New gaming spec reqd - needs to last a few years.

Jed Shields · 5 Mar 2008 at 12:32

Hi guys,

I'm looking to upgrade my system to something that'll still have a kick for a few years. My wife is expecting our first baby in August so I need to get all my spending done before then as there'll be no chance afterwards!

I've currently got:

Abit AN8 SLI Fatal1ty mobo
2x 7800GTX SLI'd graphics
2x 1Gb RAM
Hyper 580W PSU

I'm looking to replace the mobo, graphics and RAM, hopefully keeping the PSU as it should have enough power. I'm happy with all my drives and soundcard etc.

Running Vista Home Premium 32bit on a new Dell 2408. I'm a big kid at heart so it'll be used mainly for gaming (FPS mostly) so it'll need to run 1920*1200 with bells and whistles, but also used for photo editing etc.

What do you guys recommend, bearing in mind it's for the long haul but within reason for £s Duo or Quad? 4Gb or 8Gb (although this would be the easiest thing to upgrade without too much hassle in the future)? Graphics - not looking at spending more than £300, so no Ultras or super GTXs ...

Any thoughts appreciated ...

mp260767 · 5 Mar 2008 at 13:13

have a look at the following, gfx card is a GTX due to the res you want to run at.

maybe worth waiting to see how the new 9xxx series and 9xxx x2 and 3870 x2 perform.

depending on you're total budget might be worth going with an x38 mobo and a new quad core.

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £64.99 (£76.36)

Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.66GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £104.99 (£123.36)

Tuniq Tower 120-LFB CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £22.99 (£27.01)

G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-8000C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ) £69.99 (£82.24)

BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £224.99 (£264.36)

Sub Total : £487.95
Shipping : £8.95
VAT : £86.96
Total : £583.86

Jed Shields · 5 Mar 2008 at 20:01

Looks good.

Graphics - it would be nice to see how the 9xxx series compares to the 8800 series. The 3870 X2 seems to be getting good reports as well.

CPU - I don't mind spending a bit more on this. What else would you recommend up to say £200?

What's the Quad options?

mp260767 · 5 Mar 2008 at 20:41

cpu wise for that price i'd go with the 8400, quad options are the q6600 or the newer q9300, not seen much mention of the 9300 tbh.

gfx wise to run "1920*1200 with bells and whistles" needs a top end card, if you want to turn it down until u get to see the 9xxx in action , if there pci-e i'd stick to using one of you're 7800GTX's and turn the settings down.

imho its pointless wasting money on a card to tide you over when you could use the money to get the best card once you've decided what to get.

Jed Shields · 5 Mar 2008 at 22:15

I'm not looking to buy just yet, so the 9xxx series will probably be out by the time I get around to it.

mp260767 · 5 Mar 2008 at 23:30

Jed Shields said:
I'm not looking to buy just yet, so the 9xxx series will probably be out by the time I get around to it.

fair enough.

as an idea, for the res you want to play at the gtx /3780x2 are the minimum to go for, if one of the 9xxx offers similar speeds, and at least the 768mb of the gtx you should be fine.