£350 Upgrade

greengiant · 27 Oct 2008 at 11:36

Just about to order this lot to upgrade my old AMD 64 3000+ / 2GB / GF4 MX440

/320gb machine.
Will retain the current case, ~ 4.5 year old Antec 3700BQE. (much cheaper to upgrade this way than spend extra ~80 to downsize to SFF)

Currently got this sitting in the shopping basket:

Anything glaringly obviously missed out / not compatible?

Main use will be photo editing / and light 3d graphics. Will be running ubuntu 64bit version. I don't intend on doing gaming, will be treating myself to a 360 come santa time.

Would the graphics card be overkill? I could always drop down to either a 8500GT, or a 256MB 8600GT :confused:

thanks in advance!

hp7909 · 27 Oct 2008 at 12:09

For intended use, maybe Quad-core power...

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £115.99
Asus P5Q-VM Intel G45 Micro-ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £79.99
Samsung SpinPoint F1 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502IJ) £36.99
Enermax Pro 82+ 385W EPR385AWT ATXv2.3 Silent PSU £34.99
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK) £31.99
Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7200S 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Sub Total : £313.94
Shipping : £8.95
VAT : £56.51
Total : £379.40

Over budget but the mobos onboard GFX is decent

Guardsmon · 27 Oct 2008 at 12:48

what size screen you planning on using? If its anything like 22" upwards definately hold on to the 512mb version of your gfx

Otherwise your spec isn't bad except one big bit. Your CPu. why are you buying the E4600? Save yourself some money and get an E5200 - its cheaper, faster clock, same cache, 45nm rather than 65nm so cooler as well.

greengiant · 27 Oct 2008 at 16:14

Guardsmon said:
what size screen you planning on using? If its anything like 22" upwards definately hold on to the 512mb version of your gfx

Otherwise your spec isn't bad except one big bit. Your CPu. why are you buying the E4600? Save yourself some money and get an E5200 - its cheaper, faster clock, same cache, 45nm rather than 65nm so cooler as well.

Intel Core 2 Duo is same as Intel Pentium Dual Core? so a Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 would be a faster chip than a Intel Core 2 Duo E4600? I'm pretty out of touch with current processors!

hp7909: Not sure whether Quad Core would give me any benefit since I run Unbuntu linux.

Guardsmon · 27 Oct 2008 at 16:47

intel started renaming their lower end chips pentium dual cores, but its effectively the same as the core 2 duo so in answer to your questions, yes the E5200 would be faster than the E4600.. Its not out of touch, its just funny naming thanks to intel

hp7909 · 27 Oct 2008 at 18:40

greengiant said:
hp7909: Not sure whether Quad Core would give me any benefit since I run Unbuntu linux.

I'm no Linux expert, but having 4-cores should be a nice boost to any OS? Or photo editing & 3D graphics apps for Linux don't take advantage of this?

greengiant · 27 Oct 2008 at 18:59

hp7909, I think I 'll stick to a dual core E5200. When Quad cores come down to £60 inc vat then I'll go quad core! ;-)

Think I'm pretty much settled on this:

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Abit IP43 Intel P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £59.99 (£70.49)
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.50GHz (800FSB) - Retail £49.99 (£58.74)
OcUK GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £39.99 (£46.99)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST3500320AS) £37.99 (£44.64)
Akasa Ultra Quiet 400W Paxpower Active PFC ATX2.2 PSU £34.99
(£41.11)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 £31.99 (£37.59)
Samsung SH-S223F/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) £12.99 (£15.26)
Sub Total : £267.93
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £48.45
Total : £325.33

I can get free delivery too.