upgrading limited budget need help

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Stevinator

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Hu guys am upgrading my motherboard at the moment currently its pritty shame asus mobo with Quad Q6600 8gig ram its maxed out overclocked plays BF1 surprisingly well with my 2gig gtx 770 evga card
not really cutting it theses days my budget is limited am a student at the moment only working part time but i have came across this and would value u guys opinion want to get the most for my limited funds i think this is a good deal .



http://www.awd-it.co.uk/intel-i3-61...ro-gaming-aura-ddr4-4k-rgb-led-vr-bundle.html

any help would be gratefully appreciated
 

ShadowFax75

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Hello Stevinator,
Deal is not that good imho.
I was looking for the price of an i3 6100 and the same motherboard. And buying them separately would cost about the same (here in the Netherlands). So it doesn't look like a "deal" to me.

But personally I wouldn't go for an i3. I think it's worth saving for at least an i5.
 

XharKhan

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I'd generally shy away from an i3 as well, but like you Stevinator I have to budget quite hard sometimes.

One trick I use is to get the base CPU for any socket I want to build with a decent (ish, within budget) motherboard with some overclocking potential, that way if I find I've outgrown the CPU I can upgrade to a much faster one with more cores at a later time, usually at vastly reduced prices from when they were new.

For example I'm currently on an ivybridge i5, and Mrs Khanny on a Sandybridge i5...we can both go to i7's on those sockets if we need more grunt and just upgrade GPU's in the meantime.

Currently I'm looking at https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/Khanny/saved/#view=bZZjXL for a mate of mine who wants to get back into PC gaming, of course I don't do this professionally so I'm sure there are better qualified/more knowledgeable folk knocking about than me.
 

Stevinator

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thanks guys i didnt think the I3 s were up to much all try shopping around bit more might have to save a little bit more cash first
 

MattyD

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You could consider used, you should be able to find a previous gen i5 for that money. Won't be as cheap to run but will give you far more bang for your buck..

Shop around..
This i7 bundle would eat what you posted for breakfast even if it is older gen..... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/i7-4770-m...797503?hash=item41c066333f:g:Bc8AAOSwdGFYzW2L

Add a GPU and a SSD over time when you have the cash and you'll be sorted for a good few years. Don't forget to consider your current PSU and it's suitability for a new system. Often under stated but your entire rig depends on a quality power supply.
 
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Stevinator

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thanks MattyD after seeing that add on ebay a no what a will be doing when pay day comes thanks for the advice i Think second hand from ebay is they way to go for me at the moment.

I allready have nice crosair Psu To ssd drives the mobo is the week link for me at the moment only get 3/gbs on the old sata 2 i have to fast SSD my older brother gave me out his old system can handle 6/gbs next week all this should be cured i hope with new mobo and cpu.

Thanks guys for all the input i shall take your views on board when i part with my money.
 

MattyD

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Yup, that was my Matty signal ;)

Like a batsignal, with less light and more shouting :)

Honestly mate I haven't actually been keeping up and am long overdue an upgrade myself. Just if I was on a budget my opinon is that current gen is always way overpriced and if the previous gen is still outside of your budget then used provides an alternative way of getting more for your money.

@Stevinator the one I linked was one of the first decent one I found in a couple in under a minute. Top tip when looking on eBay for used items like that, filter on used, switch to buy it now and order by newly listed. check back and refresh it regularly and you can find a decent deal sometimes as people try to get rid of stuff quickly or put stuff up cheap.

These days it is hard to get a bargain even on eBay, when they are there you need to be quick.
 

XharKhan

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Still probably a lot more up to date than me Matty, I've not really looked into hardware since I built my current system based on Ivybridge (LGA 1155). Of course I read bit and bobs now and then, like the Vega chip GPU's that are launching this year, read some technical reviews on those but only because I know I need a GPU update this year ideally. I was lucky enough to be gifted a GTX970 from a friend, so that will keep me honest for a while!

In terms on CPU I've not really read anything for ages, my subscription to Custom PC ran out, and therefore I don't have anything to physically pour over anymore :)

As you suggest though, I never shy away from spending decent money on a PSU, that way even if the rest of the components need changing, I've still got a rock solid base to build from.

But you speak truth, if current gen even on the lowest rung is still too expensive then second had is a great option. I do always worry a bit and its probably mostly unfounded (but personally I have set fire to a CPU whilst trying to get a stable overclock), bearing in mind I doubt an of us here are running stock coolers (?), that a second hand CPU may have been operating hotter than ideal for longer than I would like, but then if I ensure my cooling is good once I have it, I guess that's all the mitigation I can hope for.
 

MattyD

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Another tip when buying used is to factory reset the motherboard, that way you know you are not being subjected to the previous owners settings or overclocks.

Still probably a lot more up to date than me Matty,

Not really! I currently run 3 rigs..

Old gaming rig Q6600 (launched 2007, bought 2008ish) is now my media center. I retired that rig from being my gaming rig in 2011.

I replaced that with an i7 920 D0 (Bloomfield) (circa 2009) that is a 2.66Ghz Stock speed processor that I ran @ 3.8Ghz with HT on (OC'd stable at 4.2Ghz but not required so tuned down a bit) and only retired that from gaming in the last quarter last year. I only retied that purely because I could but in reality nothing gaming wise even touched it, it was very inefficient though.
It is now used as a lab machine for development and testing. 8 threads and 32GB DDR3 is plenty for the dev stuff that I do. The only thing I ever upgraded on that rig was change from Velociraptor Mech HDDs to SSD, and one GPU upgrade.

So just shows that a decent rig can last an age, I bought the CPU and Mobo for that rig used at a good price, approx 1/3 of the release value from 2 years before.
 

Caramoon

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its bloody typical as soon as i give up selling my old rig after i upgraded last month and pass it down to my son , then a clanmate pops up wanting a cheap system ffs .

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/QwcKd6

There's the main components that are in the old one, i didn't bother linking hdd's or anything else as they are cheap enough to pickup. Even though that 2600k is ancient it still is powerful enough to handle the newer games when coupled with a decent gpu.

I was playing BF1 on ultra with no problems on a 1070 with this system, you can pickup a i7-2600k for not to much and mobo's are cheap and you can reuse any of your old components to help keep the cost down. That being your PSU/HDD/windows/CASE the only reason i finally upgraded was that i had received a lump sum from my old job and always promised myself a new rig when i received it.