Hi guys, my comp died recently and iv been out of the game awhile so no idea what is what. Basically I have £200 to fix her up again and want to know what the best bang for my buck is.... I need a new cpu and mobo.. Thinking about maybe upgrading the ram too but this will need to come out of the same £200 (ish) budget. I have CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin TR3X6G1600C8D but not sure if I should forget this for a better dual core set with the new rig. Graphics card is still shiny, my case is fine, HD and SHD both fine and power supply is still pumping hot so no worries there. Help and suggestions very much welcome! Thank you
i5 4440 for £140 Gigabyte GA-Z97P-D3 - £65 Can anyone do better for ~£200? I'd keep the RAM - 6GB is generally fine at the moment.
i3 4160 for £89.99 Asus H97-PLUS for £85.16 £25 odd quid under budget. Or for £30 over budget swap the i3-4160 for a i5-4460 @ £145.98
Go with an overclockable Pentium as a stop gap and the Z97P-D3. Once you have saved uop enough get the 4670K and sell the Pentium on here for perhaps only a tenner less than you paid.
I would go with the i5 and H97 recommendation unless you are planning to overclock. If you are intending to overclock, go down the Pentium K G3258 route and a ~£100 board such as a GIGABYTE Gaming 5 or something (I think that's what they're called, I'm not too sure) as that'll give you a solid basis for the money. Do NOT bother with the i3. The Pentium can overclock and surpass the i3 in almost every way possible. As for the RAM, you really won't notice any difference. It's more that it looks silly rather than affecting performance in such a way that you'd notice it.
Don't some H97 boards like ASUS allow for unlocked multipliers ? Are you planning on overclocking khalmar ?
Not 100% sure if I will be overclocking as will be sticking with the stock cooler and having fans on my tower on low so want to control the heat as much as possible. So without overclocking what's my best option, don't mind going slightly over the £200 mark. Could stretch to £230
U mention triple channel ram. X58 platform? Might be worth establishing if ur mobo is ok. Many of us have scored cheap x5650 xeon off ebay which have been a nice upgrade.
Yes it is an x58. Have an asus pt6 deluxe and i7 from way back when triple channel memory was the future. I have no idea if the bored is ok as I cannot test without another cpu. I though replacing the cpu and bord would be the best bet. Get up to date on that front then ram next, larger Ssd and so on over the next year or two
This. A stock Sandy, Ivy or Haswell i5 will hold nothing back for gaming purposes at all. In fact in some scenarios the Sandy is quicker than Haswell, and you're pretty much guaranteed 4.8GHz on a 2500K when paired with a decent mobo and cooler.
Do you come in to central at all. I have a 920 that if you let me hold onto say £25 you could borrow to test your board out with. I'd return the cash to you when u give the cpu back. (No offense intended but you are pretty new here.) If your board is fine then it might take a xeon 5650 which were about 50-80 on ebay. Leaving u the cash to upgrade ur ssd now etc. Alternatively if x58 is working but u still want to upgrade, ones that are compatible with xeon are selling well...
Pretty new here? I joined 3 years before you! Only joking, No offence taken, havnt really used this forum since custom pc merged with it. Would be awesome to test as I though the mobo would be fine but didn't want to buy an outdated cpu for £100 to then find out it didn't work and be forced to buy and outdated mobo to match it. I'm in central around once a week but if the xeons are really £50-80 on eBay I'm temped to just but one and give it ago. If no joy I can resell without anyharm although I just checked and can't see any for that price. More like £150+
