Help Antero90 Upgrade and escape Candy Crush

[Antero90]

The great BA has spoken. My system is too weak, so I am condemed to spend the rest of my days in Candy Crush.

But thanks to my recently aquired UED powers I managed to delay that punishment.

So I am now hiding on my map. A taffer brings me food once a week and I have been expanding some rooms to pass the time. But in the dark, when the night falls and all the AI have been koed, I hear the noises, first I tought it was the BSP hole that lives beneath the display area, but it turns out it was something worse. The candies are out there and they are looking for me.

My only means of communication now are via forum post, but I fear the candies will crush it soon.

Seems I have no choice but to upgrade my E6400 machine, I have some parts that can be recycled, namely the tower, 3D card and my secondary HD.

A fence has recently sent me a letter advising a i5 4670k cpu with 8GB of memory, and a 120 GB disc, no assembly included,it's below the 600 euro mark but I have no idea how cpus go these days and that price seems too good to be true.

I ask you taffers for help, please assist me before the candies get me!

(disclaimer, the poster indulges the understanding of the great moderator BA and humbly requests for the subject to be taken serious, even if the poster may not be sane of mind)

[BrokenArts]

Oh come on, didn't mean it quite like that. You know that, I hope you know that. Most systems, and I say most systems should be able to handle a 10 year old game like Doom3.
I hope you can find the upgrade that fits your budget, and now I need coffee. Hey, did you actually play Candy Crush?

[Antero90]

I know you were joking BA. Still doesnt fix my system dragging alot in TDM.
But your post has reminded me that actually this is the last year where I have a window to upgrade, I will be running a very tight budget next year, so the post is half serious.
So far I have been lucky that most games I have played are based on the Unreal engine which is more GPU dependant, but once I step outside those borders things get a bit nasty.
But since you are in good mood please make me one favour:

TAKE THESE STALKING CANDIES OUT OF MY map!

Back on topic, aparently the guy did offer me a good setup, the cheap part is because it's a real barebones setup, add anything else to it and it aproaches the values I was thinking.
I can afford that setup, but I will end up with a bottleneck on my gfx card. I did some quick and dirt research and it seems I only gain anything by going into the GTX 6 series, anything below that is on par with my current card.

[BrokenArts]

I know the guys over at the TDM forum would definitely help you with TDM questions, if you really have any. They're a good bunch of guys, always helpful. Sounds like now is the time to do the upgrade, best of luck. Let us know what you end up with.

[Antero90]

The second objective of this post was to collect some opinions around here because the main issue when asking someone who sells hardware is that you get bombed with "aditionally, you really should get a..." which is precisely what happened.

So I have what I still think is good base setup, maybe I could save something more by going lower in the mobo but I actually liked it's features.

But most of the aditions they advised after are plain ridiculous.
For no reason they say I should change my case, huh? Why do I need to change a case that is already quite well ventilated and has plenty of room?
Then they say I should replace my 500 w PSU for a 600 W PSU, again no actual reason given, not even a "ohh, but the CPU needs the extra juice".
I already have a non-stock cooler, but no, I should use a water cooler instead.

Each of these "small aditions" puts an aditional 100 eur on the budget and in no situation I am told my existing stuff is not compatible. Not to mention that in the end I would end up with a physically new pc instead of an upgraded PC.

I guess I will have to do some deep digging myself and see what is indeed not compatible, but I could use some insight.

The final sugestion that I would be willing to take is the gfx card. But the market is even worse than 7 years ago!
Still, I think I managed to narrow my options to the GTX650 Ti family.

[FixXxeR]

Antero90 asked for my specs since I built my own rig about 2-3 years ago and its still going strong.

MB: ASUSTeK M4A785TD-M EVO
CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 550
GPU: Radeon 5750
RAM: 6gb
OS: Windows 7 64-bit

Then a pretty standard 550w PSU and a 300gb SATA.

Already had the OS, base unit to house it and 2gb of the RAM I bought at a later date.

In all, minus the 2gb RAM, OS and peripherals this cost me a shade below £400 (don't forget, 2-3 years ago) so I imagine getting all these components now will be a little cheaper, I estimate about £300-£350.

I can run pretty much what I want with the settings I want... Dead Space 3, Skyrim full whack details minus antialiasing (shit anyway)

Some games I have to knock down a few details, Batman, Metro 2033 where you really need a stronger GPU and a bit more memory to have everything on full.

Generally though, its a decent mid-range gaming rig with a future proofed MB that I can upgrade with a new CPU / GPU when the time comes..... It'll run Thievery fast at the very least!

[Antero90]

Thanks for your reply Fix. I still have fond memories of my Athlon system, i recall it being super cheap, but I think I will stay with Intel again mostly because of the recently released socket.
I have been doing some interroga.. erm.. inquiries around and it seems i can go better with less money. I am now looking at a mainstream system that while not using OC.

I have atempted to create a system with components that could sport a more beefy CPU, so in theory, it could be more future proof.
However the price is still a tad high. Essentially I have a gfx card and the cpu making up for most of the final price.

[Antero90]

First of all, a big thanks to the taffers who had the patience to put up with my questions, your help has been very valuable, it's so much better to pickup first hand impressions rather than have people throw setups just because it's pricy or has good reviews. To my surprise, the AMD camp even managed to drag itself into contention.

This has been a fun run. Overflowing with info but still fun. In less than a week I came to the conclusion that not much has changed since 2006. Actually, nothing has changed since I built my Athlon XP after literally scurrying shops nationwide. This little bit has made me question the sanity of upgrading. Perhaps I should just shell out the money for the GFX card and keep myself to Unreal tech.

