Upgrade for my media pc

Man of Honour
Joined
28 Nov 2007
Posts
12,736
The mobo on my media pc needs replacing and as the system is long in the tooth I may as well do a more complete upgrade.

Current spec is a bit hazy (it has been off since the mobo went a few months ago)

It is in a coolermaster htpc case with a microATX mobo
I remember it is an AMD 64X2 of some description
I think it has 3gb of PC3200 ram
Branded PSU around 500w
Hauppage PVR150MCE
Soundblaster audigy xs (onboard sound was awful for music so had this knocking around and it improved it massively)
Geforce 9500gt passive cooling (the last upgrade I made some time ago)
can't remember what HDDs are in there but I have a spare 1tb one

I would like to reuse the case, PSU, HDDs, GPU and probably the PVR (although it doesn't record HD) - it's running vista 32 and that is OK as my extenders are setup for it

Use is really as a straightforward media PC with extenders around the house for TV and music, I don't work on it and gaming would be very light as I have a gaming PC.

So given I have the case and other bits and bobs I guess this is spec me CPU (and cooler), mobo and ram.

I'm totally out of touch with hardware at the moment. Clearly this doesn't need to be wildly high end and although I don't have a fixed budget no need to spend more than is merited for the use. What would anyone suggest? Thanks
 
Man of Honour
OP
Joined
28 Nov 2007
Posts
12,736
I guess I'll reply to myself. ;)

I've had an idea.............My desktop has a Q6600 in it overclocked to 3.6ghz and running like that for years. The mobo chucks out some problems with my raid array which is a known issue with it.

So as that is in need of an upgrade soon why don't I buy a micro atx socket 775 board and move accross the Q6600 (minus the water cooling) and the 4gb of DDR2 I have in that machine and then buy cpu / mobo / memory for my main machine. i5 2500k bundle with 8gb ram may be?

I guess the whole process will cost me a couple of hundred more but I will end up with both machines markedly improved. Thoughts on a postcard?
 
Soldato
Joined
4 Feb 2003
Posts
10,999
Location
telford, shropshire
what sort of gfx card do you have in your current q6600 setup ?

looking at 2 options :

1) athlon II dual core am3 setup for £200 ish to replace your current media pc

or

2) 2500K for £400 ish which allows you to switch the q6600 to your media pc

depends whether you think the £200 difference is worth it.
 
Man of Honour
OP
Joined
28 Nov 2007
Posts
12,736
what sort of gfx card do you have in your current q6600 setup ?

looking at 2 options :

1) athlon II dual core am3 setup for £200 ish to replace your current media pc

or

2) 2500K for £400 ish which allows you to switch the q6600 to your media pc

depends whether you think the £200 difference is worth it.

8800gtx tri sli

other than being hotter than the sun and extremely noisy it does pretty much do anything i throw at it but I think one of the cards is on the blink (as last couple of gamin sessions I have had some issues but will try drivers etc before I do anything). I am tempted to sell the other 2 (or may be one of them and keep the other for physx) and get a new card.

I don't game that much due to lack of time but when I do it is at 1920x1200 and I like a decent performance. I also run three monitors for work so would need to continue to do that and would like the option of all three for gaming too. The other 2 monitors are 1280 × 1024 so not sure how that would work.

As I'm likely to get the urge to upgrade my main PC sooner rather than later, it does seem more sensible to spend that bit extra now.
 
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