BleepingComputer.com: Upgrade Suggestions

Hey all.

Planning an upgrade and was after some advice/recommendation.

Budget £500 but able to stretch if worth it.

Current rig - Q6600, 8GB, Asus P5B-E Plus, 7300le (looking to replace - CPU, RAM, MB, GPU)

Mostly used for audio recording, sample playback, virtual studio type stuff but all round use too.
Would like a bit more beef in the GPU department for occasional 3D blasting and HD movies etc.

Intel I7, Phenom X6 or AMD FX???

I'm a bit behind on the current breed so uncertain what the general thoughts on these are.

Thanks in advance for your time and patience.

Well at 500 pounds, you're looking at some tough choices. If you're looking to replace all four of those parts, at least the first thing you'll want to replace is the GPU, but when you say "3D blasting" I presume you mean games. The first question to ask is: What games? Are you looking for some high end stuff? Is this a daily need, or one where you'll be doing it once in a while, and probably not at the highest settings or the newest games available? HD movies is easy, in fact, it's like a freebie.

As far as CPU, if you're going with Intel, the proper choice is probably going to be an i5-2500k. It's a quad-core, 3.2 GHz processor, that well outperforms most others. The i7 CPU selections that beat it? Way more expensive and for a very small (100-200 MHz) increase. Not worth the money right now.

If you go with AMD, I can only suggest the FX processor as the new AM3+ architecture is where AMD will be expanding, the older Phenom line and the AM3 socket are done in their new developments. The FX CPUs are better at multitasking, and great at productivity applications and multi-threaded apps. They have less performance in gaming sometimes, but with the new Windows 8, which will be smarter about how the new architecture works, they'll blow apart the old processors.

AMD is often the "Value" choice, while Intel is the "Performance" choice, so take your priorities and run from there.

Your GPU, well, depending on what you need, some good $70 USD models are out there which provide solid budget gaming performance without sacrificing quality or ending up with shoddy manufacture.

As you're in pounds? No idea. Try Newegg if you can ship from the states, but if you can't, I don't recall if they have a EU counterpart or if there's a better option there.

Cheers and good luck!

Thank you for your reply.

Not really high end gaming as I only play occasionally. I'm going to be off work for a few months so really just to kill time!
Would like a GPU that can play new games reasonably, at moderate settings. Maybe a 5750 or a GTS 250? The gfx market is so confusing!
So many options. Difficult to know where to begin.

I had looked into the i5 and thought it would be a good bet. Will continue researching.

Thanks again.

A 5750 would do the trick at moderate settings depending on the games you play.

With graphics cards you just need to remember a few things:

Take the Radeon 6850 for example. The first number indicates it is part of the newest 6000 series "Northern Islands" line. The second number indicates which market it is geared at. With the 6000 series, these numbers are a little different than what they have been in the past. The 6900 line is their high-end gaming and enthusiast line, the 6800 is their more reasonably priced midrange cards, the 6700 is essentially a rebranding of the 5700 which is nowadays their mainstream segment, anything below that, 6600, 6500, 6400, etc. gets progressively lower performance. The third number, the 5 in 6850, further breaks down performance within a market segment. The xx50's are usually just lower clocked versions of AMD's xx70 cards, you can save some money there. Note that the 6990 is an oddity, it certainly is a high-end card, but it has two GPU's on one board.

Nvidia is a bit more complex. The GTX 500 series is the newest, the 580 is the highest single GPU card they have. The last two numbers indicate where it is targeted in terms of market, the lower the number, the lower the performance. They also have GT and GTS models which are aimed at lower-end segments. Nvidia also has Ti cards, which is often just a beefed up version of the original cards. The company also continues to sell their older 400 series.

For comparison's sake, the Radeon 6970 is just below the GTX 580 in terms of performance, the 6950 hovers around the 570 in terms of performance.

You should get AMD graphics card because of their competitive pricing, Nvidia on the other hand is just down right overpriced.

I can recommend the following article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fastest-graphics-card-radeon-geforce,3067.html

This may assist in finding the best card for the best value.
All these card prices are in USD but they should give you an idea of comparative differences in price between the different cards.

EDIT: In response to the card selection:
Get a 6770. They're cheaper right now (I'm serious) and better than the 5750 or the 6750.
That'll blow apart most anything you need right now, and for the next two to three years any game that comes out will play at reasonable settings.

This post has been edited by Nicholas Basso: 14 November 2011 - 08:12 PM

The 6770 is a rebranded 5770.

Yes it is the re-release of the 5770 with the 6000-series technology built-in. It performs better and costs less right now than the 5750, is PCI-E 2.1, and for $100-$110 is the best video card to be had right now.

The 6700 series uses the Juniper XT and Juniper Pro cores, exactly the same as the Radeon 5700. The exception is the 6790 which uses the Barts LE core.

Ah yes, but the 5750 can be had on Newegg for just over $125, the 5770 is all-but unavailable, and the 6770 is $109 and then a rebate.

EDIT: And they are not identical, as the 6770 includes 3D Blu-Ray decode support. Not a necessarily commonly used feature, but still, new tech is new tech.

This post has been edited by Nicholas Basso: 15 November 2011 - 07:10 PM

Also i believe the 6770 has HDMI 1.4a port, that's the main difference i see lol.

It's clearly a thousand better.

Thanks everyone. Some great responses and suggestions from all.

I am swaying towards a 6770. Seems to suit my needs.

I can purchase new for 80 GBP (126 USD) which is fine. There are also plenty of second hand 5770s around too. I reckon I can get one of those for 60 GBP if I am shrewd about it. In these thrifty times and me being very budget conscious, would you say this was a good idea? Or best to pay 20 more for new 6770. I don't see an awful lot of difference in them.

Also, because I do lots of work with audio (when not wasting time gaming!) Idle fan noise needs to be low. Just to complicate things further for you!

Thanks again everyone.

What do you mean "wasting" time gaming?;)

Okay, so, if you don't foresee yourself outputting in HDMI 1.4a to like a TV or whatever for 3d processing or 3d blu-ray output or any of that spiffy stuff? Don't worry about the 6770 vs the 5770. If you can find a good 5770 for a lower price, go for it.

That said, this is not the quietest card. If you're looking for quieter, a 5570 (6570 maybe but it might be more expensive) may be more up your alley? I honestly don't know about sound differences, you'll want to do a LOT more research on quality cards and that's probably going to be by brand, not by chipset (aka XFX, Diamond, Sapphire, ATI/AMD, etc. the companies that actually put the board out there) each brand may have different cooler options, some two-bay (louder but better at cooling sometimes) some one-bay (maybe quieter) some with faster or slower fans, it depends.

As far as system idle noise, well, a good CPU cooler will DEFINITELY help that, do not go with stock CPU cooler if you need better noise control.