Small upgrade on a small build .. on a small budget.

Associate
Joined
30 Jan 2009
Posts
195
Hi all,

I've been asked to upgrade the following on a £150-180 budget for the purpose of gaming at 1920x1080 (HD TV), RTS games from what I can gather no major FPS.

The only trouble is I'm a few years out .. of date :p

Current specs:
Case: SilverStone Sugo SG07
PSU: Unknown powers 480 with 2 dedicated 6 pin
Mobo: H55N-USB3
CPU: Intel Core i5 760 (stock cooler)
RAM: 4GB DDR3
GPU: GTX 480

Couple of standard HDD (1 boot and 2 RAID 1)

My initial thoughts:

Assuming decent PSU perhaps R9 270X and SSD for boot and game or two?

Sapphire Radeon R9 270 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

and

Crucial M500 120GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive


I fear the budget isn't enough for a major upgrade and reviewing some charts the R9 270 should be a improvement!

could I do better?

Thansk
 
Associate
OP
Joined
30 Jan 2009
Posts
195
What RAM is that exactly? 2x2GB? One 4GB stick? If it's a 4GB DIMM, then find another of the same stick and slot it in so you get 8GB goodness :)

[/S]

It would appear it's 2 x 4 GB DIMM so I'm guessing it'll be 4GB total for now!

Hi,

Open the case up and look at what the PSU is.

MX100 is a better drive than the MX500, usually cheaper too.



Wrong..again.

Width restriction on the case is 4.38" that card is 4.56".


MX100 it looks to be then :)

and good spot on width!! I hadn't even factored that in!


PSU Looks to be a Corsair one 650W


@OP

This fits,

Includes 3 free games.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Powercolor Radeon R9 280 TurboDUO 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £155.99
Total : £165.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Lucky I'm here so you get the right information.

I'm liking but I fear with that and SSD it's gone over budget.


:(

So now do I ditch SSD and go for pure graphics .. or srimp on gpu!! Decision decisions!

Also on a side note, I know a fresh install would be reocmmened but I don't want to loose game data, how easy would it be to clone his current boot HDD and load that straight onto the SSD??
 
Caporegime
Joined
17 Jan 2010
Posts
66,802
Location
weston-super-mare
PSU you can keep, known brand so thats good.

An SSD doesn't add frame rate or allow you to increase in-game settings, so the choice is obvious I think.

What game data does he have to keep? the save files or the actual installs?
 
Soldato
Soldato
Joined
26 Oct 2013
Posts
9,714
Location
Leicester
It would appear it's 2 x 4 GB DIMM so I'm guessing it'll be 4GB total for now!




MX100 it looks to be then :)

and good spot on width!! I hadn't even factored that in!


PSU Looks to be a Corsair one 650W




I'm liking but I fear with that and SSD it's gone over budget.


:(

So now do I ditch SSD and go for pure graphics .. or srimp on gpu!! Decision decisions!

Also on a side note, I know a fresh install would be reocmmened but I don't want to loose game data, how easy would it be to clone his current boot HDD and load that straight onto the SSD??

2x4GB should equal 8GB :confused: Unless you mean 2x2GB?

What OS is this system currently running?
 
Associate
Joined
31 Jan 2014
Posts
484
Hello, you might do this instead.

Sapphire R7 265 £100 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-349-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1866

A bloody good card for the price.

Then a memory upgrade to 8GB, have a few choices here depending on whether you want to overclock the ram or not. H55N-USB3 are supposed to be able to handle 1600MHz ram if you overclock it.

GeIL Black Dragon 1333MHz £62 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-118-GL&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1516

Corsair XMS3 8GB 1333MHz £66 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-328-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1516

Or you can overclock the ram and get these instead :)

TeamGroup Vulcan Red 1600MHz £66 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-043-TG&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517

imho, a newer GPU and more ram would be just right for this setup and £175 odd (with shipping) is right in the middle of your budget.
 
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