Just abit of help/advice on upgrading my system.

[Justjohn101]

Hi all, looking for some advice on upgrading my pc. Im a bit of a noob and recently bought a new case for my pc and after swapping all the parts from my old to new for the first time its really made me want to start upgrading.

I currently have...
Intel pentium dual G3220
Msi military class 4 H81M-P33
Asus GTX650 Ti
CiC 700ub PCU
Seagate barracuda 1TB 7200rpm
Ballistix 8GB sport DDR3


It can fit 7 case fans which are all being used, 5 being controlled by a nzxt sentry 2 fan controller so theres plenty of cooling support for when I do upgrade. The main purpose is for gaming both gpu and cpu intensive and I would also like to not have to think about upgrading anything else after for some decent time.

My PSU was first on my mind to change as it is cheap and poorly rated. Was thinking 600w + and upto £80. Next i was thinking of a Intel i5 4690k £174, first I was thinking the i7 but after research I don't think the benefits for £100 extra are worth it for me. A new MOBO upto £100 and a solid state drive.

Finally the GPU here I'm not to sure what to get but I'm willing to spend upto £300 maybe slightly over. Maybe a gtx 970. Basically I would just like some help/advice, I've only recently started learning about computer hardware so I have basic knowledge but not a massive amount. One last thing it will be Intel not AMD (nothing against them just a personnel preference) so please only answers based on that. Thanks for any replies.

 

[satrow]

EDIT: Welcome

CiC 700ub PCU

Sounds like a CiT or similar, ditch it before it blows, taking your drives with it!

Seasonic/XFX are easy to come by and solid, 550W should be fine with the i5 and 970.

 

[attack]

You surely need a new PSU. The biggest mistake many people make is getting a PSU with a high wattage rating. This almost means nothing (unless from a reputable manufacturer), because there's no standard for what the max is the PSU can provide...it can get complicated, but to make it easy, buy a PSU from corsair, seasonic/XFX, evga, antec or cooler master (that is not exhaustive, but those are reputable manufacturers). The next, is looking at your power requirements....500 watts is a LOT of power, that's more than you'll likely ever use unless you start doing extreme overclocking or running multiple video cards, so don't spend a ton of cash on high wattage PSU's unless you need it...if you don't know, you probably don't need more.

Next!
i5, excellent choice, get the cheapest unlocked version, games don't benefit much with the hyper-threading and extra cache on the i7 (money is better spent on GPU).

RAM, keep what you have

GPU, head to the GPU section and pickout the best price/performance. nVidia and AMD both have very competitive offers in your price range.

Mobo...if you're not doing crazy OCing, you just need basic voltage adjustments...spending more than 75-100 US (not too familiar with UK pricing) will yield a decent enough option.

SSD...assuming similiar UK pricing, go for a Samsung EVO or Crucial BX/MX drive to your liking.

Cooling is usually overated (in terms of airflow). The reason being, if you're someone who's going to put a TON of effort into maximizing your OC and tweaking voltage and other settings and running stability tests....you're not going to be air cooling anyway, you'll be water cooling. So just make sure you have decent airflow at a desirable decibal level (loudness). I learned long ago the whole reostat fan controller setup to maximize cooling/sound is just a damn nightmare and not worth the time.

 

[Justjohn101]

Thanks alot for the reply very helpfull. The only reason i was thinking of a higher watt PSU was so id always have what i need if i had anything else say another hdd/ssd.

Ive also been reading about thermal paste and was just woundering what kind to get for my gpu/cpu when changing?

 

[attack]

A typical HDD/SSD draws 5watts at full load...that's not much!

Here's a cool link I just found:
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

FYI, I spec'd out a 980GTX with an i5 OC'd to 4.0ghz with 1.3v, 7 case fans, 2 SSD's and 2 HDD's and it draws 420 watts...a 500 watt PSU will be plenty!

Processors are now racing to lower TDP (because of the mobile and server environment want low power draws) so future CPU's will likely draw less power. GPU's likely won't get much more power hungry either for similar reasons, but I think the high end ones will remain around the same TDP for a while.

500 watts is plenty, IF you get it from a good manufacturer!

 

[Justjohn101]

Ah ok thanks. Any advice to what i should look for in a motherboard when buying?

