Is there any life in the old dog Asus A8R-MVP

connovaer

connovaer

connovaer

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Joined
19 May 2009
Posts
8
Here is my issue

I use my comp mainly for Photoshop, Painter etc the problem is the system is starting to slow down quite badly and it seems the Graphics card is playing up as it overheats (bearings in the fan sound shot)

Current Build
Asus A8r-MVP Crossfire (socket 939)
Saphire X800GT 256 mb x 1 PCIe
AMD athlon XP64 3000+ 1804 MHz
2gb DDR ram


The question is do i scrap the system completely or is the Motherboard capable of supporting a decent build. The one cost i would have to incorporate into the cost is a new case pref a shuttle case as the dust build up under my desk is horrendous.

The problem is i have £400 budget top. My monitor is Good so that doesnt need to impact on the costs. A couple of years ago i had a fairly good understanding of the PC market but so much ahas changed that i wouldn't Know a good spec if it slapped me in the face.

Any thoughts welcome
 
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AMD 939 x2 processors go for silly money on the bay of ees. Think £80+ for a 4400. [half regretting giving mine away for free]

If its an AGP gfx card you have, then that would seal it - way too overpriced. Goes for DDR aswell.

Core 2 processors will overclock to 3ghz, and perform better than any AMDx2. They go for £30 second hand. The cost of a new E5200 processor isnt bad considering it will do 3.8ghz+. Second hand G31 mobos are £20, but at £40 new from OCUK, or £65 for a P43, the price of a new build is appealing. Memory is cheap to buy new.

You have £400, so double the budget required to replace a 939 system.
 
cheers

Sorry as per my edit.

The existing card is PCie the board has crossfire PCIe. Initially thought i was going to max the graphics when i put the system together (never happened)

So what you seem to be saying is that the mobo could build into a good system but it would be more expensive simply because of the 939 issue
 
Even the best cpu X2 4800 or the FX60 would hold back a decent current graphics card let alone 2. And as already mentioned sell at silly prices.

Best off scraping the lot, flee bay the bits and start again. :/
 
You can build a fairly decent machine for £400 these days and it would be big improvement. I have recently build a few PCs for very cheap..

I even picked up a fairly decent socket am2+ board for £11 on a well known auction site.

The key thing is to shop around
 
an idea of whats available:

Lian-Li V350B Aluminium Mini-Tower - Black (No PSU) £85.09 (£73.99)

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £65.54 (£56.99)

Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.50GHz (800FSB) - Retail £62.09 (£53.99)

Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2 NVIDIA GeForce 7100 / nForce 630i Chipset (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £50.59 (£43.99)

Akasa Ultra Quiet 400W Paxpower Active PFC ATX2.2 Power Supply - Black Nickel £42.99 (£37.38)

Corsair XMS2 DHX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX Dual Channel (TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX) £37.98 (£33.03)

Sub Total : £299.37
Shipping : £11.75
VAT : £46.67
Total : £357.79
 
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cheers again

Once again thanks for the feedback.

I think the thing for me to do is look at the reccomended specs for Photoshop & Painter and then build in as much future proof as I can.

Really appreciate the build list, once upon a time i would have had a pretty good idea what that sort of build would perform like , but as i say ive taken my eye of the ball with PC's over the last couple of years.

Blood and sand is memory really that cheap these days, That really brings home just how expensive it would be to rejig the old system.

Keep em coming the more builds the better.
 
power unit

Talking about the power unit do i take it my existing Antex true 380sp wouldnt cut the mustard in the above mentioned new build.

If it did it would free up some much needed capital for the storage.
 
cheers

Cheers for all the input.

So the above build but without the constraints of a shuttle setup, what case what mobo bearing in mind the only constraint i can see with mentioned mobo is the max ram of 4gb
 
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Cheers for all the input.

So the above build but without the constraints of a shuttle setup, what case what mobo bearing in mind the only constraint i can see with mentioned mobo is the max ram of 4gb
 
if the psu is working fine then maybe go with the following, dropped the graphics card down to the 4650,it is over budget by £1.50 but you can now get a quad core :D

If you really want a bit of storage go for the E5300 processor and one of the 640Gb hard drives like the Western Digital Caviar Black.


Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 LGA775 "Kentsfield" 2.66GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £139.99 (£121.73)

Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3P Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £99.99 (£86.95)

Gainward ATI Radeon HD 4650 512MB DDR2 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £57.49 (£49.99)

Corsair XMS2 DHX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX Dual Channel (TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX) £37.98 (£33.03)

Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black (No PSU) £32.99 (£28.69)

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £19.54
(£16.99)

Sub Total : £337.38
Shipping : £11.75
VAT : £52.37
Total : £401.50
 
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Nice build, Given the size of the files i want to start working with storage is gonna be a concern allthough I currently have a seagate 5 gb external that stores a lot of my work!

Quad core! to be honest ive read some exceptional reports regarding the 5200. Given the main usage of the comp will the cost difference be well spent.
 
connovaer said:
all though I currently have a seagate 5 gb external that stores a lot of my work!
Click to expand...

do you have a dvd drive or similar to back up onto ?

connovaer said:
Nice build, Given the size of the files i want to start working with storage is gonna be a concern
Click to expand...

might want to get this confirmed by someone more use to using the programs, but if your using large files then i would say the q6700 would be worth it.

is the photoshop/painter stuff more messing about or closer to work type stuff ?
 
Sorry the seagte is 500 gb lol not 5gb (fat fingers cant type).

The files can be into a couple of hundred megs so the processing can get a bit silly sometimes but obviously storage of them can get a bit bulky
 
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425intel.png


I believe there may be a cuda plugin for photoshop made by nvida, hence the nvidia card
 
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