Budget PC Upgrade

[treebearhunter]

Hi, planning to upgrade my pc, I have a budget of 370-400 NZD.

My current specs are:

Q6600 @ 3ghz
Sapphire 7870Ghz OC
4 GB ddr2 800mhz

I plan to pull most of this out and stick these parts in:

http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/p/H3D2Mp
(I can get some DDR3 ram from my uncle)

the plan is too overclock the pentium and then upgrade to an i5/i7 later on, I do not plan to do anything other than surfing the internet and gaming, (Elite dangerous, Battlefield 4 and CS:GO), I'm just wanting to know if this is a good idea, will the dual core perform well in these games? I'm not too fussed about the graphics settings as I would prefer the fps...

 

[DeathRabit]

Upgrade from Q6600 to G3258 is not give you to much.

My advice if you short off money.
1. OC current CPU up to around 3.6Ghz and will serve you littler longer and gather more money, for better upgrade.
2. Buy used i5 2500K + good mobo OC and will serve you for years

Min specification for Elite dangerous is quad core CPU.
http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=441&game=Elite:%20Dangerous

 

[hamzahfelix]

While the Q6600 is still a decent gamer with the right card, the pentium is a nice start if you want to begin the upgrade rightaway. Your platform still uses DDR2 RAM, so that's another reason to upgrade. I would recommend a minimum of 8GB DDR3 RAM. The dual core pentium after overclocked to 4.0GHz or above will perform fine in these games.

Now that some b85 and h81 boards are providing BIOS to allow unlocking the multiplier on the G3258, you can save $ on the mobo and upgrade to a locked i5 or i7 later. If you plan either upgrade an intel k cpu or do multiple gpu configurations later, get a Z97.

Avoid that Kingston v300 ssd because they swapped out the memory modules and it won't run as fast as the reviews suggested when they were just released. Get sth more reliable from adata, crucial, intel or samsung.

http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/part/a-data-internal-hard-drive-asp600s3128gmc

 

[utgotye]

The single core performance of the G3258 is the key here. Yes, you have half as many cores but they are much faster.

I'll echo the comments on DDR2/DDR3 memory. Putzing around, surfing the web, online shopping etc, you probably won't notice but gaming...for sure.

I'll also echo the comments about Kingston SSDs...you get what you pay for. There's a reason why things are cheap. Spend a little more and get something from a higher quality brand.

Either wait and save for Skylake or jump to LGA1150 now with the G3258 and a Z97/H97 motherboard and see if you can pick up an i5 by the end of the year.