I've had my computer for a very long time and only a few parts on it have broken down over the past five or six years.. Currently this is what I have:
MAG LCD Monitor (19" I think)
Logitech Speakers
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
NVidia GeForce 8600 GTS
2 Gigs of RAM
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ 2.21GHz
I'm looking to upgrade my computer one piece at a time, unless I can score a good barebone package.
What should I get?
Well really the only thing you can "upgrade" is the graphics card. Replace anything else and it won't work with what you have now. Your CPU will be changing to either a socket AM3/1155, which means you'll need a new motherboard, which means you'll need DDR3 RAM.
What is your price range on the total PC, and what would it be for just the barebone setup?
Well I'm definitely buying a new motherboard and cpu first.
I have heard multiple opinions on whether to chose NVidia or ATI.
What if I want ultimate gaming experience, but also very smooth and stable. ATI used to have a lot of problems with their graphics cards, so thats why I stay away from them. (Also Intel vs. AMD?)
My price range for about anything, the max $400, but if it's for a lot of parts $700-$900.
Edit: These seems very reasonable: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...016&CatId=5294
Last edited by CioNide; 24-03-11 at 06:28 PM.
This is your best bang-for-buck setup for under $1,000 USD:
ASRock P67 Extreme4 LGA 1155 $150
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3 GHz $220
G.Skill Ripjaws 4 GB (2 x 2 GB) DDR3-1333 $55
Gigabyte Radeon HD 6950 2 GB GDDR5 $275
G.SKILL Phoenix Pro 60GB $130
Corsair 650TX $90
Total = $920
This thing will rip through any game you throw at it, and you'll prolly want a new monitor for it sometime soon also.
Why not go directly for i7, Sandy Bridge CPU's are quite cheap compared to the other versions ( 3.4 ghz for ~300 USD, and it keeps getting cheaper o.o ) so for about 80 bucks more you can have a CPU you can keep for quite a while =).Originally Posted by Rishwin
How about:
Biostar A880GU3 Phenom II BE Barebones Kit
MSI N560GTX GeForce GTX 560 TI Twin Frozr II/OC Video Card
Because the i7-2600K is $330, and all you get for that extra $110 is a slightly increased clock frequency and hyper-threading. Neither of which you would notice or use while gaming.
The setup i posted is not the best, but it is the best value and has the best performance-to-price ratio for under the $1000 mark.
At $250 the 6950 is superior to the GTX560, get that instead.
Those barebone systems appeal to people with their low prices, but they get that way by using inferior motherboards and power supplies. Additionally, the LAST thing you want is that "power saving" HDD that comes bundled in it.
If you don't want to spend $920 on the PC i listed above, then i can give you another parts list which better fits your budget. How much do you want to spend in total, and do you want parts or a whole new PC (ie. needing a new case + optical drives ect)?
I suggest just getting a brand new computer, and if you are not satisfied with some of the parts just get those parts individually. It will save some time.
I second this build, If you want to save some cash - drop the 60GB SSD and throw on a 500gb spin-up drive.
There is no use to go for an i7 nowadays, because you can jsut as easily save an extra ~$120ish by just overclocking the i5 to the i7 rates. Very stable build, and it will run all new games on high settings just fine. The next upgrade to this would be going to 8gb of RAM, infact.. I may suggest going ahead and dropping the SSD as it wont actually improve gaming too much (Only load/save times), and bump right up to the 8GB RAM. Lots of games nowadays are starting to get rather memory hungry, and its muchs afer to have a lot to play around with and not have to worry abo the infamous no-ram-available slowdowns.
Reply With Quote