Thinking of an upgrade

Timbercottage

Bronze Level Poster
Hi everyone,

I'm off to university in September and thought I'd treat myself to one last big spend whilst I still have the money.

I've put together this set up and wondered what your thoughts were, and if it's worth upgrading from what I currently have.

I have a budget of around £1000 and basic requirements are to run the modern games on high settings with a steady frame rate of 30+ minimum.

Current spec:
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™2 Duo E8400 (2 X 3.00GHz) 1333MHz FSB/6MB L2 Cache

Motherboard
ASUS® P5QL: DDR2, SATAII, PCI-e x16, 3 PCI, 2 x PCI-e x1

Memory (RAM)
4GB CORSAIR DOMINATOR 1066MHz - (4x1GB)

Graphics Card
512MB GEFORCE 9800GTX+ PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)

DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
20x Dual Layer LightScribe DVD Writer ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply & Case Cooling
650W Corsair (TX650)

Nothing too extravagant, does the job, but is starting to get a bit old now.

I was thinking of upgrading to this for £1086, is the performance upgrade really worth that much money over what I already have?

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-930 (2.80GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache

Motherboard
ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI

Memory (RAM)
6GB CORSAIR XMS3 TRI-DDR3 1600MHz (3 X 2GB)

Graphics Card
1280MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX470 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
250GB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply & Case Cooling
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

I could also downgrade to a NVidia GTX465 for a total cost of £983, is the 470 worth the £100 extra? Or would it be better to go for an SLI setup of 2x the GTX465 for a total cost of £1181.

So many decisions and I can't make them on my own!
 

Tabasco

Bronze Level Poster
Personally, if your dead set on getting a NVidia card, wait for the 460 with 1gb DDR which may appear next week in the spec list. 2 of those bad boys SLI'd will beat a 480. Even 2 of the 460 with the 768MB memory will be pretty close.

Just out though so stock may be an issue...
 

misterdave

Enthusiast
Hi davwoo306,

Welcome to the forums,

Nice spec you've chosen, Tabasco is right on the money regarding the GPU's and I would go for the 1GB version of GTX460 (personally tempted by one for my next upgrade from a GTX260), The 470 isn't worth it in light of the 460's in my mind nor are the 465's. But that's just my opinion.

Can't comment on stock until I'm at work tomorrow but one of us can update you then.

Notes regarding your spec, I'd change to the Corsair TX650 PSU as its a quality unit lost of us here at PCS have the corsair PSU and they are simply amazing. I would also change the RAM for 1333 for the added stability, its more than quick enough too (I personally run 9GB of 1333 on a P6T Deluxe and thats overkill)

Apart from that looks like you have a corker of an upgrade rig in the pipes.

I'll reply back with possible stock ETA's tomorrow
 

Timbercottage

Bronze Level Poster
Thanks for the advice guys, I'll sit tight and wait for the 1GB version of the 460 to come in to stock, sounds to me that it's the right way to go, and reading some reviews I can't really fault it. Do you know what the difference in price will be in comparison to cards with similar performance?
 
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