Author Topic: Upgrade: Athlon II X3, MSI 770-c45 & nvidia 9800GT  (Read 2825 times)

  • Offline ERU

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What is best to buy within my set budget of £200. The rig is going to be used as a home computer, photo editing, playing ShogunII: Total War (maybe Skyrim as well) and the odd bit of Adobe CS5 chores. I'm just looking for something to do the job, and get some value for money.

Here is what I currently have:

Mobo: MSI 770-C45, AMD 770, AM3
AMD Athlon II X3 445
GPU: nvidia 9800GT Green 512MB GDDR3 DVI VGA HDMI Out PCI_E
DDR: 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3, DDR3     
HDD: WD Raptor 74 GB HDD (150 MBps / 10000 rpm) as a boot drive and I also have an old WD 500gb drive for storage.
Sunbeam 3D Storm Black Mid Tower Case with Unique Core-Fan Design - No PSU
Be Quiet Pure Power L7 530 W Power Supply (PSU)
Acer X203 20" Wide LCD Monitor 1600x900 50,000:1(Dynamic) 5ms - Black



Here is the latest thinking about so far:

SSD
£79.99 a Samsung 830 128GB with an 3.5" bracket / adapter kit.
+Scan P&P free for Hexus users

DDR to 8gb
£38.00 for Crucial 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz Ballistix Sport Memory
+£1.51 P&P

GPU
Still looking to spend about £80-£110 here. I've been looking at the comparisons of both the GTX 550 Ti 1GB and HD 6770 1GB
Or get the AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB OEM @ Pixmania - £102.70

Potential Total = £210 ish

  • Offline Bacon

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Re: Upgrade: Athlon II X3, MSI 770-c45 & nvidia 9800GT
Reply #1 on: July 15, 2012, 00:39:52 AM
I would upgrade the GPU (go for the 6870) and the DDR to 8GB, i wouldn't bother with an SSD but rather save the cash and use the cash from selling the other bits and think about upgrading Processor/Mobo in the future.
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  • Offline Clock'd 0Ne

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Re: Upgrade: Athlon II X3, MSI 770-c45 & nvidia 9800GT
Reply #2 on: July 15, 2012, 07:56:54 AM
Nooo, get an SSD, it's the single biggest speed difference you will see. You will be grateful you have it when editing your photos (since you will only have 8GB Windows and Photoshop will eat that in no time). I'm using between 9-12GB system RAM on average.

I normally agree with Bacon but I don't think your CPU is your bottleneck.

  • Offline Serious

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Re: Upgrade: Athlon II X3, MSI 770-c45 & nvidia 9800GT
Reply #3 on: July 15, 2012, 08:48:22 AM
As Clock'd says the GPU shouldn't be the bottleneck at the moment.

I assume you are using windows 64bit, otherwise there is little point in adding memory above 4GB unless you use the ram disk program. Unless your computer is using HD as memory there is no need to upgrade.

The SSD will gain you a little bit speed, but only while loading. If you don't notice any real loading lag then don't bother. I use a 240GB SSD system beside an older one with an older WD2500 drive. The main difference is in initial loading. Once a program is running there is very little between the two in apparent performance. Price per GB is going to continue to drop on these so the longer you wait the more you should be able to buy.

Graphics to 6870 or Gti 550 Ti is a good option. That should enable you to run almost any game at 1080p, although you may need lower than maximum settings in order to be fully playable on more modern games. TBH the difference in Aion between a Gti 550 TI and 7850HD is not that much (550 running on DX9).

Otherwise I would consider starting to saving for a future CPU/motherboard upgrade.
Last Edit: July 15, 2012, 09:07:14 AM by Serious #187;

  • Offline ERU

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Re: Upgrade: Athlon II X3, MSI 770-c45 & nvidia 9800GT
Reply #4 on: July 15, 2012, 08:50:24 AM
When I play Shogun II there is a long wait (I sometimes go make tea as it's sometimes 30secs+) for battles to load. It would be lovely to reduced this.

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  • Offline Clock'd 0Ne

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Re: Upgrade: Athlon II X3, MSI 770-c45 & nvidia 9800GT
Reply #5 on: July 15, 2012, 11:10:16 AM
The SSD isn't just for loading, Photoshop uses the HDD as a scratch disk regardless of memory settings - he will see a noticeable performance improvement working on large image files by using an SSD.

  • Offline ERU

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Re: Upgrade: Athlon II X3, MSI 770-c45 & nvidia 9800GT
Reply #6 on: July 16, 2012, 21:36:42 PM
Ok Thanks folks - I've gone for the items in my last list. All on order now!

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