upgrade not got a clue any more :(

krugger · 18 Jul 2009 at 10:19

hi my motherboard and PSu went the other day so need to get replacements.

original spec was NF7-s
barton 2500 chipped to 3200 i think can't remember now bought from heer so what ever they over clocked to
1 GB matched mem (ddr)
AGP 6600gt 128mb

wasn't too bad at the time.

so do i just replace the duff parts and make do or do i put the money towards upgrading
havent got a clue on processors any more or motherboards etc so advice on route to go or for where to start look would be appriciated

HDD & DVD rw can be reused
so need ideas for following

Processor (always gone for AMD)
motherboard (always gone for Abit inthe past)
case(inc psu maybe) quieter the better
Memory upgrade
graphic

say price £300-400 if thats enough
mainly surf but like playing the occational game or did until the spec became to low for new games. last game i bought was merceneries but wouldn't play so if i could play that then that would be good.

cheers.

aaron333 · 18 Jul 2009 at 10:21

A phenom II 550 and a 790FX/GX board *should* fit in that price range.

ZXSpectrum · 18 Jul 2009 at 10:28

I would go for:

*OVERCLOCKED* Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 2.66GHz @ 3.20GHz / Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3P Intel P45 Motherboard / Kingston HyperX 4GB 8500C5 DDR2 Bundle

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4830 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail

OCZ StealthXStream 400w Silent Power Supply

Should be a nice little machine...

nbkpsycho · 18 Jul 2009 at 10:37

I would suggest the following:

The one thing i would change if you can increase your budget is the graphics card. I would change it for a ATI 4890.

siumatfung · 18 Jul 2009 at 13:40

what hard drives were they?

dont worry about the nudget i thing 3-400£ is the best budget for gaming spec tbh

siumatfung · 18 Jul 2009 at 13:53

another 52posts mate and you can have that delivered for free

i dont really care about future proofing and blah just want you to get the best for your money not having to skimp on gfx cos u want the newest stuff etc etc

krugger · 18 Jul 2009 at 16:34

thanks for the advice i'll look in to those.
just another 51 posts! see if i can do them by monday

siumatfung · 18 Jul 2009 at 20:32

krugger said:
thanks for the advice i'll look in to those.
just another 51 posts! see if i can do them by monday

just use the new posts feature and reply or add your own to the threads which interest you

Xinn · 18 Jul 2009 at 22:31

nbkpsycho said:
I would suggest the following:

The one thing i would change if you can increase your budget is the graphics card. I would change it for a ATI 4890.

You appear to have DDR3 on a DDR2 board there?

gamesaregood · 18 Jul 2009 at 23:07

Ok so I know I'm over budget but you could keep your old case or HDD if needed, I really feel using a HDD the age of your old system if going to hold it back a lot though:

HIS ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - OEM (H487F1GP)
(£90.43) £103.99

AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3) - Retail
(£69.56) £79.99

Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 AMD 770 (Socket AM3/AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
(£53.03) £60.98

OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Ready Modular Power Supply
(£50.43) £57.99

Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black (No PSU)
(£39.12) £44.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS)
(£33.90) £38.99

Kingston HyperX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel (KHX8500D2K2/4G)
(£33.03) £37.98

Sub Total : £369.50

Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel (This can be changed during checkout)
Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £57.30

Total : £439.30

If your lucky you might be able to unlock the CPU to a Quad Core, its all down to luck though I'm afraid but a simple bios change if your lucky like I was. I would avoid a 775 systems as the socket is soon to be replaced and no new CPUs are going to be released for them.

krugger · 19 Jul 2009 at 21:15

Heres my current HDD works ok but as was earlier informed might need upgrading

Model No. SP1614N
Interface Ultra ATA-133
Capacity 160GB
Number of Disks 2
Number of Heads 4 Bytes per Sector 512
Average Read Seek 8.9 ms
Track-to-Track Seek 0.8 ms
Full Stroke Read Seek 18.0 ms
Average Latency 4.17 ms
Rotational Speed 7,200 RPM
Data Transfer Rate 133MB/sec (external);
(external); 840Mbits/s (internal)
Buffer 8MB 8 MB
Power Requirements 8.6W (seek), 7.0W (idle), 0.5W (standby)

robinson09 · 19 Jul 2009 at 21:47

If your lucky you might be able to unlock the CPU to a Quad Core, its all down to luck though I'm afraid but a simple bios change if your lucky like I was. I would avoid a 775 systems as the socket is soon to be replaced and no new CPUs are going to be released for them.

