Component know-how

[ConnorLowe]

The size and look of my PC isn't so much of a concern. Of course a nice case is always a plus, but I'm not really too bothered by its appearance.

The PC would be used primarily for gaming, although it would also be used for web browsing and the occasional word document.

The games played on it would be CSGO, LoL and Dota 2 (not the most demanding of games).

Budget wise, I'd say around £700

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The size and look of my PC isn't so much of a concern. Of course a nice case is always a plus, but I'm not really too bothered by its appearance.

The PC would be used primarily for gaming, although it would also be used for web browsing and the occasional word document.

The games played on it would be CSGO, LoL and Dota 2 (not the most demanding of games).

Budget wise, I'd say around £700

Like I said in the other thread a new graphics card,PSU,case and SSD would cover you.

Actually,I remember playing CS:GO during a free Steam weekend on a A-3670K and an HD5850 1GB fine at 1920X1080. So your Phenom II X4 850 with at least an HD7790,HD7850,GTX650TI Boost or GTX660 2GB would be more than fast enough IMHO.

[chuckskull]

Couple of other things to consider;

Do you want to overclock?
Just a tower, or do you need a monitor, KB, mouse, OS? A big part of this will be decided by what you're doing with your old system. looking at your specs some parts could be re-used certainly, but it depends on what you're planing on doing with that PC obviously.

Your RAM will be compatible with your new build. There's no real need for more than 8GB any time soon for gaming, so just adding another 4GB XMS3 stick to it will cover that.

Screen is fine and it's an easy upgrade down the road.

If your windows 7 license is a retail one not OEM then that can be reused, but if you bought it prebuilt it's most likely it's OEM and tied to the computer.

Case should be fine assuming the builder didn't do anything weird like glue things in. Some prebuilts do.

PSU is only good for the bin IMO. Getting a quality PSU is important, you're probably only going to need 500w, but make sure it's a reputable brand and check reviews.

Hard drive is a bit long in the tooth, but re-usable if you're crunching on budget and can tolerate slightly slower loading and boot times than a new SATA3 drive or SSD.

You could also just upgrade your current system obviously, but replace that PSU during.

[Pob255]

Yes I'd pretty much agree with CAT here, new case+psu+graphics card+an ssd (keep the old hard drive for additional storage)
Might not need the new case, depends on what you have, ram 4gb is still fine extra can be added later if needed, although you need to check which version of win7 you have 32bit or 64bit.
I'd probably add in an after market cpu cooler too, again you need to check the case as to how much space you have.

I'd not worry about overclocking as the 800 series phenom2 where not great for overclocking

[ConnorLowe]

New PSU, GPU, case and add an SSD for my current PC or a complete new one, hard decision!

Thinking of possibly getting the build below (if I build a new PC)

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...value-red.html
http://www.amazon.co.uk/AMD-FX8350-E.../dp/B009O7YUF6
http://www.corsair.com/us/cpu-coolin...pu-cooler.html
http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/de...tx-650ti-boost
http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/prod...px?pid=4122#ov
http://www.corsair.com/en/power-supp...er-supply.html

Approx £750 with Windows 8 64bit.

[ConnorLowe]

New PSU, GPU, case and add an SSD for my current PC or a complete new one, hard decision!

Thinking of possibly getting the build below (if I build a new PC)

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...value-red.html
http://www.amazon.co.uk/AMD-FX8350-E.../dp/B009O7YUF6
http://www.corsair.com/us/cpu-coolin...pu-cooler.html
http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/de...tx-650ti-boost
http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/prod...px?pid=4122#ov
http://www.corsair.com/en/power-supp...er-supply.html

Approx £750 with Windows 8 64bit.

[chuckskull]

Unless you're planning an overclock I'd be tempted to ditch the water cooler, use the stock cooler and jump up to a 660ti, bit of a jump in price but you can pick them up for £180 now a noticeable jump in performance. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/782?vs=860

Another way of doing things is to leapfrog. For a long time, I alternated between GPU, case, drives etc, then CPU, mobo, RAM the next time, rinse, repeat, but it all depends how often you want to be upgrading. Spending your budget on the GPU, PSU, Case and SSD would allow to move into quite high end gear such as Nvidia 770's etc, but you're kind of committing yourself to another upgrade in a year or 2 when your CPU and RAM start holding you back.

