Upgrade time

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tjiPPi

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So it's about time I upgrade my pc. I haven't been following the pc hardware trends lately, so any suggestion / recommendations are welcome.

I currently have a 2.4 GHz Dual Core intel and 2GB ram.

I've been looking at what is available and have the following in mind:
Intel i7 2600K
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3-B3 OR GA-Z68X-UD4-B3 (what is the benefit of the UD4?)
4GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3-1600
Gigabyte Odin GT 800W PSU (or maybe the odin 720W)
I have the ATI 5770 gpu atm - still deciding if I want to upgrade that now.

Also thinking of the RAT 7 mouse:whistle:
Still undecided on the case

I'm not really into overclocking, but might play a bit (reason for getting the K series cpu). Would it be worthwhile to go the liquid cooling route or would stock cooling be fine?

Oh yes, budget about R9k-R10k (I can buy directly from supplier)
 
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hold off a bit, bulldozer from amd's dropping this month iirc. even if it doesnt beat sandy bridge (i5/i7), it will almost definitely lower prices across the board. gfx card upgrades are currently the way to go.
 
there really is no point in getting a i7 2600k and ud 4 for gaming when you using a 5770?..
I'd rather drop it back to a i5 2500k and P8P67 with a 6950 or 560
 
battletoad said:
hold off a bit, bulldozer from amd's dropping this month iirc. even if it doesnt beat sandy bridge (i5/i7), it will almost definitely lower prices across the board. gfx card upgrades are currently the way to go.
Click to expand...

Bulldozer was meant to launch this month but it has been delayed at least one month.

@OP - if for gaming then as the peanut said, you really need to drop your CPU down. Take the ±R1000 saved and get a better GPU. I would also prefer that you get a different brand PSU, I get nervous when I see an Odin
 
Agree with most of what is said in the thread.

GPU: POS
PSU: POS, more importantly 800W, wtf, a decent 500W PSU (Corsair/Seasonic) is more than enough.
Motherboard: Z68 is a good choice, haven't looked at the boards yet but Gigabyte or Asus board is what I would recommend brand wise.
RAM: 4GB is enough but I'd even considering getting 8GB. But perhaps I get constrained because of the apps I run. Games shouldn't be that demanding.

Esquire is having their "birthday" sale next week, I'd hold off just to see if they aren't selling a Z68 motherboard on special (They sell mostly Asus).
 
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tjiPPi said:
So it's about time I upgrade my pc. I haven't been following the pc hardware trends lately, so any suggestion / recommendations are welcome.

I currently have a 2.4 GHz Dual Core intel and 2GB ram.

I've been looking at what is available and have the following in mind:
Intel i7 2600K
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3-B3 OR GA-Z68X-UD4-B3 (what is the benefit of the UD4?)
4GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3-1600
Gigabyte Odin GT 800W PSU (or maybe the odin 720W)
I have the ATI 5770 gpu atm - still deciding if I want to upgrade that now.

Also thinking of the RAT 7 mouse:whistle:
Still undecided on the case

I'm not really into overclocking, but might play a bit (reason for getting the K series cpu). Would it be worthwhile to go the liquid cooling route or would stock cooling be fine?

Oh yes, budget about R9k-R10k (I can buy directly from supplier)
Click to expand...

The Odin 720Watt is a crap power supply. It's only the Odin GT power supplies that are worth it. You don't need a 800watt though. The Odin GT 550watt is good enough and waaaaaaaaaaaaay better than the that Odin "585" watt(Which is a mislabled 460Watt).
 
Qwikslver said:
The Odin GT 550watt is good enough and waaaaaaaaaaaaay better than the that Odin "585" watt(Which is a mislabled 460Watt).
Click to expand...

It's still a POS at the price you pay IMHO. The price is over R1K, there are a whole list of PSUs I'd rather buy at that price point.

Doesn't even have better than just standard 80+ rating, LOL @ R1K. Wow, what a rip off.

Gigabyte just aren't good at making PSUs :(
 
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Stay away from the Gigabyte PSU's. The Odin GT series are decent power supplies, but they're outdated/poor with regards to efficiency.