Hey, just been monitoring this thread. Im sure theres threads somewhere, but can someone explain this possible unlocking of a 4th core thing, and how its down to luck (to someone fairly clueless)? cheers

gamesaregood · 19 Jul 2009 at 21:47

krugger said:
Heres my current HDD works ok but as was earlier informed might need upgrading

Model No. SP1614N
Interface Ultra ATA-133
Capacity 160GB
Number of Disks 2
Number of Heads 4 Bytes per Sector 512
Average Read Seek 8.9 ms
Track-to-Track Seek 0.8 ms
Full Stroke Read Seek 18.0 ms
Average Latency 4.17 ms
Rotational Speed 7,200 RPM
Data Transfer Rate 133MB/sec (external);
(external); 840Mbits/s (internal)
Buffer 8MB 8 MB
Power Requirements 8.6W (seek), 7.0W (idle), 0.5W (standby)

Ok so that disk is max 58 MB / Sec & Min is 34 MB/sec... so very slow compared to today's HDDs..

7200.12 500GB:

max 135 MB / Sec & Min 70 MB / Sec

See what I mean

gamesaregood · 19 Jul 2009 at 22:08

robinson09 said:
Hey, just been monitoring this thread. Im sure theres threads somewhere, but can someone explain this possible unlocking of a 4th core thing, and how its down to luck (to someone fairly clueless)? cheers

Ok so... The Phenom II X2 550 & Phenom II X3 720 are Dual & Tri Core chips but are actually Quad core chips with one or two cores disabled...

Now AMD Could have disabled these cores for many reasons, these include:

- The Cores could be unstable / faulty
- The Cores might have failed the required Power Requirements / other necessary AMD requirements
- AMD Could be selling more of these lower end chips than the Quads and therefore have disabled cores of a perfect CPU

There maybe others but these are those I can think of at mo

So you can basically enable the cores and the following might happen:

- PC Does not boot, at worse if PC does not recover to previous bios settings it means a resetting the CMOS
- PC Boots but is unstable
- PC Boots and works fine

krugger · 19 Jul 2009 at 22:10

didn't realise hdds had inproved so much i just looked at the spin speed and access speed. best add that to the shopping list then. guess the original disk can be used for network storage.

krugger · 19 Jul 2009 at 22:19

gamesaregood said:
HIS ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - OEM (H487F1GP)
(£90.43) £103.99

AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3) - Retail
(£69.56) £79.99

Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 AMD 770 (Socket AM3/AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
(£53.03) £60.98

OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Ready Modular Power Supply
(£50.43) £57.99

Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black (No PSU)
(£39.12) £44.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS)
(£33.90) £38.99

Kingston HyperX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel (KHX8500D2K2/4G)
(£33.03) £37.98

Sub Total : £369.50

Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel (This can be changed during checkout)
Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £57.30

Total : £439.30

.

so if i go with the above and it can be unlocked what cooler will be required or will the retail one still be ok

siumatfung · 19 Jul 2009 at 22:27

depends on how much u want to overclock it but a thermalright 120 ultra extreme with a 120mm fan would be a good choice although expensive

RJC · 19 Jul 2009 at 22:29

The Titan or even the Arctic freezer pro are also good coolers.

krugger · 20 Jul 2009 at 14:58

HIS ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - OEM (H487F1GP)
(£90.43) £103.99

AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3) - Retail
(£69.56) £79.99

Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 AMD 770 (Socket AM3/AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
(£53.03) £60.98

OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Ready Modular Power Supply
(£50.43) £57.99

Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black (No PSU)
(£39.12) £44.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS)
(£33.90) £38.99

Kingston HyperX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel (KHX8500D2K2/4G)
(£33.03) £37.98

Sub Total : £369.50

Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel (This can be changed during checkout)
Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £57.30

Total : £439.30

Ok so before i order the above are there any changes that i should make?
what heat sink compound should i use? i guess the old artic silver i've got is not efficiant enough now days.
Above some one adviced DDR 3 memory where here it is DDR2 which is better? i guess DDR3 is the better memory so why DDR2 ? cost reliablity? going for a motherboard with AM3 is this the right why to go? the processor seems to get very good reviews.
so does the CPU come with a cooler that will be ok to start with? or do i need to order artic freezer straight away?

krugger · 22 Jul 2009 at 08:57

any other options for graphics card the one above is now pre-order should i wait???