3 components. £300

PhoenixUK said:
If you had your bracket and lost it you might trying contacting the manufacturer and they might get you a new one for free or a small fee if lucky.

You can always ask on MM forums if someone has one lying around.
I'd go with the board I posted over the asus as there is no diff in performance and I find the GA BIOS somehow better than asus, but it's just a personal preference.

And get the ram I've chosen, it's worth the few quid premium or try to get a hold of g.skill ripjaws if possible, it's out of stock on ocuk atm unfortunately.


Either way, you'll be more than happy with the upgrade that I'm sure of : ).
Click to expand...

I just had a look on the manufacturers website and I couldn't see one, have they a branch in the UK at all? MM is a no-go as of my post count.

The motherboard selection doesn't really bother me too much, as long as it's a good clocker and does the basics im not really fussed about all the fancy options bundled with it. imo more things to go wrong.

the ram:

I'm guessing its wise not to get the cheapest possible so ill follow your advice,

out of these 3:

OCZ Obsidian 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 Dual Channel (OCZ3OB1600LV4GK)£85.99

Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9)£91.99

and the slightly faster:

OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-15000C10 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3G1866LV4GK)£93.99

which do you suggest?


edit: removed the gskill tri-chan

edit2: my as5 is pretty much empty, what should i replace it with?
 
Last edited:
will the am2 bracket fit the am3 motherboard for my ifx-14, its just the socket pins amount that varies?
 
how come postage is free?

also, don't use corsair, you pay a premium for the name.
Also no point going faster than 1600MHz (the increase is ~1-5% so not worth it)
and you're good at not getting triple channel, because they're hella expensive when you can buy an extra DDR3 "dual channel" kit in the future and MAGICALLY upgrade it to tri channel by putting in the other two sticks.

A DDR3 stick is a DDR3 stick is a DDR3 stick... Dual or Tri channel only depends on # of sticks and the configuration of them in your mobo :P

as for gfx, get a budget 9 series NVIDIA card (or a GTX260 if you can push it) and wait for the GT300s or whatever they're going to be called to come out. Then wait a couple months for the prices to 2/3 or 1/3 then get one of those!
 
Last edited:
The OCZ obsidian should be alright, dunno why OCuk offer got so much butchered recently and they don't have many memories to choose from. Anyways as stated above will do. Don't bother with corsair untill you can squeeze 80extra for the dominator GT series : ).

Not sure about those OCZ Gold but I've always had really bad luck with the gold series, also they're not really faster, they have few mhz more but the timings are higher so it's pretty much the same memory just overclocked and rebranded I guess.
You should be able to OC your to 1800mhz easily.

On the mounting topic checking their website looks like it should fit am3 just as well as am2 fine so you can give it a go I guess.
 
Menaptu said:
how come postage is free?

also, don't use corsair, you pay a premium for the name.
Also no point going faster than 1600MHz (the increase is ~1-5% so not worth it)
and you're good at not getting triple channel, because they're hella expensive when you can buy an extra DDR3 "dual channel" kit in the future and MAGICALLY upgrade it to tri channel by putting in the other two sticks.

A DDR3 stick is a DDR3 stick is a DDR3 stick... Dual or Tri channel only depends on # of sticks and the configuration of them in your mobo :P

as for gfx, get a budget 9 series NVIDIA card (or a GTX260 if you can push it) and wait for the GT300s or whatever they're going to be called to come out. Then wait a couple months for the prices to 2/3 or 1/3 then get one of those!
Click to expand...

Only i7 has the option to use triple channel memory, you can't use it on i5 or pII. And no, it's not only dependant on where you put sticks : ).

And regarding GPU he's got 5770 already if you read the full thread.
 
oh right :P
tl;dr :(

Oh, I thought it was slots 1 3 5, 1 2 3 5 or 2 4 6 for DDR3 tri :P (or, all 6) [assuming RAM is compatible w/ motherboard]
 
A decent i5 base is easily achievable within £335; however if you are likely to upgrade again soon (in the next year or two) then the AM3 Phenom II is the better route to go as the AM3 chip will be used with the newer AMD processors; whereas the 1156 (P55) socket for the i5 is already considered old(er) tech as the "better" i7s and the new Intel CPUs yet to be released will be tailored towards the 1366 (X58) chipset.
Personally I would go with the i5 - and I've always been with AMD - it's going to have a long life-cycle I think...
 
AM3 is the best option for a gaming with xfire right now because:

1.Offers x16-x16 in xfire (i5 x8-x8)
2.Scales better in Xfire than Intel
3.More future proof
And the difference in games won't noticeable.A 3.8-3.9Ghz clocked Phenom II 955 will beat the Intel Core i7 940 in games.Just take a look here.http://www.techspot.com/review/162-amd-phenom2-x4-955/page11.html However in synthetic benchmarks will fall a bit behind.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom