Spending £500 on upgrades

[felixthemaster1]

Right now I have an i5 2500K  and a 7870 which is dying. The prices seem right and it is about time to upgrade to an SSD so This is what I was planning:

 

I am getting the boring looking case because my Zalman Z11 plus won't fit the card. I know i can get a sexy Phantom with a removable HDD cage too, but then I only have 2 bays left. In this case, I'd have 3 bays for my 3 HDDs and I can mount my SSD on top of the cage. I am getting the molex to sata cable even though I have heard many reviews of these cables frying their HDDs or just plain stopped working since I am only using it for my CD drive and using the sata power for my SSD instead. (no more sata pins left in the cable)

 

I wanted your thoughts on this upgrade, or any alternatives. 

[bartekxx12]

All great choices, nothing to improve really. 

Go ahead, should be a huge upgrade. 

[Goodmane]

Will your PSU be enough to support your new 290? It might draw 100W more then your 7870

[consoleconvergence2pc]

What's you're psu, are you sure you have enough to power the 290?

I also saw a 290x tri yesterday on overclockers for that same price not sure if it's still there though and also the r4 is quite pricey, the prices on it fluctuates alot, black pearl windowed was £74.99 a couple days ago on amazon where the non windowed was £64 not sure if it's at that price now though.

[felixthemaster1]

Will your PSU be enough to support your new 290? It might draw 100W more then your 7870

Got a Corsair HX650. Is that okay?

[felixthemaster1]

i did some mild research and the i5 takes up to 200W, the GPU uses up to 300W on furmark, and caviar black uses 8.4 watts, (assuming 10 watts per HDD and SSD)

 

so 540 watts total, maybe some to power peripherals so 600 wats max? since I have the 650, is that too close?

[Goodmane]

yea it should be close. It also depends how long you had your PSU, and how much it worked. Example, I have 1200W PSU it's with me for almost 3 and half years. And can generate only 1000-900W now. It was almost open 20 hours everyday though.

[felixthemaster1]

Had mine for 2 years, I didn't know a PSU degrades so much! used a calculator and recomended 550W

[Goodmane]

As I said I used mine for almost 20 Hours everyday. If there were no power outages my computer was on, thanks to internet low speeds (6Mbps down - 800Kbps up) I need to leave it open, more then I want. So I bought my PSU keeping that in mind.

 

Returning back to your subject; You should be fine to try and see if your PSU can handle the load of your new graphics card "I think". I'm not a PSU master or anything so if anyone else knows they might answer you if it's safe to try it or just get a new one.

 

All I can suggest at that point is Play safe and don't lose your new hardware because it was going well with windows booting up.

[felixthemaster1]

I can't afford a anew one. I'll wait for more opinions and if they agree with you, I'll just get a R9 280x

[Guest]

A 650W psu is fine for a 290 and a i5 2500K. The HX650 is a quality power supply.

[Goodmane]

Drop the case from list, get a new PSU if you are really unsure about how much your PSU is aged over the 2 years.

[felixthemaster1]

What's you're psu, are you sure you have enough to power the 290?

I also saw a 290x tri yesterday on overclockers for that same price not sure if it's still there though and also the r4 is quite pricey, the prices on it fluctuates alot, black pearl windowed was £74.99 a couple days ago on amazon where the non windowed was £64 not sure if it's at that price now though.

I just looked on there, and found this: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-238-MS#

If this fits my case, then I can save money on the case! WOO I am happy!

 

http://raru.co.za/electronics/19642-msi-amd-radeon-r9-290x-gaming-edition-4gb-graphics-card Says the card is 276 and

http://www.zalman.com/global/product/Product_Read.php?Idx=476 says my case can fit 290. 

 

I am overly chuffed at this result of getting a very high end card and saving money. Thanks stranger. 

[Goodmane]

You know you could have just used the Metal Saw it's only 7 pounds

[Goodmane]

Well since you said that. 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Radeon-DirectCU-Graphics-GDDR5-Express/dp/B00HOW1Q46/ref=sr_1_4?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1405467598&sr=1-4&keywords=MSI+r9+290

This is better for price

[felixthemaster1]

You linked a 290, I linked a 290X