Upgrading PC - Help Required

Riker13

King
Joined
Nov 9, 2001
Messages
859
Location
UK
Ok Guys,

i5 760 with 6gb Ram and a GTX 460 1GB or

i7 950 with 8gb Ram and a GTX 570.

Both will have a 120gb SSD.

What would be best for CIV V.


Game machine only.

Thoughts please.

Regards

Riker13 :crazyeye:
 
What are the current specs of your machine?
 
You would probably see almost no difference between those two configurations in Civ5.

And tragically you will see not that much of an improvement regarding turntimes, probably around 20% faster.

I would buy the SSD and the GTX460 now and switch to Win7 64 bit. Wait half a year or so for the Sandy Bridge platform to mature, then upgrade board/CPU/RAM.
 
Sounds very wise to me tokala, it would certainly save me a bundle of money now and in 6 months time prices would have gone down. Thanks ;)



Anybody else?
 
Thanks for the reply Mark, well its looking like an upgrade rather than a new machine.

Which is ok by me because she has been a very good Girl ;)

Thank you all for your coments I will keep looking if anybody else wants to add anything?

Regards

Riker13 :crazyeye:
 
That would require to buy a new mobo and new RAM sticks, that's an hefty price tag for a few percentage points gained. In this regard, I think it is better a few months so we can see how the AMD Bulldozer performs against Sandy Bridge.
 
No, no, no!

Buy a sandy bridge 2nd gen i7. They just came out. The processor you need is an i7 2600K (or a different i7 2600).

They are far better than the i7 950 and comparable price. They use 32nm design rather than 1st gen i7's 45nm design, which makes them far more size and power efficient. They are simply newer technology.

For graphics card, its hard to compete with new Nvidia Geforce GTX 580. It is their flagship graphics card and is extremely good. Investment in a graphics card is never a bad idea, having a killer graphics card just makes everything run perfectly.


While others say there is no difference, its not true at all. I run an i7 950 (128gb ssd), radeon 5850 and load my turn faster than anyone else. The starting video lasts all of 2 seconds before i get past it. (My 4 yr old computer spent 10 minutes on it).


Now, I'm not being ridiculous- I am actually offering value options... ridiculous would be liquid cooled overclocked computer with 3 580s in SLI ;)

Also, I have no faith in AMD's new bulldozer stuff. If I am waiting that long, why not wait longer for Intel's next yr processors (which will be 22 nm!!). AMD's current processors do not compare with Intel, and their only good statistic is performance/price, since AMD processors are dirt-cheap.

8GB ram is good, try to get it as 2x4GB rather than 4x2GB, if possible.

A Newegg option (though it doesnt have a 580 ;/ ):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229238
Ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-Core-i7-2600K-3-4Ghz-Quad-Core-GTX580-Computer-/290521735038



or a really amazingly cool (but $3800!)
http://www.gamepc.com/shop/systemfamily.asp?family=gpcp4

^^ is mini-ITX with the 2600K/580.

Pretty amazing packing that much power in such a small form :)
 
Sandy Bridge will cost a lot more though I did forget that i7 will require a new mobo, but i did say later when it is cheaper. You don't need to have the latest hardware to play the latest games with high settings.
 
Lots of good replies here.

So far.

Option 1: Upgrade current system.

Option 2: i7 2600 Sandy Bridge.
 
option 1) is better price/performance
 
Thank you all for your comments, I think I will either upgrade my current system or get a new system but it will be an i5 760 cpu with a gtx 460 graphics with the ssd.

Along with WIN 7 64.

I'm in the UK anybody recommend a good company to get these items from and or custom made systems?

Regards


Riker13 :crazyeye:
 
no pc will be good for civ5.

in fact, however powerful your pc, you need to play in stratergic view to workaround its god damn bugs.

don't waste your $$$ upgrade your pc for civ 5, the game is riddled with bugs no hardware can tackle them

what you need is luck
 
no pc will be good for civ5.

in fact, however powerful your pc, you need to play in stratergic view to workaround its god damn bugs.

don't waste your $$$ upgrade your pc for civ 5, the game is riddled with bugs no hardware can tackle them

what you need is luck

I don't play in strategic view...
 
Thank you all for your comments, I think I will either upgrade my current system or get a new system but it will be an i5 760 cpu with a gtx 460 graphics with the ssd.

Along with WIN 7 64.

I'm in the UK anybody recommend a good company to get these items from and or custom made systems?

Regards


Riker13 :crazyeye:

www.amazon.co.uk is usually best for cheap (<$1000) computers. Search through i5s and i7s and choose the best deal. Make sure it has an acceptable graphics card, memory, and operating system. If you are thinking of an i5, an AMD Phenom II (x4 or x6) might be better value while equivalent computing power. Amazon also has a wonderful return policy.

It is usually a lot cheaper this way then asking a company to customize a computer for you. In fact, it is cheaper then buying a full set of parts and building it yourself, as well.

Upgrading only select parts is the only way to upgrade cheaper than an amazon package deal, but then you have to deal with potentially aging, failing, or outdated parts.

I would recommend www.newegg.com but they don't ship to UK.

By the way, if you don't mind my asking, why do you want an SSD but not want to upgrade your processor/graphics card past i5 760/gtx 460? You will see more of an impact out of the latter for the price.

I can understand if the concern is power consumption, while staying at a lower price than 2nd gen i7 (which is better for power consumption).
 
Actually, I just looked and www.amazon.co.uk has a very small selection. Disregard my advice, apparently its a lot harder to buy things in the UK.

I did find:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ANKERMANN-P...1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1295555169&sr=1-2

This is likely a bit worse than you are looking for, performance-wise. I am not sure how reasonable the price is, though it is overpriced for America because of the dollar/pound conversion rate.

There may be better options elsewhere. I'm not really sure about UK purchasing, to be honest.
 
Thanks for advice Smote but I think I will go with PC SPECIALISTS they can do a good deal.

All the best.

Riker13 :crazyeye:
 
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