The Z68 chipset is meant for those people who do a lot of video transcoding. If you're not doing it regularly, then stick with the P67 chipset (since it's cheaper) and rather use your AMD graphics card for the transcoding.

4GB of RAM is more than enough for today's games. RAM is by far the easiest to upgrade.
 
Thanks for the replies. I thought about it and will definitly upgrade the gpu as well. Will also look at another psu.
I'll relook my list and ask for more pointers soon.
 
dabbler said:
I have a Gigabyte powersupply and I'm very happy with it.
Click to expand...
Please read the rest of my previous post. I did say that the Gigabyte Odin GT series PSU's are good power supplies. The reasons why you should rather buy a different brand PSU, is due to the Odin GT's having poor efficiencies and being very expensive for their rated power output.

You wouldn't notice the difference between a cheap (Gigabyte Odin) and decent (Seasonic) PSU, unless you pretty much max it out and have a power (voltage, Ampere & phase angle) measuring tool. Like I have a Coolermaster Extreme Power Plus 460W, which is running my office PC without any issues, but the PSU is a POS to be honest: no active PFC (power factor correction), a relatively poor efficiency and it's max rated which means that it can't actually deliver 460W.
 
I'd go for the MSI P67A GD-65 , and I'm a Gigabyte man , for the price nothing comes close . There's some high-end tech going on with that board : Hi-c Caps , Super Ferrite Chokes , and Solid state caps where the Hi-C Caps aren't being used . Supports SLi and Crossfire and even has voltage measuring points for the extreme overclocker . Other than that I'd go for the Gigabyte UD4 which is probably more than twice the price .

Using pricecheck I found the board here for ~ R1600 . Which means you can get it even cheaper :D
 
battletoad said:
sigh AMD. looks like we have a worthy successor for Duke Nukem Forever jokes:-/
Click to expand...

Why the sigh? Comparing a one, maybe two month delay to Duke Nuken is simply absurd. You are blowing this out of proportion. Currently the chips are working, but they are just not at the levels AMD want them to be. And its not like any other company in the tech industry has never suffered delays or other issues, like Sandy Bridge that needed a full recall on all motherboards, or Nvidia that does paper launches to 'make' deadlines, etc etc
 
For PSU's I'd recommend you get Corsair or Coolermaster.

(In order of price)

1. Corsair AX750W - R 1,746.00 Incl. VAT - 7 Year warranty - Fully Modular - 80 PLUS Gold Certified
Online Store - Wootware
Product Page
Corsair AX750W, Dual Eps12V + Full Modular Cable Management (all Cable Detachable), ATX 12V V2.31 - 750W (12V : 744W), nVidia SLi Ready, 80PLUS Gold Certified for Energy Saving, 24pin (4pin Detachable), with Active-PFC, 4 x 8pin (2+6) PCI-E Power Connectors, 12x SATA, 1x 140mm Thermal Controled Fan ; with OCP, OVP, OPP, SCP, UVP - 7 Years Warranty - No Power Cord

2. Corsair HX750W - R 1,614.00 Incl. VAT - 5 Year warranty - Modular - 80 PLUS Certified
Online Store - Wootware
Product Page
Corsair HX750W, Eps12V + Modular Cable Management, ATX 12V V2.3 - 750W (12v: 744W), nVidia SLi Ready, 80PLUS Certified for Energy Saving, 24pin (4pin Detachable), with Active-PFC, 4 x 8pin (2 + 6) PCI-E Power Connectors, 1x 140mm Thermal Controled Fan, with OCP, OVP, OPP, SCP, UVP - 5 Years Warranty

3. Corsair TX750W - R 1,286.00 Incl. VAT - 5 Year warranty - Non-Modular - 80 PLUS Certified
Online Store - Wootware
Product Page
Corsair TX750W, Eps12V, ATX 12V V2.2 - 750W (12v: 720W), nVidia SLi Ready, 80PLUS Certified for Energy Saving, 24pin (4pin Detachable), with Active-PFC, 4 x 8pin (2 + 6) PCI-E Power Connectors, 1x 140mm Thermal Controled Fan, with OCP, OVP, OPP, SCP, UVP - 5 Years Warranty

