My Xmas Budget Challenge AMD OR Intel?

deeem

deeem

deeem

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Joined
7 Dec 2007
Posts
44
Hi guys,

I have a budget of £500 ish give or take and am upgrading from the following:

AMD X2 3800
ASuS SLI Deluxe SKT 939
2Gb Kingson pc2100
x1950 Pro Radeon 256mb
17" TFT Monitor

I would only like to replace the above parts (CPU, Mobo, RAM, GFX, and monitor). Everything is staying put. If someone fancies a challenge please be my guest,

Huge thanks in advance.

Damon
 
Alright this is what I would go for haha... a lot of this stuff is basically what I have atm and runs pretty damn nice with games etc.

speczz3.jpg


One thing I would want to ask is whether you are running Vista or XP?
With Vista - especially x64 I'd go for another 2 sticks of RAM so you have 4Gb.

Oh aye if you are caspable of entering bios you can overclock the 5000 Black Edition to 3Ghz pretty much straight away.
 
A little bit over the budget but should give you a nice boost and there is a bit of overclocking potential in there as well. :)

Abit IP35-E (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £43.99
(£51.69) £43.99
(£51.69)
PNY GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £154.99
(£182.11) £154.99
(£182.11)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
Samsung SM-2032BW Pebble 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black £147.99
(£173.89) £147.99
(£173.89)
Sub Total : £431.95
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £77.33
Total : £519.23
 
Thanks for the post.

I will be running windows XP and using it mainly for photoshop and gaming.

Is the AMD 5000+ enuff and will it be future proof for the next 6-8 months?

Damon
 
Belinea 1925S1W 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver £89.99
(£105.74) £89.99
(£105.74)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK) £71.99
(£84.59) £71.99
(£84.59)
Asus P5KC Combo Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £67.99
(£79.89) £67.99
(£79.89)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £139.99
(£164.49) £139.99
(£164.49)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £10.99
(£12.91) £10.99
(£12.91)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £43.99
(£51.69) £43.99
(£51.69)
Sub Total : £424.94
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £76.11
Total : £511.00
 
Lol just a little bit over there, but nice to see to ends of the AMD / Intel spectrum there. Is the dual core intel much better than my current 3800 dual core amd?

Or is it the DDR2 factor that will get my machine running quicker?

I have been out of the loop since back in the days of DDR1

Damon
 
If I do take the AMD route, what about the AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6400+ Socket AM2 Black Edition 3.20GHz. Do you guys rate these at, especially with it being 3.2Ghz?

Damon
 
That last system is tempting however, will it overclock well?

Also how much influence do CPUs have over gaming? I would like to play crysis etc..

Damon
 
Skyboat's system should overclock as well as any of the other Intel based offerings but you might want to check how good the monitor is for gaming, I've recommended it for general office work before but I've never checked to make sure it is quick enough or clear enough for games. Also note that it doesn't have a DVI input and I think that all 8800GTs are dual DVI - you normally get an adapter but it is something else to watch out for.
 
Only thing I wasn't sure about was the monitor so I picked the cheapest, the rest however is fine, the P35 boards are great overclockers and whilst that's a budget model it features solid state capacitors which are a lot more reliable.
 
Yeah, i didnt think about that, is it timing in (ms) i need to look out for?

most of the monitors I have seen are 5ms..

Damon
 
You could go for the OcUK Value IP35 board, but they're preorder only atm. According to Gibbo's thread they're supposed to be good clockers. It's a tenner more, but you could get 2x Geil ULL kits @ £35 each to save £15 on that build.
 
deeem said:
Yeah, i didnt think about that, is it timing in (ms) i need to look out for?

most of the monitors I have seen are 5ms..

Damon
Click to expand...

I don't know a great deal about monitors but it isn't quite as simple as the speed in ms from what I can tell because manufacturers use different measures although as mentioned lower is generally better. The panel type might also affect how good it is for gaming but if you have a look in the monitors sub-forum I'm sure you will find people with a great deal more knowledge and input than I can offer. :)
 
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