Hello peoples of bit-tech. I currently have a custom built PC, with the following specs AMD Athlon X2 250 (3.0GhZ) 4GB of Ram AMD 760G Mobo, (not sure which, but it's AM3(+) I believe I am in need of an upgrade as I am finding more and more games that I can barely run in Minimal settings, It's a hard life without a GPU=( To save me from this horrible condition I have allocated a budget of £350 to overall improve my computers performance, mainly in gaming, but I also dabble in video editing. My monitor is only 1360x780 so hopefully it should keep the requirements low. But I was unsure if my current CPU would bottleneck pretty much any GPU, so a new cpu could also be needed. I hope you lovely peoples can help me
Hello . Personally with a £350 budget. You're going to need allocate a CPU, GPU and PSU to really gain the best performance and not bottleneck in the areas listed. http://www.ebuyer.com/186428-amd-ph...dition-3-4ghz-socket-am3-6mb-l3-hdz965fbgmbox http://www.ebuyer.com/257232-corsair-tx-650w-v2-psu-80plus-bronze-certified-cmpsu-650txv2uk http://www.ebuyer.com/253958-gigaby...r5-dual-dvi-mini-hdmi-out-pci-e-gv-n560oc-1gi Below your budget and a good starting point. May want others opinions. Also, to be sure i'd need to know your motherboard to ensure it can take the phenom II processor!
Hey, thanks for the reply. I'm pretty confident my motherboard supports the phenom, as it has the same socket as my humble athlon. Personally I'd rather stick to AMD/ATI for graphics cards so I was considering either a 6870/7770 or even a 6950. Do you think these gpu's would be sufficient for playing modern games, (I've seen benchmarks, but these are often done on uber powerful intel pc's) Oh, and I have that PSU =p
You can even go down to the 6850, if you wanted to save a bit before the newer cards drop in price. With a decent enough CPU it runs modern games perfectly fine (BF3, Skyrim, ARMA2...etc). It depends on when you next intend on a larger upgrade? Also perhaps add another 4gb ram?
Thanks for the replies, I have an Asus M4A78lt-m le. According to asus, it can take phenom II's and up to 8GB of ram. If I was to buy a second screen, 1080p, would the 6850 still be able to play on that screen, whilst free browsing on the other. (Not into multi screen gaming) http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3/M4A78LTM_LE/#specifications
Yes it would do. If I were you I'd get a Phenom II 955 Black Edition - quad core CPU @ 3.2Ghz with an unlocked multiplier. Then if you want an AMD card, a 6950 is a good choice at about £110 or so. It'll play all modern games at decent framerates at 1080p. A 6870 would be fine too, if you could find one for about £70. Depends how much you want to spend.
Note that you can't really browse while gaming, as the mouse will be locked in the fullscreen game, and when you Alt+Tab out of it, it will minimize. Everything will be visible on the second screen though -- you just can't interact with it.
Thanks, Is my motherboard good enough to keep up with the phenom, or would I be better off getting a new one?
Yea it'll work - there's a CPU support list on that page, however I wouldn't really encourage overclocking on a Phenom with such limited VRMs and no cooling on them. The board wasn't really designed for it. You could try for ~3.5 on the Athlon II and 4GB of memory is 'enough' for gaming still - your biggest limitation is graphics and PSU.
