Help in upgrading to a "real" gaming pc

[aneeshkumar]

Hi,

Im planning to upgrade my PC solely for HD gaming purpose. Other than watching BRRip movies I won’t be doing any kind of video related stuff(editing). My current AMD athlon based PC have Acer 20” LED monitor supporting 16:9 resolution. Since I’ll not be upgrading my pc for another 4 years I am going for intel I5 3rd generation CPU. I have almost fixed on i5 3550. Now I want suggestion from you guys on the points like.

1. I wanna confirm if my decision is worth it. Is there any other cheaper processor which can give me the same performance for a less money?? I changed my choice from i7 to i5 after doing a brief research cz I found i7 is too luxurious for my use. My aim, as I said, is to play the HD games with high settings …Price in India for I5 3550 is Rs 14K-15K ($260-$275). Here we get the 2nd gen i5 2500 and 3rd gen i5 3500 at almost the same price.
PS: I had read a lot of comparison between many processors and found i5 performing better in gaming benchmarks. So I fixed this as a high end VFM CPU

2. The current GPU in my AMD athlon XII based system is sapphire HD 5670 1GB DDR5 HM. I wanna know that if I buy I5 3550, is it required to buy a new graphics card? Or will it run smoothly on high settings?.. Will there be any bottle necking? Can you suggest a few midrange cards among Nvidia and amd? I don’t need cross firex or double display. I wont be overclocking GPUs.

3. I’m not gonna overclock the CPU or GPU. And as I said earlier I don’t want multi GPU support. So I want to settle down with a basic motherboard. Which board will be a value for money(<$140) ?? I want to save the extra bucks for the graphics card, if needed. If its OK to continue with HD 5670, I can look for a decent motherboard. Whats your opinion?

4. Suggest a good ddr3 ram for gaming point of view. How is corsair vengeance DDR3 1600MHz($68) RAM

5.Is a cabinet+smps change required ?? I currently have an iball piano 27 with a tech-com 450w SMPS.

No need of key board, mouse, headphone, speakers, ups… My budget is $800 (extendable if its really needed)

 

[simon12]

1 the i5s are best for gaming and if your not overclocking the 3rd gen are the best
2 there is not much point in getting an i5 with a 5670 as even if you got a pentium Gxxx the card would hold it back. Good midrange card are Radeon 6850-7850 Nvidia 560 560Ti & 570 and the 660Ti will be released soon.
3 if you don't need the features just get the cheapest compatible board
4 Doesn't make much difference what DDR3 RAM you get 1600MHz tend to cbe best value
5 if you get a new GPU then a better PSU will be needed.

 

[aneeshkumar]

Thanks simon for the reply. now i have a few doubts on;

1. Which GPU is better to buy in terms of power consumption, performance and heat dissipation? Zotac GTX 560 ti($243) or sapphire HD 6870($242). Both are priced almost the same her in India. The nvidia version of GTX 560ti costs more($20) than Zotac.

2. Yes I need to change the PSU as these cards will be requiring a 500W one. Which one should i buy? Should i go for a local 500w PSU($18) or the Iball 500w($45) or coolermaster extreme 500W($68)?

3. Since the PSUs have fan at their bottom side i will be needing a new cabinet. what about cooler master cabinet($53)?? IS it worth to buy? any other suggestions???

 

[simon12]

1 The 560Ti is better performance and should cost around 30% more (it does in the UK anyway). It does use a bit more power though. How well they dissipate heat depends on the exact model and you would need to check reviews on the specific card.
2 I normally only recommend Corsar Antec or XFX PSUs. Definitely avoid unbranded ones. The cooler master one will be OK if you can't get a better brand.
3 If you case has only a top mounted PSU this is OK as the PSU will pull hot air from the case. I don't have much experience with cases to recommend one just look at reviews. I have a generic one that I got as it was the cheapest that had a bottom mounted PSU and its great.

 

[aneeshkumar]

ok thanks.. So as per ur recommendation, i will definitely go for corsair 500w smps(£40) as it is way cheaper than coolermaster(£61) in India.

 

[christ87]

im in this boat too, ive been looking at a few cheaper options but i have my eye on
http://www.palicomp.co.uk/gaming-pcs/amd-gaming-pcs/amd-bulldozer-x4-bronze/prod_342.html im pretty new to PC gaming so i dont know the difference! Do you think this will play Battlefield 3?

 

[simon12]

im in this boat too, ive been looking at a few cheaper options but i have my eye on
http://www.palicomp.co.uk/gaming-pcs/amd-gaming-pcs/amd-bulldozer-x4-bronze/prod_342.html im pretty new to PC gaming so i dont know the difference! Do you think this will play Battlefield 3?

You should start your own thread to ask this question. The answer though is yes it can play BF3 but only on the lowest settings and resolution and even then not how you want to play it. The FX CPU is not a good gaming CPU or a good value CPU and the Radeon 6450 is not a gaming card. If you select at least the Radeon 6670 you will be able to play it at a playable frame rate on low settings but it is a demanding game that you really want an i5 CPU and a £150+ graphics card to ge tthe most out of it.

 

[christ87]

Ah thanks Simon, im going to go fullboard on a new graphics card the way gaming is developing - Nvidia GTX680 2gb possibly!

 

[aneeshkumar]

Best answer selected by aneeshkumar.