Hello again friends, Since it's now been 5 years since I bought my computer I'm looking to start replacing some of the components. However, I am very much in the dark when it comes to hardware so was hoping some of you could point me in the direction of what I need to upgrade first and what to replace it with. My budget is around £400 I'm running 2 1920x1080 monitors It has a Cooler Master 600W PSU The PC will be used for pretty much everything, but mainly gaming and running a lot of python. Thanks in advance and if you need any more information just let me know
Id try to save up a bit more cash for a platform swap to intel K series cpu & mobo that supports overclocking + new gpu. Might be able to source a used 1155,1150 motherboard + I7 k series or xeon for that though. Gpu could also be used as well for a decent upgrade id keep it at a minimum of 7970, r9 280x,gtx 780,gtx 970,gtx 780ti,gtx 980,r9 290,r9 290x,r9 380,r9 390. You could also simply buy a 256 gb ssd + new gpu & a cpu cooler and run with that for a while longer. sure you'll be limited on the cpu but it should be a decent jump in performance overclocking the cpu & getting an ssd + gpu & cpu cooler. Might need to swap that motherboard for a atx sized one with proper vrm + vrm cooling.
I'd say an SSD is an absolute must - I was really surprised when I added one to my Phenom II 940 system - it was super slow loading up and opening stuff, but once I got an SSD it was worlds ahead! As -M-m- said the CPU would be a limiting factor, but a new graphics card would certainly help - a GTX 1060 would be an excellent choice - it's basically a re-branded GTX 970, but with more VRAM and lower power consumption. If I were you, I'd go down the route of getting: - GTX 1060 Graphics card - 1TB SSD This assumes you could cobble together an extra £40 to get both of these - then just start saving up for a new CPU, RAM and motherboard - but I'd say the above are your best options with your budget right now!
Your cpu would be a bottleneck for most graphics cards, your budget is low so I'm using everything I can to save money, I would go this: Used i5 4460 from CeX: https://uk.webuy.com/product.php?sku=SCPUINTI54460A GIGABYTE Z97P-D3 mb: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00K9R1OCW(saving £5 on flubit) Crucial BX200 SSD: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B016JREGAC AMD RX 470 4GB http://www.ebuyer.com/755197-msi-ra...-link-dvi-d-hdmi-2x-radeon-rx-470-gaming-x-4g that's all £415 if you want something a little better, and don't mind using Flubit (a website I use a lot and got my graphics card using them) http://flubit.com you can get this Used i5 4460 from CeX: https://uk.webuy.com/product.php?sku=SCPUINTI54460A GIGABYTE Z97P-D3 mb: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00K9R1OCW(saving £5 on flubit) Crucial BX200 SSD: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B016JREGAC (saving £5 using flubit) Zotac GTX 1060: http://www.ebuyer.com/752926-zotac-...59&pkw=&pmt=&gclid=CM2z7vCsvs4CFYYy0wod6vMPYA (save £15 using flubit) £430
@Luna could save more money by not getting a Z chipset motherboard, won't really need the OCing features of a Z chipset.
I could send you my old i5 4440 that I have lying around, don't know how I would ship it and I also have the stock cooler. Would just need P+P really.
Unless anyone has any major reasons why this would be a bad thing, I'd very much appreciate it. I used http://www.transglobalexpress.co.uk/ to ship stuff home from the US and have found they tend to be the cheapest place to do shipping while still being quite quick. As far as I can tell, the 4460 isn't a whole lot better but I don't really know what I'm looking at so there might be something I'm missing. I'll take a proper look at that later today when I don't have a catastrophic headache, but that looks brilliant, thank you. Yeh, I'm very unlikely to be overclocking or anything even vaguely technical as I don't entirely trust myself not to blow everything up.
Regarding the Z motherboards yeah it would be mostly pointless but the H motherboards are the same/more as the one I linked, might as well get Z97 if it's the same price as a non Z motherboard. Also the 4460 is a lot better than the 955 http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-4460-vs-AMD-Phenom-II-X4-955
Fair enough on the motherboard then. What I meant regarding CPU's was is there any massive difference between the 4440 and the 4460, because if dogling is willing to send me his spare 4440 and I'll pay P+P that would be a lot cheaper than ordering the 4460 from CEX.
I would say go with the 4440, its not massively worse than the 4460 and is still a lot better than your old one.
Well sadly due to the time it took to get the money together, the graphics card had sold out so I've had to spend a bit more to get the same one. So I've decided to get the motherboard, CPU and graphics card Luna recommended and wait out on the SSD. My thinking being that SSD's are only going to get cheaper as time passes. Thank you all very much for your recommendations, if I disappear in a week you'l know I cocked up the installation.
