Blog - upgrade | bit-tech.net

Is this the decade PC gaming bounces back?

Posted on 26th Jan 2010 at 10:25 by Antony Leather with 41 comments

I noticed a rather interesting trend in the uptake of the latest generation of consoles over the last few weeks. I don’t usually take much notice of them to be honest. I haven’t bought a new console since PC upgrades started being affordable to me, and it’s been that way since the N64 started showing its age.

However, the majority of ‘what was great in 2009' and general 'over the shoulder glance' articles about the previous decade's tech meant I couldn’t really avoid reading about the PS3 or Xbox 360. What I read lead me to an interesting idea.

The Easy Core i3 Upgrade?

Posted on 15th Jan 2010 at 12:59 by Clive Webster with 10 comments

Now that Intel is done with releasing CPUs for the time being, we've got a chance to analyse the situation and see what's worth buying. For those on a budget, the Intel Core i3-530 is your best bet unless your budget is limited to £70 or so, in which case you'll have to look elsewhere. But I'm betting that if your budget is so tight that you can't go for the superior Intel Core i5-750, you haven't got fancy DDR3 memory or an LGA1156 motherboard. Enter the easy Core i3 upgrade bundle.

Budget overclocking is back!

Posted on 30th Nov 2009 at 10:50 by Antony Leather with 25 comments

I’ve felt a little lost over the last six months or so. AMD still hasn’t come back with a definitive answer to Intel's Core i7 and Core i5 CPUs and even they have been prohibitively expensive for many looking to upgrade from a Core 2 system.

Gone, it seems, are the days of the Core 2 Duo E1200 which could be bagged for less than £40. After a 100% overclock, it could turn into something that gave £150 CPUs a run for their money. I've used the CPU in several systems that I've built for people over the last few years, coupled one of the many budget uberclocking LGA775 boards that were pushed off the production lines.

Is LGA1366 the most future-proof choice?

Posted on 16th Jul 2009 at 10:29 by Clive Webster with 46 comments

I was chatting to Rich yesterday about P55 and socket LGA1156, and how its imminent arrival makes it pretty tricky to pick a CPU type with decent upgrade potential. LGA775 isn't going to see anything new, so a Q9650 is pretty much the pinnacle of Core 2; meanwhile on the AMD side, it really doesn't seem that Socket AM3 has much further to go. However, we know Intel plans future LGA1366 releases, so this seems like the best option if you desperately need an upgrade now.

2009: The year to buy your SSD

Posted on 18th Jun 2009 at 12:21 by Richard Swinburne with 14 comments

For those who haven't already grabbed one and are still wondering if now is the time, I think I can say that yes, the time is now: SSDs are becoming the predominant boot drive for enthusiasts with a bit of spare cash.

Don't just take the big sustained read/write values at face, it's actually in day-to-day usability of SSDs that really make the difference: click as fast as you can on Word or FireFox and they'll open at the rate your finger moves. It's akin to having a fresh install every time you turn on your PC - everything just loads.

Prices are dropping all the time and while the cache supported Indilinx or Samsung SSDs are clearly the premium products - balancing top performance with anti-stutter cache and zeroed response times - even the more affordable Samsung (or Corsair) 64GB MLC SSDs, or even the dual JMicron OCZ Apex, or G.Skill Titan afford most of the benefits.

Tags jmicron, ssd, storage, upgrade

bit-tech.net

Archive for the ‘upgrade’ tag

Is this the decade PC gaming bounces back?

The Easy Core i3 Upgrade?

Budget overclocking is back!

Is LGA1366 the most future-proof choice?

2009: The year to buy your SSD

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