Upgrade advice for old gaming PC

Hagman95

Hagman95

Hagman95

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Joined
13 May 2007
Posts
6
Hi

I am looking to upgrade my PC but at the moment I have a limited budget.

Current specs are: ASUS A8N-E, Athlon 64 3400+, 4gb DDR400, XFX 8800GTS, Enermax 620W PSU, currently running Windows XP Home

It seems that in games I am limited by the single core processor. I was therefore thinking about upgrading the Motherboard, CPU and RAM. What components would you suggest? My budget is £250-300.

I am open to either Intel or AMD, the main aim is to be able to play Bad Company at 1280x1024 (19" monitor) at reasonable quality.

TIA
 
AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail - £99.99

G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL8D-4GBRM) - £99.99

Gigabyte GA-770TA-UD3 (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard - £80.99

Shipping : £9.00

Total : £291.55

Should do the job fine especially at 1280x1024.

As for the i5 setup mentioned, I added some ram to the processor and motherboard and it came to £357. Not really in budget.
 
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Ok Thanks

The Phenom was looking favourite and it appears to bench mark well, it would certainly allow me to play games that are currently beyond my current spec.

Will this major change also invalidate the current OEM Windows OS ? :(
 
Hagman95 said:
Ok Thanks

Will this major change also invalidate the current OEM Windows OS ? :(
Click to expand...

No, it won't invalidate it but you will need to re-activate the license. I think this can be done during the install process but at worst it just requires a call to MS.
 
It's been a while since I used my OEM version of XP but I changed my mobo a couple of times without any problem. There is no suggestion it against the license terms on their website FAQ either.

As most basic warranties only last a year but many people keep systems longer it wouldn't make sense to prevent users from changing components when required.
 
Spokwiththeears said:
AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail - £99.99

G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL8D-4GBRM) - £99.99

Gigabyte GA-770TA-UD3 (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard - £80.99

Shipping : £9.00

Total : £291.55

Should do the job fine especially at 1280x1024.

As for the i5 setup mentioned, I added some ram to the processor and motherboard and it came to £357. Not really in budget.
Click to expand...

I wouldnt go tri core for anything, its just not worth it, either do 2 or 4 cores...

Stelly
 
The X3 720 is faster than a Core i3 530 in most games:

http://en.inpai.com.cn/doc/enshowcont.asp?id=7488

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=83&p2=118&c=1

Also the Athlon II X3 processors are also a better choice than many of the dual core processors under £70 too.

They offer a good mix of performance in gaming and non-gaming tasks.

A £61 X3 435 is faster than an E7500 in most non-gaming tasks and has similar performance in games:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=112&p2=87&c=1

The X3 435 is also faster than the Pentium G6950:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=112&p2=123&c=1
 
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Stelly said:
I wouldnt go tri core for anything, its just not worth it, either do 2 or 4 cores...

Stelly
Click to expand...

That's so true, either get a fast dual core or get a nice quad core.

If tri core was such a good idea then Intel would have done it too.
 
:rolleyes: Nice logic there. You might as well say "if having unlockable cores was such a good idea Intel would have done it too". Different companies operate in different ways and have different ideas.
 
Unlockable cores only exist because AMD manufacture process is so poor.

INTEL don't have that problem.

And if they did have failed quad core waffers that only three cores work on, they would release their own version of a tri core CPU, they don't because they suck.
 
If the only tri cores were failed quads there would be no successful unlocking and nobody would bother trying... That's only true of a portion of AMDs chips with locked cores.

edit - also I find it hard to believe that Intel's manufacture process is 100% reliable regardless of how good they are or how much cash they have.
 
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stulid said:
Unlockable cores only exist because AMD manufacture process is so poor.

INTEL don't have that problem.
Click to expand...

A very poor argument. So I assume that you will never buy a Core i5 750 as it has the parts of the die with HT shut off.

Also I assume you would only buy an HD5870 or a GTX285 as the lower end parts have shut off stream processors??

stulid said:
And if they did have failed quad core waffers that only three cores work on, they would release their own version of a tri core CPU, they don't because they suck.
Click to expand...

News flash!! Perhaps the Intel chips are designed such that they cannot disable cores at ease.

The E7000 Core2 processors were based on the E8000 series and had half the L2 cache disabled . So avoid these too??

The Phenom II X2 is based on the X4 with half the cores disabled if you did not realise this??

It could be that AMD has just simply made one core that can have parts disabled so it can fit different segments of the market. Instead of having to develop multiple processor cores just concentrate R&D on one modular core. They are a much smaller company after all.

AMD does it and so does Nvidia.

You are just scare mongering for no reason.
 
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Sorry i must have missed the part where you produced some facts to back up that claim would you mind posting the relevant links again!
 
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