£350~ Upgrade, advice?

2010-04-25 06:30:14

#1

Shem: sɥǝɯ; +152|6785|London (At Heart)

My rig is getting a bit decrepit and being a student I don't have the largest budget in the world so I'm looking at building a nice budget build. This is what I'm looking at so far.

VTX3D Radeon HD 5770 1GB Retail Dual Link DVI GDDR5 DirectX 11
£123.36

AMD CPU AM2+ Phenom II x4 940 Black Edition Quad Core Retail Box inc Fan
£116.31

Asus motherboard M3A78-CM
£56.14

Western Digital 500GB hard disk drive Caviar SE16 SATA II 300 7200rpm 16MB
£39.35

Total:

£339.86

I'm cannibilising RAM from my flatmate who's also upgrading but has an annoyingly larger budget, so I'm not including that. I'm also keeping my old 500w PSU and diskdrives etc.

Any reccomended changes? My budget really is quite tight and £375 is pretty much my maximum.

I'm also looking at
AOC 22" monitor widescreen F22S 16:9 Lapfit VGA 5ms 30000:1 DCR (Black) for £102

Last edited by Shem (2010-04-25 06:35:09)

2010-04-25 06:36:16

#2

Finray: Hup! Dos, Tres, Cuatro; +2,629|6047|Catherine Black

Graphics is good, I wouldn't go for an mATX mobo, they get a bit cramped. Especially with dual-slot cards (I'm in that position, fml). Change the HDD for a Samsung F3 500Gb.

I can't recommend AMD but they are damn cheap, which is what you're after.

2010-04-25 06:50:35

#3

Shem: sɥǝɯ; +152|6785|London (At Heart)

Cheers,

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160850

Better replacement on the Mobo?

I really don't have a clue when it comes to mobos tbh. Everythign else I understand somewhat

Last edited by Shem (2010-04-25 06:51:04)

2010-04-25 07:23:40

#4

Finray: Hup! Dos, Tres, Cuatro; +2,629|6047|Catherine Black

Shem wrote:
Cheers,

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160850

Better replacement on the Mobo?

I really don't have a clue when it comes to mobos tbh. Everythign else I understand somewhat

I'm exactly the same

2010-04-25 12:53:37

#5

Shem: sɥǝɯ; +152|6785|London (At Heart)

Due to realising I need DDR3 RAM with this, which I simply can't throw away £100 at, im now looking at the following:

ASROCK K10N78 GeForce 8200 Socket AM2+ VGA DVI Out 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160996

AMD CPU AM2+ Phenom II x4 940 Black Edition Quad Core
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Produ … ition-Quad

I'm aiming to get this all ordered asap, so if anyone can give any advice/alternatives it would be much apprieciated

2010-04-25 16:35:21

#6

max: Vela Incident; +1,652|6826|NYC / Hamburg

The 940 only takes DDR2

_{once upon a midnight dreary, while i pron surfed, weak and weary, over many a strange and spurious site of ' hot xxx galore'. While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning, and my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour, " 'Tis not possible!", i muttered, " give me back my free hardcore!"..... quoth the server, 404.}

2010-04-26 07:48:30

#7

presidentsheep: Back to the Fuhrer; +208|6220|Places 'n such

I have that processor, it's a beast...
Gets very very hot though with stock cooling.
May wanna get this: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Scythe-M … us-and-940

I'd type my pc specs out all fancy again but teh mods would remove it. Again.

2010-04-26 11:32:15

#8

Shem: sɥǝɯ; +152|6785|London (At Heart)

Glad to hear , I've settled on:

Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 770 Socket AM2+ 7.1 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2 GHz Socket AM3 8MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor

Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM

HIS HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card

EXDISPLAY BenQ G2220HD 22" TFT Monitor 1920x1080 300cd/m2 40000:1 (dynamic) 5ms 16:9 VGA/DVI Glossy Black

Will be arriving tommorow, lets hope this rig will last me a good few years

2010-04-26 12:37:28

#9

Uzique: dasein.; +2,865|6729

lets hope you can find some games to play that are actually fun

lemme know if you do

regards,

owner of rig (and gaming tastes) circa: 2007

_{libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual}. _{http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/}

2010-04-26 13:22:33

#10

presidentsheep: Back to the Fuhrer; +208|6220|Places 'n such

Shem wrote:
Glad to hear , I've settled on:

Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 770 Socket AM2+ 7.1 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2 GHz Socket AM3 8MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor

Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM

HIS HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card

EXDISPLAY BenQ G2220HD 22" TFT Monitor 1920x1080 300cd/m2 40000:1 (dynamic) 5ms 16:9 VGA/DVI Glossy Black

Will be arriving tommorow, lets hope this rig will last me a good few years

Any cooling for the CPU?

