Just Musin' on upgrade

[floppybootstomp]

Gotta do it soon methinks, either that or just play games on the Xbox

I can't afford it yet, but just priced up a potential upgrade.

Priced this with the following in mind:

1) No point in upgrading unless I get top of the range SSD as I think that would probably be the most significant improvement.

2) I do need at least 240Gb Primary drive and I can always move Steam to storage drive

3) Thought I'd go AMD for budget purposes.

4) If I'm using AMD thought I'd get a pair of AMD/ATI GPU cards and use them in Xfire

5) I priced this lot from Scan, was going to add a CPU cooler but Scan's range is absolute crap. The price for this upgrade is £1243 and with a cooler it would round off at around £1300.00 and that is supposedly 'budget'. Was figuring Noctua cooler but lots of good coolers on the market recently, research needed.

As I said, can't afford it just yet but recent work has meant I've caught up with bills and all looks clear now until the end of June so if any work comes in soon I may be in a position to do this thing.

This listing is my first attempt, I am a little out of touch although I have a rough idea of what's going on, would very much welcome suggestions and comments but again, I'll say, just thinking atm.

is the Xfire worth it? Am I better off getting a single higher priced AMD card? To tell truth I'd rather get a single Nvidia card for around £300.00 but not sure if compatibility ok with AMD based system. I'm fairly sure, actually, an Nvidia card would be ok but some doubt there all the same.

Also wondering how much more an Intel upgrade would cost?

Anyhow, that's it, waddya think?

 

[floppybootstomp]

Just had a thought, if I kept my pair of Velicoraptors in RAID 0 and just bought the rest, price levels out at around £725.

Perhaps do that and add SSD later.

Or maybe just add an SSD and upgrade graphics card

Confusion is quite rife here, lol

 

[V_R]

Looks good Flops, I'd skip the SSD for now concentrate on the other hardware first if i were you.

 

[Abarbarian]

AMD are bringing some new and exiting stuff this summer. Personally I would save up some more loot and wait as their new lines look very promising.

 

[Ian]

Yeah I'd skip the SSD for now too (IMO) - almost £600 is a lot of wonga considering you've already got Velociraptors in RAID 0. May as well update to SSD at a later date as the prices are always coming down .

BTW, is there anything you can't play at the moment? I've got an 8800 and Q6600 with 4GB Ram and it still handles everything I throw at it (although it doesn't look as good as it could) - so I'm waiting another year or so before going for the upgrade (although I do have a wedding/house to save for, so that dictates it!).

 

[V_R]

Hey Flops, Have you considered an i5 system? 2500k will clock like a beast and be the same kind of price as above.

Or, you could consider changing your current CPU for a Quad core. That will see a big difference. A Q9650 maybe? The issue is that your E6600 will be holding back the rest of it a little in all honesty.

Two possible alternatives?

 

[floppybootstomp]

I yam open to suggestions gentlemen

Only game I can't play is CoD Black Ops multiplayer and that game also stutters when the going gets intense when running at medium res in single player.

But my system is 4.5 years old and I'm getting the upgrade itch.

i5 system sounds good.

I shall check out the savings made using a quad core though the six-core at £146.00 is a relatively small part of the outlay.

And waiting for new AMD stuff is probably a good idea, that's when I expect the upgrade will be, in a few months time probably.

Right now just trying to get a feel for what's out there.

And almost 600 quid for 240Gb of hard drive does seem exceedingly expensive I must say.