It has been quite sometime since I have been on the forum, but feel it's time that I need to visit for some advice. Back in 2012 I built a PC with the following spec: Motherboard - ASUS P7P55D Deluxe CPU - Intel i7 -860 2.8- GHz GPU - ASUS EAH5870/2DIS/1GD5 Voltage Tweak RAM - Corsair Dominator GT 8GB (4 x 2GB) O/S HDD - Corsair Force GT 240GB SSD Internal Storage - Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB x 5 PSU - Corsair HX10000W Case - Antec 1200 It's been a while since I have looked at what the latest and greatest hardware is available, but am looking at upgrading. Not sure what I want to look at first, or what the best way to tackle this. I would most likely have to do this in stages. Any advice appreciated. Thanks
The base platform is really still pretty capable. If you're finding you need some more CPU power, you should be able to OC that chip +1gHz at least with little effort. It really depends what you use the PC for, but assuming gaming, I would just upgrade the GPU and hang on a little while more for Skylake. The only other things I would do personally, is drop all those 1TB disks and replace them with 4TB or 5TB disk and do a case refresh (unless you may be wanting to downsize to matx or itx next time).
That system is still more than capable on the CPU front. You can easily overclock it to 4GHz which will bring a new lease of life into your (assuming) gaming experience. If you need help with overclocking, there are plenty of guides around, and of course you have the forums to ask for advice too. I'd be happy to assist if you shoot me a PM, if you need any help that is. Where the build is now letting you down is the graphics side of things. Make a switch to something new, and you will be surprised how well it copes. I personally wouldn't bother changing the HDDs unless you're running out of space or are planning to downsize as said above.
Use it for gaming, nothing serious, but noticing more games needing a minimum of 1GB of graphics, recommended 2GB, which got me thinking about general upgrading. I haven't overclocked yet, so that could be a choice.
Thanks for the advice. Will look into overclocking, and appreciate the offer. Graphics does seem the area I need to look into. Any suggestions? Also what's regarded as a decent size of card? Regarding the HDD's use them as a means to store and also backup all our data, and photos. We run a couple of businesses from home, and our previous NAS went wrong, so until we get another one, we have a setup using these hard drives for that. Have the same setup on another PC as well, so we always have four current up to date copies of all files. Plus offsite and also relevant data stored in the 'Cloud'. Sorry gone off on a tangent there. Back to the upgrade. Any thoughts on the RAM? Cheers
Thanks for the message. Overclocking and GPU seem a common area to look at. Please see the comments re the HDD's. I know your comments, were your personal view, and can understand that, but for what we need at the moment, works well. Thanks again
You could upgrade the RAM if you wanted as DDR3 will increase in price as DDR4 decreases but you really only need to upgrade your GPU.
I don't think more RAM is of much use at the minute. 8GB is enough for gaming. The only downside to his rig now is the graphics in my opinion.
What sort of budget are you working towards? If you're willing to go second hand, you will get a lot more for your money. I picked up an ASUS DirectCU II R9 280X from here for £90 (complete bargain and a steal at that price) last week. I've also got two GIGABYTE HD 7970 GHz Editions here which I will be listing this weekend. I'm unsure of the price as of yet, but I will be putting them up. One needs to go back to GIGABYTE for repair work on the fans though. So that one is on hold for obvious reasons.
To be honest, not really thought of any budget yet. I guess as I have a working system, I am in no immediate hurry, so if something is more expensive, I will save to get it. If that makes sense? Of course would like to spend as little as I can, but on the other hand, want something that will last. Putting my finger in the air, I would say up to £200 would be a good place to start. That said, if someone recommended a excellent card for £250, I would most likely save for it. What is the usual 'recommended' size these days? I know when I got my 1GB a few years back it was regarding as more than large enough for it's time. Don't think that's the case now )
I wouldn't suggest any card with less than 3GB of vram. I recommend what I have, an evga gtx970 ssc acx2.0+. It's a really nice card if you want to go for nvidia.
Personally i would wait until AMD's 390x price/performance is known (supposedly) next month, if not i would go with IvanIvanovich's recommendation of a gtx970.