[Pob255]

Ok personally
sharkoon t9 - reasonable but over priced
Better off going cheaper in something like the Coolermaster K-280 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/coole...e-case-w-o-psu or NZXT 210 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/nzxt-...usb-30-w-o-psu
Or better in something like the HAF 912 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/coole...g-case-w-o-psu

CPU cooler the same, go for something decent in the sub £30 range eg http://www.scan.co.uk/products/zalma...l-and-amd-cpus or http://www.scan.co.uk/products/coole...55-1156-1366-a

CPU probably be better value for money to drop down to the FX6300 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-f...che-95w-retail

GPU I'd look at the gtx660 (not ti) for around £155 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-g...1098mhz-cores- although the gtx650ti boost is only around £130 so it's a good deal price vs performance wise http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-g...8-dport-dl-dvi

PSU, don't get the VS they are not very good, known for low quality capacitors, they are little more than the cheapest CWT made psu's painted black.
better than a £20 no-name but not by much.
xfx 450w http://www.scan.co.uk/products/450w-...n-atx-v231-psu great seasonic made psu, or the 550w version http://www.scan.co.uk/products/550w-...-quiet-fan-atx

motherboard, Ok for stock if you're thinking about overclocking then I'd look at the UD3 instead of the DS3 for it's better VRM (the power circuit that feeds the cpu, stepping down the 12v into far lower voltage and higher current) http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...-%28x16%29-atx

[martober]

I would go with the new gpu, psu and ssd. An additional 4gb of ram could help too, but 4gb is still enough for most things.

If you're going for a complete upgrade modern Intel cpus are generally better than AMD for gaming. An ivy or haswell i5 will beat the fx8350 in most games. Although your current cpu is probably more than adequate for the games you mentioned.

The 650w psu is overkill if you're only using a single 650ti. A quality 450-500w psu should be enough.

[flearider]

I would go with the new gpu, psu and ssd. An additional 4gb of ram could help too, but 4gb is still enough for most things.

If you're going for a complete upgrade modern Intel cpus are generally better than AMD for gaming. An ivy or haswell i5 will beat the fx8350 in most games. Although your current cpu is probably more than adequate for the games you mentioned.

The 650w psu is overkill if you're only using a single 650ti. A quality 450-500w psu should be enough.

plz how can you say that ???high end out of his price range and most peoples intels then maybe ... most games wont use the cpu that hard these days .. it's all gpu amd enthusiast against intel fanboi amd is cheaper and just as good even better in multi thread

and a 650 will be fine will last you a couple of upgrades ...

and yes your going to have to choose a side ...lol

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TBH,I would just rebuild the current system with the same CPU and motherboard and add another 4GB of DDR3 to make sure the RAM runs in dual channel. An HD7790 would give you great framerates in those titles anyway,so a GTX650TI Boost,HD7850,GTX660 or HD7870 would be more than enough.

If you want a CPU upgrade I would get an FX6300.

If you are not going to overclock much I would get this motherboard:

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

If you are overclocking the Gigabyte UD3 is a good choice as long as you get the later revision which has LLC or alternative the Asus 970 EVO is a very solid motherboard IMHO.

Regarding the PSU either an XFX PRO 450 or 550W would do the job. The FSP RAIDER 450W and 550W look quite decent. They have slightly lower build quality but are close to 80+ Silver rated.

[martober]

plz how can you say that ???high end out of his price range and most peoples intels then maybe ... most games wont use the cpu that hard these days .. it's all gpu amd enthusiast against intel fanboi amd is cheaper and just as good even better in multi thread

and a 650 will be fine will last you a couple of upgrades ...

and yes your going to have to choose a side ...lol

An i5 is about the same price as an fx8350 but performs better in games and is much more power efficient. Most games are not heavily multi threaded, though that could change after the new consoles are released.

I agree that on a limited budget AMD makes more sense, and gaming tends to be gpu rather than cpu limited, but if you can afford an fx8350 you might as well get an i5 unless you have a very specific workload that takes advantage of AMD's extra cores.

