Upgrade time. Good selection?

M

MyNameIsTj

New Member
Okay so I'm gonna be upgrading my desktop soon, and I'm looking for a... I guess you could say light end gaming and general use computer. I want it to be able to handle what I throw at it (which will not be BF3 on max, more like lower end games (second life, Blacklight: Retribution, vindictus, WoW if I played it, which I won't, etc.) I also am going to be programming on it, so it should be able to handle that fairly easily. I took apart an HP computer I bought and rebuilt it in an Antec ICE case with blue LED's, so it's got the following:

Generic HP motherboard (bleh)
i7 920 processor (first gen, supports 800/1066 RAM, LGA1366 socket, 2.66GHz)
6GB DDR3 1066 RAM (3x2GB, i7 920 only supports 3 channel)
GeForce GT 220 video card (bleh)
a 450W PSU (bleh)
650GB SATA HDD, 3GB/s
DVD/CD/BluRay reader + writer

So all together I spent around $520 on that, maybe not the best of deals but... gotta start somewhere, right?

Here's the upgrades I'm considering. I've looked through, and I don't see any compatibility issues, but I could be missing something. I'm looking for something of equal/greater value for a price range like this, and I wanna keep the black/blue theme. If you have any ideas, I'm all ears.

New motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131715

New video card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127687

New PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817152028

Current case: http://www.everbest.on.ca/ver2/images/products/imgprd3299_Antec 100 iCE.jpg (imagine the LED's are blue)

Note: the PSU only has 3 peripheral/4 pin connectors, and I currently have 4 fans. I plan on getting a 4pin floppy to 4 pin peripheral converter for my other fan... If that will work.
 
First get one of the Corsair PSU's that was recommended to you for $20 and $30 more. If you decide to get the 600watt one, you might want to pick up an HD6850 instead for future thoughts. This one is only $15 more, but if you count the free shipping, it's only about $8ish more with over 50% more performance compared to the HD770.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150515

(Also don't forget the rebates ;])
 
Last edited:
Thanks for all the great replies guys. I have decided on the Radeon HD 6850 and the Corsair builder series v2 600W.

It increased my overall price by a bit... but I think it's manageable for the quality and future-proofing of it. I honestly don't see myself needing more power than an i7, so sticking with my first gen i7 won't be a problem, and I won't need a motherboard/CPU upgrade.

Again, thanks.
 
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