Budget bang for buck?

[Tailgunner]

I'm so clueless it's embarrassing to be  surrounded by experts but don't ask, don't learn, so -

I run Win 7 64 bit with Core Duo E6850 3 GHz, GTX 260 896 mb, Gigabyte P35-DS3L and 8 gigs RAM.

Time to upgrade, but I have to budget. Let's say around the £500 mark. [uS $ 770, AUD $ 865] but with a degree of flexibility.

What does catch my eye is the unanimous acclaim for the recently released Nvidia GTX 460 1 GB card, which at the UK price of £180 does indeed seem to offer good bang for my limited bucks.

Suppose I choose that card, leaving me some £300 to spend. Questions: What would be an appropriate processor [and new moboard, if needed?]

And would the resultant rig give me a worthwhile improvement?

Any suggestions would be very welcome.

[TenBlade]

Hey, Gunner. I think you should prioritize processor above all. Get a good i7-series CPU, don´t know which is best without being the most expensive. Overclock it. Then you need a new Gigabyte mainboard, your current board has a different socket. Gigabyte is as far as I know the best bang for bucks mobo-wise. And next I´d get a separate HD for FSX if you don´t already. The worlds greatest GPU won´t do you any good on a mediocre performing platform. Make sure your PSU is up to the task.

Bjorn

[MrMaestro]

You might just be able to squeeze a pretty good setup with the GTX 460 into that budget, going by Australian prices at least.

i5 750 - $250

Gigabyte P55A-UD3 - $155 <- Or see if you can find an ASUS P7P55D series board (other than the crappy LX), they seem to be in runout here so they're going cheap, but they're harder to find

4GB DDR3 1600 G.Skill - $145 <- You need new RAM as well, the DDR2 you've got in your P35 board isn't compatible and won't fit.

So far it comes to $550, leaving about $300 going by your currency conversion. That's enough to get 1GB GTX 460, though personally I'd be looking at an aftermarket heatsink for the CPU first. At any rate I think you should hold off on getting a new graphics card until you've seen how the GTX 260 performs when it's paired with a new CPU, you never know, you might be perfectly happy with it.

Mike

[TenBlade]

I can recommend the Scythe Mugen 2 Rev. B CPU cooler! It´s cheap, efficient and above all silent.

[Tailgunner]

Thanks, people. That's really useful. Mr Maestro: could you tell me where the i5 series fits in the CPU scale of things? [i'd never heard of it before] Mid-range, perhaps?

[MrMaestro]

Yeah it's a smaller chip than i7, using a smaller socket, LGA1156 instead of the usual 1366 (although in saying that some i7s use the smaller socket, but that's irrelevant here). The main differences between the two ranges are - i7 chips are a little faster clock-for-clock, i7 chips have HyperThreading and i5 don't, i7 can run memory in triple-channel whereas i5 run it in dual channel, and lastly i7 can run three graphics cards simultaneously with full bus bandwidth whereas i5 can't. The thing is, these differences really don't make much difference in "real-world" use (i.e. in FSX) - HyperThreading won't help FSX performance; unless you're doing complex 3D graphics manipulation you won't notice the benefits of triple-channel RAM;  and you aren't going to be running three graphics cards. i5 750 basically nets you i7 performance but for a lot less because the chip costs less, the motherboards cost less and you don't need as much RAM. If you overclock the 750 you'll have a machine that can compete with CPUs at twice the price, which is why I really recommend getting an aftermarket cooler. The stock cooler will suffice for overclocking but you'll have more headroom and a cooler chip with an enthusiast heatsink.

Hope that helps.

Mike

[Tailgunner]

Great!  Many thanks.

[Nyxx]

Since your from the UK have a look here.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/

They can send you overclock CPU fited just need to put it togeather.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=43&catid=339

i5 one here well under your budget

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-023-OB&groupid=43&catid=339&subcat=

Even if you dont buy the parts from a PC shop close to you they will still fit it togeather for you for a small fee.

GL to you in your quest.

[Tailgunner]

Thanks, Nyxx.