Recapping, I set myself the challenge of building a hassle free rig for 600 euros, being that the 600 euro mark is already a big chunk of money for me at the moment. In the following years no chunk will be available.

Now, building a more than decent rig under 600 doesnt seem impossible, but compromises must be reached. Currently im focusing on cutting on non essentials that have litle impact and apply the savings to the core components.

GFX card has been narrowed. I will be ditching Nvidia for a Radeon 7870, nothing personal against the guys in green, they are still winning by 4 cards to 1 (4-2 if I include the ATI powered laptop), but the ATI seems to be best in terms of performance and price. It IS pricy tho, making up for around 40% of the total budget. I had the vain hope of reusing the GT440 but it seems too weak for this new setup.

Memory is also narrowed down to 8 GB, the most affordable seems to be the Gskill, not bottom of the barrel, affordable, has some neat looking heatsinks, 16 GB is just overkill and overpriced. Considering my current system is still pumping at 2GB it's really a win win situation.

Since I am running on a tight budget I will be skipping SSD. I have already cleaned up most of my old HD and moved all games to my 6 month old 1TB disk. I will keep an eye on the SSD next year if money is to be found. Yes people, I believe when you say it's damn fast, but I can't find the price enough to justify it. I may revisit the SSD issue if I somehow find a better setup that allows to squeeze in a SSD that is affordable.

The real race has been the CPU search.

If I were to follow every benchmark and shop sugestion I would have no choice but to pick the infamous I5 4670-K. But thanks to a few pointers and a feeling of "too good to be truth" I was able to dug up some info.

I quickly discovered that any CPU ending with a K forces you to buy expensive motherboards since its aimed at OCing. I will not overclock today or tomorrow, and guess what, the non k CPUS are cheaper. Still, shops literally force this K CPU down your throat, and since it's a K, you need a OC motherboard, and you need good ventilation and you can't use stock cooling and so and so on. I get the feeling they do this so you end up buying their gaming computers since prices are so close.
It also seems a lot of shops down here are dictated by brand loyalty to Intel. As an example, one shop sells the FX-8350 well bellow 200, however, the cheapest board for the AM3+ socket goes for around 130. Meanwhile, I can get ASUS boards on that same shop for the 1150 socket starting at 64 euros, the mini ATX boards start even lower. So, technically, I can build a i5 ring around a cheap board with only a 40 euro diference more to a FX-8350 rig. And for that to happen I need to scoop a cheaper board at another shop for the AMD. So the huge AMD price advantage is cancelled because of motherboard prices. To make things worse, I have read things about the cheaper boards not performing that well with the FX-8350.

You may ask why did I ever considered AMD when it get's trashed in all benchmarks I see. Well, the hot star of the moment, the 4670-k seems very good for this period of time, but it lacks some technology that I think might come into play in the future. And since I am not planning on replacing the new CPU in the long term future that might make the difference.

I don't need a CPU for the now moment, my old E6400 can take the now moment and it's paired with a crappy GT440. Of course it helps not using an HD monitor, but I don't play at insane resolutions, my day to day monitor goes only up to 1280 and I really only use the TV when I want to watch a stream with other people.

There is also a twist that did not occurred to me until yesterday, I have a TV card on my desktop and sometimes I use it to convert old VHS tapes and DVR recordings in Ulead Studio, it's all very amateurish work, but I supose I am one of those people who could make some use now of that whole multi core task splitting thing that games are not using right except Battlefield 3 which I own but haven't played in a while because of that retarded browser based interface and the fact it takes forever to load.

In the same logic of future proff, socket ends up being a non issue because it will be dead anyway when the next upgrade comes. So I am whilling to pay a bit more for a CPU if that means I will have a stable system to handle the upcoming generation of games and some of the next.
This means I am actually not rulling out a I7, at which point I am sure you taffers will say there is no match between the I7 and the AMD as the I7 has just been refreshed and scores better, but the I7 is just pricier enough to tumble the budget upside down.

Of course that there is still the possibility of screwing the local shops and get the parts I want in some place like newegg where I may get them cheaper. But, puts me into a situation where I may loose the savings if my package goes through customs.

[FixXxeR]

8GB RAM and a Radeon 7870, you'll have some decent power. Everything else will fall into place now.

Now if your really really geeky you'll video building it and post it here

[Antero90]

After much headaching I ended up ditching the I7 option, it's simply too expensive.

So I have a tie, a FX-8530 system for 562€ and a 4670 system for 543€. No bells and whistles boards and the same 8GB memory. The FX system sports a R9 270x card simply because it's a tad better than the stock 7870 and was only 10€ more, I can pickup another 270 for the same price as the 7870 on the 4670 system and place the final price at 552.

In this scenario I lean a bit more towards the I5 setup.

[BiG_D]

Here's what I got a couple years ago, and it's still handling things.


I've added a little extra RAM since, and I'd recommend a better video card.

[Antero90]

What do you mean?
A better card than the 5750 you linked or a card better than the 7870 I mentioned?

[Dalai]

This might be useful: http://pcpartpicker.com/

[Antero90]

This might be useful: http://pcpartpicker.com/

Sort of if I need to check compatible parts, im not in the US so I need to look the other way when checking prices unless I want to enter a cursing mode.

After some scouting I managed to slash the FX based system by 60 eur which means I am now on top of the 500 eur mark! Very tempting as it's a bundle that includes CPU, mobo, cooler and even thermal paste!

[BiG_D]

What do you mean?
A better card than the 5750 you linked or a card better than the 7870 I mentioned?

I mean better than my card. A 7870 should be more than fine for a few years. You could certainly go cheaper if money is a major issue.