OP: If you do want a cpu upgrade and you're not planning to overclock then your existing motherboard may support mid range fx processors. Asus' website suggests that it will take am3+ with a maximum tdp of 95w (fx 6300 or 8300 if you can find that anywhere)

[teppic]

An i5 is about the same price as an fx8350 but performs better in games and is much more power efficient. Most games are not heavily multi threaded, though that could change after the new consoles are released.

I agree that on a limited budget AMD makes more sense, and gaming tends to be gpu rather than cpu limited, but if you can afford an fx8350 you might as well get an i5 unless you have a very specific workload that takes advantage of AMD's extra cores.

OP: If you do want a cpu upgrade and you're not planning to overclock then your existing motherboard may support mid range fx processors. Asus' website suggests that it will take am3+ with a maximum tdp of 95w (fx 6300 or 8300 if you can find that anywhere)

There's no such thing as an i5, which i5 range model do you mean? The FX-8350 can generally match gaming performance with equivalently priced Intel processors, not to mention it overclocks very well, while the Intel ones do not at all at the same price. It's in fact more the opposite of what you say - it's only in a few games (mostly strategy) that similar priced Intel processors perform 'much better' than the 8350 at stock clock, let alone overclocked.

All that said, most would go for the cheaper FX-8320 (~£120), since it also overclocks well, and certainly can't be beaten overall by an i3 range CPU.

[martober]

Well most games are limited by the GPU more than the CPU, so in those cases the FX chip will not be noticably slower (nor will the phenom II in many cases). However the 8350 does perform worse than similarly priced intel i5s (3570, 4570) in most games and it uses more power doing so. Anandtech's piledriver review for example shows the fx8350 performing worse than a 2 year old sandy bridge i5 when it comes to gaming. Overclocking can improve it, but then you need to spend more on aftermarket cooling and the power requirements also increase.

I agree with you that the 8320 is much better value, and I wouldn't recommend an i3 as it is only dual core. In the OP's case I think that an fx6300 is also a good option if their existing motherboard can be reused. For a completely new build though I think an i5 4570 or 3570 represents better value than an fx8350, and less than that won't be a huge upgrade over their existing cpu.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Actually an FX6300 would be a large upgrade over their existing CPU.

A mate of mine got an FX6300 and it was faster in all metrics than a 4GHZ Athlon II X3,in lightly thread games and of course multi-thread games at stock. I have an SB Core i5 and it can nearly be matched by an FX6300 in many newer games.

However,the fact of the matter is the OP does need a CPU upgrade for the games they mentioned,because they are not massively CPU heavy:

http://forums.hexus.net/desktops/289...ml#post2983029

They are limited more by their graphics card,and the RAM running in single channel on their motherboard.

[teppic]

Well most games are limited by the GPU more than the CPU, so in those cases the FX chip will not be noticably slower (nor will the phenom II in many cases). However the 8350 does perform worse than similarly priced intel i5s (3570, 4570) in most games and it uses more power doing so. Anandtech's piledriver review for example shows the fx8350 performing worse than a 2 year old sandy bridge i5 when it comes to gaming. Overclocking can improve it, but then you need to spend more on aftermarket cooling and the power requirements also increase.

I agree with you that the 8320 is much better value, and I wouldn't recommend an i3 as it is only dual core. In the OP's case I think that an fx6300 is also a good option if their existing motherboard can be reused. For a completely new build though I think an i5 4570 or 3570 represents better value than an fx8350, and less than that won't be a huge upgrade over their existing cpu.

The 8350 isn't great value, I think it's better for those who want to overclock to 5GHz or so and hope for a better chance of doing it. I'd always tell someone to get an 8320 instead and aim for 4.5GHz. In the majority of games the Intel range will perform a little better rather than much better. Since you're often talking about frame rates in the 100s, or a difference of 2-3fps, it doesn't matter in reality.

As for power consumption, lots of people (I don't mean you) who go on about how awful AMD's power usage is would have been running 2x580s a couple of years ago, which will alone draw over 600W. The difference isn't huge between the processors.