Upgrading Desktop - Advice Appreciated

[chortle]

Currently have the following PCSpecialist PC, purchased 3 years ago now.

Ive previously changed PC's every 3 years or so but times are a little harder now and would appreciate any guidance as to how I could further improve this PC performance without spending circa 1500 on a new PC again.

I use the machine almost exclusively for online gaming. Have already noticed that games that when released my PC would handle with all settings high are now running better with lower settings.

Any advice very much appreciated.



Case COOLERMASTER HAF 922 MID TOWER GAMING CASE
(£82)**SPECIAL**
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-930 (2.80GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB
Cache
Motherboard ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI
Memory (RAM) 6GB CORSAIR XMS3 TRI-DDR3 1600MHz (3 X 2GB)
Graphics Card 1GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5870 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 1.5TB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 32MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)
Power Supply & Case Cooling CORSAIR 650W PSU (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£76)
Processor Cooling SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

 

[keynes]

Do you have a budget for the upgrades?

 

[chortle]

Anything cheaper than the 1500 I would probably spend on a new PC. Basically looking for as much bang for as little as possible but say 300-500 as ballpark..

Thx for quick reply btw :sorcerer:

 

[keynes]

Anything cheaper than the 1500 I would probably spend on a new PC. Basically looking for as much bang for as little as possible but say 300-500 as ballpark..

Thx for quick reply btw :sorcerer:

The CPU is still pretty good, I would go with a new gpu and an SSD as the main drive. Gtx 770 and a 120gb SSD.

 

[mantadog]

GPU upgrade probably, 7870 is a bit under twice the performance, Possibly upgrade to 8GB RAM. That comes in at about £250 so not bad, any other upgraded probably wont do much.

Do you know which part is bottlenecking? I would guess the GPU just from the spec posted above.

 

[chortle]

GPU upgrade probably, 7870 is a bit under twice the performance, Possibly upgrade to 8GB RAM. That comes in at about £250 so not bad, any other upgraded probably wont do much.

Do you know which part is bottlenecking? I would guess the GPU just from the spec posted above.

Based on what ive seen when gaming its going to be the GPU.

 

[chortle]

The pcspecialist upgrade page wont let me change the RAM - whats limiting that?

 

[Phoenix]

Are there any games which you're noticing bad performance in? I wouldn't upgrade it unless there's something which you want to see an improvement in. A solid state drive is nice overall though. In terms of the RAM though it may be that the copper heatpipe cooler is obstructing more DIMM modules from being inserted. You should still be able to run three 4GB modules for 12GB of RAM.