: Possibly Time for Some new kit....

    Quote Originally Posted by marshalex View Post
    Not really about performance, more about power efficiency and getting some of the new features available like SATA 3 etc
    I've not tried this particular card, but it's a really cheap way to upgrade an older system to SATA 3:

    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PCI-E-2-Hi...item4ae08346fd

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    • georgehayward's system
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    Re: Possibly Time for Some new kit....

    An i5 i4690k is a solid CPU, I would only recommend an i7 if you were planning on doing lots of video editing which I'm assuming you aren't.

    For the motherboard, if you aren't planning on overclocking, I'd go with something like the Asus H81M-E Motherboard which has SATA 3 and USB 3 for a good price.


    However, if you are planning on overclocking, you will need to spend a bit more for a motherboard with overclocking capabilites like the MSI Z97 Gaming 5 Motherboard.

    If you want to improve the boot speed and performance/ load times of your PC, consider buying an SSD for your operating system. They aren't hugely expensive for 120GB models and I can personally vouch for Samsung 840 Series SSDs, I've used a few of them before with no issues and excellent speed.

    Stick with the graphics card for the time being. If your gaming habits change, an NVIDIA GTX 970 may be what you are looking for to keep up with the demands of future games, or a budget card like a GTX 750 Ti, which doesn't any require power connectors, it takes all its power off the PCIe slot.


    Regards,

    George

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    marshalex (29-12-2014)

  9. #8
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    • marshalex's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Asus P6T bios 1303
      • CPU:
      • Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.8Ghz
      • Memory:
      • 12GB Kingston Hyper X DDR3 1600MHz
      • Storage:
      • Samsung 840, WD Caviar Black 640Gb, WD Caviar Blue 1TB
      • Graphics card(s):
      • XFX Radeon HD 6950 XXX @915 MHz
      • PSU:
      • Antec TruePower New 650W
      • Case:
      • Coolermaster CM690
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 7 Professional x64
      • Monitor(s):
      • Dell ST2210
      • Internet:
      • Sky Fibre 38MB

    Re: Possibly Time for Some new kit....

    Thanks for that. I've got an SSD in the system already so it was more of an upgrade for getting some new toys. Be nice to have the option to overclock (have done a bit in the past) but it's not something I'm going to break the bank over. Hopefully something will come up in the sales!

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