 

[Dlaw]

Unless your pushing for max clocks, it's all about the feature set the board provides. Intel's Haswell CPU's have a voltage regulation module built into the chip, so power delivery isn't as important as it used to be. Things to look into are the audio section (the Realtek ALC1150 codec is regarded as the best onboard sound you can get right now, often better than mid to high-end dedicated audio), what type of LAN it uses (Intel, Killer and Realtek are the main contenders now, my preferences are in that order), size (depending on the form-factor you want to end up with), number of SATA/PCIE/PCI/IDE/USB/etc. connectors and headers it has, and then the way it looks.

 

[ehume]

Don't you have an H81 mb?

Really, your CPU should be OK, as long as you are satisfied with it. And you can't know that until you get an SSD. And everything in your system is at risk until you gt a solid PSU.

So, 1st item to get is a new PSU. Don't stint. Look on www.jonnyguru.com, hardforum.com and the crmais reviews at www.techpowerup.com (they have recently changed authors) for good PSU reviews. Look for reviews on every PSU you consider. Wait for the specials, then buy one. As noted above, 500W is good enough for most rigs, but don't be afraid to go to 650W or even 750W if you see a good deal. Then between Black Friday and January, watch for great deals. When you see one, buy your spare -- always have a PSU spare.

Now that you have safed your rig, then get a 250GB to 1TB SSD. I lean to Samsung myself, but there are a number of good deal floating around. It's a highly competitive marketplace just now.

I saw my own system speed up when I got a 1st gen 64GB SATA II SSD. Then I got a pair of 120-128GB 2d gen SATA III SSD's and sped everything up. So then I turned to my family. My wife has an Intel Core Duo twin core E7200 in a Dell 530s we bought in 2008. It had a 500GB HD in it that was state of the art for its time. But now it was slow -- a dog. But in December 2012 I swapped a 500GB Samsung 840 -- their first of the 840 line -- for that HD. It was a SATA III SSD on a SATA II connection, but we were just experimenting. The whole rig picked up and skedaddled. It moves like lightning now. My wife won't let me touch it. She doesn't care that I might find a card to upgrade her to SATA III. 500GB of SSD on SATA II shoved to its max, and the CPU rarely slows us down. Lesson: you won't know what your CPU can do until your OS drive is an SSD. Make sure you put your Program Files and Program Files (x86) on the same SSD.

My own rig and my daughter's 2 rigs have SSD's now. One daughter has my old 2008 laptop. It had a HD in it and it was painfully slow. I put one of my old 2d gen 128GB SSD's on it, and now it flies. So wait until you put in an SSD before you make any other decisions.

As for the rest: my other daughter has a GTX650 Ti. She plays all sorts of games on it, cheerfully. I am waiting for the 20nm/16nm/14nm GPU chips to come out before I replace it for her. Maybe we'll be able to go passive cooling. Again, don't move on a GPU until you have seen what your system does with an SSD.

A young bull and an old bull looked up at a hillside filled with cows. The young bull said to the old bull, "Let's run up the hill and get us a cow." The old bull said to the young bull, "Let's walk up the hill and get all the cows."

Take your time and get it right.

 

[satrow]

A typical HDD/SSD draws 5watts at full load...that's not much!

They can pull up to ~3x that on boot, if you have several and a poor PSU, you might come unstuck - thus my earlier comment "Sounds like a CiT or similar, ditch it before it blows, taking your drives with it!".

Another good page on real world GPU power requirements - provided the PSU used is a modern design of good quality: http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm

 

[kamran]

EDIT: Welcome Sounds like a CiT or similar, ditch it before it blows, taking your drives with it!

Seasonic/XFX are easy to come by and solid, 550W should be fine with the i5 and 970.

wow i didn't even notice it was a PSU just throw it in the trash can NOW and wash your hands my expensive semi-premium psu killed my HDD and my graphics card, so ditch yours now!

and im not an expert! but i will just tell you what i think, i rather let someone else answer!

I would get an i5. something like 4690k. your CPU is not best but not awful! if you don't need a new one i wouldn't get any because you'll also want a new motherboard. (i preferred Asus, after seeing the warranty thread i rather get something like Asrock etc)

I would also get something like Samsung EVO and Crucial SSD, it depends on you but something near 256GB! and 1TB~ HDD for movies and stuff(keep the HDD you have) Buying just about any SSD is amazing! its just awesome i don't think something like 850 evo and 850 pro have any difference for your usage!
I don't know about ballistix RAMs so i can't say anything.