4. CoolerMaster RS750 - R 985.00 Incl. VAT - 5 Year warranty - Non-Modular - 80 PLUS Certified
Online Store - Wootware
Product Page
CoolerMaster RS750-ACAAE3 GX 750w ( 12v: 720w ) , ATX 12V V2.31, active PFC , 4x 8(6+2) pin PCI-E power connectors, 24pin ( 4 pin detachable ) , 1x 120mm PWM fan ; with OVP/ UVP/OPP/OTP /SCP ; 80 PLUS certified - 5 years warranty
 
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fredeb said:
I'd go for the MSI P67A GD-65 , and I'm a Gigabyte man , for the price nothing comes close . There's some high-end tech going on with that board : Hi-c Caps , Super Ferrite Chokes , and Solid state caps where the Hi-C Caps aren't being used . Supports SLi and Crossfire and even has voltage measuring points for the extreme overclocker . Other than that I'd go for the Gigabyte UD4 which is probably more than twice the price .

Using pricecheck I found the board here for ~ R1600 . Which means you can get it even cheaper :D
Click to expand...

The boards definitly looks good.
I was also looking at the Asus P8P67 PRO as per the other thread.

Would you guys say the Corsair CX600W is worth it?
 
NomNom said:
For PSU's I'd recommend you get Corsair or Coolermaster.

(In order of price)

1. Corsair AX750W - R 1,746.00 Incl. VAT - 7 Year warranty - Fully Modular - 80 PLUS Gold Certified
Online Store - Wootware
Product Page
Corsair AX750W, Dual Eps12V + Full Modular Cable Management (all Cable Detachable), ATX 12V V2.31 - 750W (12V : 744W), nVidia SLi Ready, 80PLUS Gold Certified for Energy Saving, 24pin (4pin Detachable), with Active-PFC, 4 x 8pin (2+6) PCI-E Power Connectors, 12x SATA, 1x 140mm Thermal Controled Fan ; with OCP, OVP, OPP, SCP, UVP - 7 Years Warranty - No Power Cord

2. Corsair HX750W - R 1,614.00 Incl. VAT - 5 Year warranty - Modular - 80 PLUS Certified
Online Store - Wootware
Product Page
Corsair HX750W, Eps12V + Modular Cable Management, ATX 12V V2.3 - 750W (12v: 744W), nVidia SLi Ready, 80PLUS Certified for Energy Saving, 24pin (4pin Detachable), with Active-PFC, 4 x 8pin (2 + 6) PCI-E Power Connectors, 1x 140mm Thermal Controled Fan, with OCP, OVP, OPP, SCP, UVP - 5 Years Warranty

3. Corsair TX750W - R 1,286.00 Incl. VAT - 5 Year warranty - Non-Modular - 80 PLUS Certified
Online Store - Wootware
Product Page
Corsair TX750W, Eps12V, ATX 12V V2.2 - 750W (12v: 720W), nVidia SLi Ready, 80PLUS Certified for Energy Saving, 24pin (4pin Detachable), with Active-PFC, 4 x 8pin (2 + 6) PCI-E Power Connectors, 1x 140mm Thermal Controled Fan, with OCP, OVP, OPP, SCP, UVP - 5 Years Warranty

4. CoolerMaster RS750 - R 985.00 Incl. VAT - 5 Year warranty - Non-Modular - 80 PLUS Certified
Online Store - Wootware
Product Page
CoolerMaster RS750-ACAAE3 GX 750w ( 12v: 720w ) , ATX 12V V2.31, active PFC , 4x 8(6+2) pin PCI-E power connectors, 24pin ( 4 pin detachable ) , 1x 120mm PWM fan ; with OVP/ UVP/OPP/OTP /SCP ; 80 PLUS certified - 5 years warranty
Click to expand...

The CoolerMaster RS750 also seems like a very good candidate. I'll put it on the list as well, thanks.
 
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