Need best bang for the buck upgrade

[thecoggy]

I recently had my video card die on me so I decided to upgrade and bought a 560 ti (actually I went through 3 of them PNY,NVIDIA brand, and an EVGA) the first two were DOA but the Evga worked for about a week and I was pretty impressed with it maxed crysis 2 No dx11 , BFBC2 was at about 50fps at highest settings, but I had to ship it back to Newegg. Now I decided to upgrade my whole pc mobo,cpu, ram, psu, and videocard. I have a budget of $800 and was thinking of going with an amd/ati setup instead of Intel to save money I also would like a better card than a 560 ti maybe a 570 or 6970. What kind of upgrades should I make? My current specs are below. I was able to bake my 8800gts512 I dont know how long it will last tho.

Q6600

MSI P43 neof

8800gts512

thermaltake tr2 550w

4gigs DDR2

 

[kajabla]

You'll definitely need a new CPU, and I don't know if an AMD will cut it for such a high-end card. You could get an i5-2400 that would do you fine for the cards you've mentioned, or a 2500K, which would probably hold you for the next upgrade too.
You'll need DDR3 RAM for either of those.
The PSU should hold you for those cards, but a new, larger one would be safer.
So:
8gb RAM 1333 $50ish
2500K $220
Mobo $150ish? Your preference. P67, anyway. IMO, USB 3 is unnecessary (just use eSATA) and SATA 6 is only necessary if you've got an SSD, which you can't do on this budget.
Corsair CX600W $70
That leaves $310 for the GPU. You can get a 570 for $320 - not bad. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130613

 

[thecoggy]

Is buying a 955 or 965 and an am3+ a bad idea for gaming, Im just thinking for price and upgradeability in the future maybe going with a 6950 for now and a second one in 6 months I could do that for like 200 less. Or would your set up beat it easily performance wise.

 

[danraies]

I don't have a preference toward Intel or AMD in general, but in terms of bang for the buck it's really hard to argue with the i5-2500K on a P67 or Z68 motherboard. You'll get arguments for the amd phenoms in the low to mid $100 range, but a 2500K will be a good processor for a long time.

 

[IH8U]

Two good upgrades you can do for now are: Replace that PSU ASAP, and get more RAM. A new build would honestly be the best option, as you already have the: Case, DVD, and HDD.

MB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128510
$140 GIGABYTE GA-990XA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990X SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard (you can go SLI, or X-Fire with this one)
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103894
$140 AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition Deneb 3.5GHz (OC'able, just get a better HSF)
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314
$60 G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371049
$90 Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-750 750W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V v2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply

Total: $430 + S&H (leaving $370 for vid if an $800 budget. If you get the 69xx series cards, I highly recommend a new case as they are huge)

 

[kajabla]

^Yes, you'll need a 750 if you're planning SLI. In that case, though, I think a Phenom won't be able to keep up.

 

[aznshinobi]

For $800 you could just get a new build entirely and use this (your current build) for browsing or just a back up.

Can you please fill this out?
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261222-31-build-advice

 

[IH8U]

Or the Intel Route:

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115073
$210 Intel Core i5-2500
MB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128487
$115 GIGABYTE GA-P67A-D3-B3 LGA 1155
PSU: Same as I listed earlier
$90
RAM: Same as I listed earlier
$60

Total: $475

 

[kajabla]

2500KKKKK
2500's a total waste compared to the huge amount of free performance you can get with the K.

 

[thecoggy]

Approximate Purchase Date: 2weeks

Budget Range: 800-900

System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming,movies

Parts Not Required:keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, case (cm690)

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com,

Country of Origin: us

Parts Preferences: none

Overclocking: Maybe (i'd like to not have to )

SLI or Crossfire: Yes future

Monitor Resolution:1920x1080

Additional Comments: I was originally choosing amd so I could upgrade to bulldozer later and to save money now but if the performance is that much greater with intel Im definatly open to a build with a 2500k

 

[kajabla]

You don't have to overclock, but you might as well.

 

[aznshinobi]

i5 2500K $220
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072
GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 $119
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128502
Kingston 8GB DDR3 1600 HyperX $49
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104266
Antec HCG 750w 80+ Brnze $95 (Not including $25 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371049
Seagate 1TB SATA III + Lite-On DVD/CD drive $75
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.696131
Sapphire Dirt3 6950 2GB $265 (Not including $20 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102945
Total: $823 before MIR

If you choose to overclock in the future.
Hyper 212+ $28
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065

 

[kajabla]

Looks good, and it'll handle Xfire too.

 

[danraies]

aznshinobi's build is very good. it's about the best you're going to do.

 

[addison]

i5 2500K $220
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072
GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 $119
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128502
Kingston 8GB DDR3 1600 HyperX $49
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104266
Antec HCG 750w 80+ Brnze $95 (Not including $25 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371049
Seagate 1TB SATA III + Lite-On DVD/CD drive $75
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.696131
Sapphire Dirt3 6950 2GB $265 (Not including $20 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102945
Total: $823 before MIR

If you choose to overclock in the future.
Hyper 212+ $28
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065

Great build choice, but does he really need a 2gb 6950, it's for multi monitors and such.

 

[kajabla]

A 6950 won't max modern games, even with 2gb. Not Crysis DX11 or Metro or JC2.

 

[kajabla]

A Hyper 212+ is $30. Just sayin
A 965 couldn't handle 2x6950, could it? I think that saving processor money would be counterproductive, because pretty soon, with a nicer GPU, you'd run into a CPU bottleneck caused by the downgrade that allowed you to get the nicer GPU in the first place. Sad, but true.

 

[thecoggy]

do you think I can run the 955 with an am3 and a 6950 with my current psu?

 

[addison]

Hell yes.

 

[kajabla]

"Statement is invalid"?
I said that it couldn't run Xfire 6950s. I still think that's true. What I said was about the 955, not about some future Bulldozer upgrade.
Oh, and coggy, make sure the motherboard's AM3+ for Bulldozer.

 

[aznshinobi]

Why not just wait 2 months? That's the ETA on BD. You might as well save that $120. It should release in a little over a month.

 

[kajabla]

Why would you wait for BD? (Not rhetorical; I want to know what the big deal is.) Are people anticipating it being cheaper than comparable Intel chips? If not, why not just go 2500K now?

 

[aznshinobi]

Because BD is cheaper than SB.
Prices have been announced.
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/20983
Well the leaks are pretty trustable. Expecially since DonanimHaber has provided pretty solid leaks for BD and other AMD stuff (6xxx series cards)

X4 = $190
X6 = $240
X8 = $290 & $320

The X4 is priced at the level of the i5 2400, but will allow for overclocking. Therefore it is going to be cheaper. The X6 is priced close to the 2500K but still will have overclocking and well... It is a 6-core chip with a high floating point that would be epic for things like F@H. Better than SB some predict (most predict).

Surprised you yourself haven't done some research even though you want to know why people are excited.

 

[aznshinobi]

Haha are you referring to me? Or others.

I like to know about the info before I get onto a bandwagon. Hopefully AMD gets that B2 stepping down. Or is that the B3 that is going to be the perfected one? I forget.

 

[kajabla]

Force fed? He did some research and then repeated what he found.
I didn't look much because there's so much junk rumor floating around (10 ghz! 16 cores!) and I don't know enough of the sites to know which ones to trust.