Upgrade Advice

Hullo gents.

I need some advice, I've decided to go into this relationship full blast and take the next step.

I need to upgrade my rig..

What I currently have:
Power: Shitty old 500W PSU (going to upgrade anyway)
CPU: Q8400 OC @ 2.93ghz
Memory: 2x 2GB DDR2-800 Memory
Gpu: gtx550ti
Mobo: ASUS P... something (775, DDR2..)

Now would the best thing (cost-wise) be to go full out and buy a new MOBO,CPU and RAM and use my old card till I can afford a new one?

I can get the following:

Chassis: R500 for a Zalman Z3 (I like the look and it seems to a decent affordable case)
PSU: R650 for Corsair 600W
Memory: R1100 for 2x 4GB Corsair DDR3-1333mhz

Does that seem fair? I can possible get away with paying less for the chassis and psu by buying a thermaltake ultimate, but I don't know thermaltake at all.

Then I'll need a mobo and cpu, what can I get away with paying?

Ok... looking at the current Frontosa pricelist I observe the following:
(Ps, all my prices exclude VAT)

1. The Zalman Z3, http://www.zalman.com/global/product...ad.php?Idx=820, new cost R345. R500 sounds a bit high.
2. You get different corsiar power supplies, the CX Builder series new goes for R639, the CX moduler version = R838. So the R650, assuming it is new, is not a bad price.
3. Corsair Dominator, 1333C9, 8GB (2x4GB) new cost R1047. If you look at the value select option, then a single 4GB, 1333MHz, CL9 cost R409. Paying R1100 sounds high. Especially since you can get bigger and faster modules for cheaper (measuerd as rand / gig)

I like Corsair memory as well as their power supplies. I recon their PSU's are the best I've ever worked with so you will not go wrong with those choices. I also like the idea that you have to upgrade your motherboard, cpu and ram now and wait with the GPU upgrade. I understand your situation.

If it was up to me, I would seriously considering ditching the case and rather take that money and spend it on getting a better cpu or motherboard unless you are one of those individuals that will rather sacrifice pure practicality (i.e. FPS, speed, etc.) and rather opt for a pretty looking case which have absolutely no impact whatsoever on the performance of your rig. (unless you have a really, really kak case which have no ventilation or anything. You can very easily build a massive computer into any case you can find as long as you don't care how it looks. Have a look at how my case looked before I've rebuilt it: http://blog.skoups.com/wp-content/up...1/Old-case.jpg

If you give us your budget, I can definately help you find a good upgrade path that will enable you to maximise your bang for buck for as long as possible.

All good advice there from Skoups. Only thing I'd add at this point is to ask why you are going to get DDR3-1333? You should get DDR3-1600 as a minimum, as the most common ram speed right now it's not going to cost you much more than the 1333. I don't have a pricelist to hand to compare prices, but I bet it won't be more than a few bucks.

As for CPU/Mobo, that's a trickier problem. As a worthwhile upgrade, you need to go to at least Sandy bridge, or possibly Ivy bridge (assuming you want to go Intel - I don't really keep abreast of the AMD CPU comparatives, although they do have very good bang for buck offerings).

It seems that you're an overclocker based on your current rig. As such, you'll want a 'K' range CPU, and an aftermarket CPU cooler in order to get the best clock speed.

i5-2500K would be a good bet, if you can find one. Great CPU, and overclocks like a beast. Otherwise on the Ivy bridge front the i5-3570K or 4570K are great. Pair them with a Z87 mobo if you can afford it. I'm sure Denis can give you a price from Frontosa for that combination.

You GPU will be somewhat underpowered in that rig. I'd suggest looking for an upgrade asap. A few of the grrbians are running GTX-570's and are looking to upgrade. Maybe if two people want to sell theirs on you could get an SLI setup at a reasonable price?

Hey Skoup, thanks a lot man.

The problem is the case I have now is basically a skeleton, I'm going to rummage around at my parent's house this weekend, maybe there's one there that'll still be functional. If that R400+- can help with CPU/MOBO I'd rather go for that.

I think my budget will be around R5,500. I can perhaps still stretch it to R6,500.. but I haven't considered the fact that I'm running out of HDD space. Although I don't need that to get better performance out of my machine.

Firesyde, I can definitely help you out ITO HDD space. I have a number of 1.5TB drives that are surplus to my requirements (been replacing my server HDD's with 4TB drives). I can let you have one for a couple of hundred.

Cool J, thanks for the advice.

I actually got this rig exactly the way it is (OC'ed and all). I don't normally overclock. So that's not a huge requirement.

Awesome J, then I can probably push my budget to around R6,000.

You call, but if I were you I'd spend the extra to get a K processor. It's not a great deal more, and you can get a GHz more than stock on most Intel CPUs. That's a lot of extra bang...

Yeah i also have several 1.5TB that i would be willing to part with if anybody is interested for a minimum price. Fire, I wiill see what we can put together for R6k.

Thanks Skoup, appreciate it