I'd type my pc specs out all fancy again but teh mods would remove it. Again.

2010-04-28 11:54:20

#11

Shem: sɥǝɯ; +152|6785|London (At Heart)

Negatory, seems to be running fine on stock cooling at current.

Runs BC2 max everything, I think it shall do me a good few years

2010-04-28 12:11:53

#12

Uzique: dasein.; +2,865|6729

err you run bc2 with dx10/11, max everything? how much (fs)aa? hbao? dont believe it to be honest.

gz on new rig though.

_{libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual}. _{http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/}

2010-04-28 12:55:04

#13

Shem: sɥǝɯ; +152|6785|London (At Heart)

Excluding AA which runs on x8 rather than x16. (Or the step below the top, eitherway)

Everything else afaik is on top, can't tell you exactly what right now as I am procrastinating in the library.

Last edited by Shem (2010-04-28 13:09:52)

2010-04-28 16:20:03

#14

GC_PaNzerFIN: Work and study @ Technical Uni; +528|6673|Finland

BC2 @ MAX runs pretty craply even with 4GHz i7 and HD 5870.

3930K | H100i | RIVF | 16GB DDR3 | GTX 480 | AX750 | 800D | 512GB SSD | 3TB HDD | Xonar DX | W8

2010-04-28 16:30:15

#15

Finray: Hup! Dos, Tres, Cuatro; +2,629|6047|Catherine Black

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:
BC2 @ MAX runs pretty craply even with 4GHz i7 and HD 5870.

Wat, I run max @ dx9 and get 60-80 FPS @ 1680x1050..

2010-04-28 16:31:14

#16

GC_PaNzerFIN: Work and study @ Technical Uni; +528|6673|Finland

Finray wrote:
GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:
BC2 @ MAX runs pretty craply even with 4GHz i7 and HD 5870.
Wat, I run max @ dx9 and get 60-80 FPS @ 1680x1050..

DX9, 2010 wants game back...

you do realise pretty much everything is disabled in DX9?

Last edited by GC_PaNzerFIN (2010-04-28 16:31:54)

3930K | H100i | RIVF | 16GB DDR3 | GTX 480 | AX750 | 800D | 512GB SSD | 3TB HDD | Xonar DX | W8

2010-04-28 16:36:34

#17

Uzique: dasein.; +2,865|6729

Finray wrote:
GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:
BC2 @ MAX runs pretty craply even with 4GHz i7 and HD 5870.
Wat, I run max @ dx9 and get 60-80 FPS @ 1680x1050..

dx9 takes out pretty much everything that 'demands' hardware in bc2's engine...

all the fancy rendering, all the aliasing, all the lighting, all the sexy texture stuff, the occlusion, the HBAO, the post-processing awesomes...

you're essentially just playing a higher-res version of bf2, with better textures and a physics engine

_{libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual}. _{http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/}

2010-04-28 17:20:41

#18

Bevo: Nah; +718|6779|Austin, Texas

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:
BC2 @ MAX runs pretty craply even with 4GHz i7 and HD 5870.

uwot

I get around 70 frames with a AMD 965 quad and a 5850, maxed 1920x1080, DX 11

nothin' is even overclocked neither.

Last edited by Bevo (2010-04-28 17:20:52)

2010-04-29 12:45:38

#19

Shem: sɥǝɯ; +152|6785|London (At Heart)

Aye, after checking my settings I have HBAO on, AAX4 AF max and the rest max.

I'm assuming it's defaulting to DX10, or 11? whatever the default is and it's pretty darn sexy, I had one little shudder of lag today but in general 1920x1080 is pretty darned smooth.

My flatmate who upgraded at double the price the same time as me is a little resentful as he upgraded just to play that on max, though of course his will last him longer.

Last edited by Shem (2010-04-29 12:48:16)

2010-04-29 12:48:43

#20

Lucien: Fantasma Parastasie; +1,451|6911

smooth, with HBAO and 4xAA? I just about get a constant 60 fps with those settings on SOME maps. 1920x1200, 5870/i7 920, optimized the game much as I could, but it really doesn't run that great.

2010-04-29 12:49:48

#21

Shem: sɥǝɯ; +152|6785|London (At Heart)

Might just be a case of the new shiny hardware that will deterioate and settle down on lower settings over time?

BF2S Forums £350~ Upgrade, advice?

Shem wrote:

Shem wrote:

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:

Finray wrote:

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:

Finray wrote:

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:

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