It's upgrade time!

[mycarsavw]

Current spec is on the left and my proposed replacements are;

To buy;
CPU - i5 3570K
Mobo - GA-Z77-D3H
RAM - 8Gb Corsair XMS3
Scan TO Bundle ~£225
HDD - 2 x 1Tb Barracudas Scan TO £83
ODD - IHOS104-06 - £25
Case - Antec Three Hundred Two - £43

Total - £375 exc

Already have;
SSD - Kingston HyperX 3K 120Gb
GPU - HD5770
PSU - HX620
OS - W8 Pro

Usage - General office tasks, light web design, photo manipulation & gaming (COD:BO/II, BF3, far too many indy games all of which work fine on the current build) at 1920x1080

Budget - Ideally no more than £400 exc.

Thanks as always; do your worst!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Are you overclocking??

[mycarsavw]

No Sir - no plans at all.

I was going to go for the 3570, but the 3570k has been in the bundle offers for so long so I thought why not.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The bundle does not include any RAM it seems.

If you are not overclocking I would get the following parts:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...tio-69w-retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...a%29-dvi-d-atx

The CPU is bascially a Core i7 with no IGP. This motherboard looks good for the price but may need a BIOS update:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...-%28x16%29-atx

BTW,why are you changing your case? You will also need to consider getting a new graphics card too if you are going to run BF3.

[mycarsavw]

It's the first item in the MixIt bundle, RAM is included as far as I can see?

Is there anything wrong with the bundle or are your suggestions better suited?

Edit - I understand now, the bundle is geared towards overclocking, your suggestions are not - thanks, makes sense.

Changing the case because I fancy a change and I'm keen to move away from the blue LEDs adorning the 900.

BF3 runs fine on my current setup

[Pob255]

For that price the carbide 300r or Cooler Master CM 690 II Lite or LanCool (Lian-Li) PC-K59B would be worth a look.

[Aexl]

Personally I wouldn't touch the ST barracudas.

Everything else seems fine.

[Bonebreaker777]

The bundle does not include any RAM it seems.

If you are not overclocking I would get the following parts:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...tio-69w-retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...a%29-dvi-d-atx

The CPU is bascially a Core i7 with no IGP. This motherboard looks good for the price but may need a BIOS update:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...-%28x16%29-atx

BTW,why are you changing your case? You will also need to consider getting a new graphics card too if you are going ti run BF3.

If I may interrupt, If you look at the spread sheet of the Xeon CPU [ http://ark.intel.com/products/65732/...Cache-3_30-GHz ] the supported chip-sets doesn't include any non-server non-professional chip-sets. Only the following chip-sets are supported -> Intel® C202 Chipset, Intel® C204 Chipset, Intel® C206 Chipset and Intel® C216 Chipset.

Not sure if Asus somehow managed to get the Xeons working on the B75, but without confirmation I wouldn't buy it.

EDIT: I beg your pardon, looks like Asus did managed to get a Xeon working. The MB spread sheet says the following : *Since Xeon CPU is not desktop CPU model, some feature may not able to work on this combination. For detail, refer to support.asus.com.

[GeorgeStorm]

I'm currently using a Xeon chip with no issue (e3-1240) on a standard msi matx board (H77 chipset)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I use a Xeon E3 1220 in a Gigabyte H67 mini-ITX motherboard. The Xeon E3 CPUs are the same CPUs as the consumer Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs, apart from one or two extra features which are activated on the Xeon CPUs.

[mycarsavw]

Personally I wouldn't touch the ST barracudas.

Everything else seems fine.

What would you touch instead?

For that price the carbide 300r or Cooler Master CM 690 II Lite or LanCool (Lian-Li) PC-K59B would be worth a look.

The Lian Li and the CM were both in the running but I couldn't see that they had a 3.5" external slot which I'd need for my card reader.

Once I'm back into work mode, I'll have another look and redo my spec list.

[MrJim]

The Lian Li and the CM were both in the running but I couldn't see that they had a 3.5" external slot which I'd need for my card reader.

You could easily get a 5.25" to 3.5" adapter, which is what I use in my system for my card reader. Mine's aluminium and cost about £12 I seem to remember, but you can get plastic ones for just a few quid...

[mycarsavw]

Yup, you're right, my theory was that as I have a 900 already, I can reuse the 5.25" > 3.5" adapter from that in the 302.

Revised spec;

CPU - E3-1230 v2 - £145 (pre order)
Mobo - Asus P8B75-V - £47
RAM - 8Gb XMS3 - £30
HDD - 2 x 1Tb WD EZRX - £93 (pre order)
ODD - IHOS104-06 - £25 (pre order)
Case - Antec Three Hundred Two - £43 (pre order)

Total £383

Ideally I'd put the order through Scan as they've always been good to me in the past, but when half the stuff is on pre order with no ETAs I'm off to use PC Part Picker and see what happens.

[MrJim]

Antec Three Hundred Two[/URL] - £43 (pre order)

I've actually got the Antec Three Hundred Two in one of my systems, and although it's a solid budget option, if I were building a budget system today, I'd probably go with this one:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/corsa...usb-30-w-o-psu

[GeorgeStorm]

That HDD choice seems rather pricey?
Why going for the 2 drives in any case? Why not just get a 2tb drive?

[mycarsavw]

I've actually got the Antec Three Hundred Two in one of my systems, and although it's a solid budget option, if I were building a budget system today, I'd probably go with this one:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/corsa...usb-30-w-o-psu

Any reason?

That HDD choice seems rather pricey?
Why going for the 2 drives in any case? Why not just get a 2tb drive?

There aren't many 1Tb drives cheaper than that that I can see. I'm going for two because you can't RAID one drive