£150 Upgrade, Please help

Skeeter

Skeeter

Skeeter

Caporegime
Joined
8 Mar 2007
Posts
37,146
Location
Surrey
Hi

A mate has asked me for some advice on upgrading his system. He has a tight budget of £150 including postage. His current spec is:

Mobo: Gigabyte Ga-K8N51GMF-9
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (939)
RAM: 1gb (2x512mb DDR400)
GFX: Geforce 7900GT PCI-Express
PSU: Q-TEG PSU 450WP
HDD: 80gb PATA & 320gb SATA
2 x 17" flatscreen TFT

My best suggestion to him was to upgrade the mobo, RAM and CPU to a C2D, DDR2 and a mobo. Any suggestions on what these 3 should be? Or if he should go for a different upgrade? He is an OCer so the E21x0 CPUs could be a good call, with whatever is the cheapest 2GB 800Mhz DDR2 at the time, but I'm stumped on Mobos as I haven't looked at them in over a year. A graphics upgrade is not an option at the moment.

Suggestions and advice very appreciated.

Cheers
 
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2140 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.60GHz (800FSB) - Retail £38.99
(£45.81) £38.99
(£45.81)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-5300C4 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB5300DC) £25.99
(£30.54) £25.99
(£30.54)
Sub Total : £129.97
Shipping : £8.25
17.5% VAT : £24.19
Total : £162.41

Best I can do...

Stelly
 
OcUK 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit OcUK 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £20.99
(£24.66) £20.99
(£24.66)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £47.99
(£56.39) £47.99
(£56.39)
Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L Intel P31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L Intel P31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £46.99
(£55.21) £46.99
(£55.21)
 
ok....

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2140 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.60GHz (800FSB) - Retail £38.99
(£45.81) £38.99
(£45.81)
Sub Total : £128.97
Shipping : £8.25
17.5% VAT : £24.01
Total : £161.23
 
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £47.99
(£56.39) £47.99
(£56.39)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L Intel P31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L Intel P31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £46.99
(£55.21) £46.99
(£55.21)
Sub Total : £119.97
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.25
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £22.44
Total : £150.66
 
short answer P31 is a cut down P35
P31: 4GB memory, ICH7
P35: 8GB, ICH9

Personally I would try and stretch the budget another £10 or so and get a P35 based board
 
The reason that I have chosen the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R is that I have used it in the past, its a great motherboard and very stable

On the DS3L there are no...

Aging ICH7 Southbridge
No Onboard RAID Support
No Firewire Ports
No eSATA Ports

A big difference between the P35 and P31 chipsets is that the P35 supports 1333FSB, so a bit of future proofing... reading the intel site that is... I think that must be official support

Stelly
 
P35-DS3L vs. P£5-DS3R? apart from cost? Does the R have twin PCIe?

Edit: just noticed the DS3L is out of stock? If this was bought with the CPU and RAM, and the CPU and RAM are on this week only, does thw whole order get delayed and the price hiked up, or does it get delayed with the honoured TWO price, or will the ship the RAM and CPU and wait for the mobo?
 
Last edited:
I've just purchased the following.

E2180 CPU
Abit IP35-E
2*1GB Geil DDR2

including delivery it came to £155.

To say I'm impressed with it would be an understatement :D
 
Ok, looks like its 2GB DDR2 800Mhz RAM at maximum £30, then an E2180, and which ever P35 Mobo he decides he can afford. Cheers
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom