£370 to upgrade to PCI-E

Andeh · 5 Jan 2007 at 18:17

Hi everyone, just (re)joined the forums as I need some help picking out some hardware for my next upgrade. Heres my current setup:

ASUS A8V Deluxe AGP motherboard
AMD Athlon64 3500+ Venice
MSI Geforce 6800
1gig Corsair Value Select
some random 460W PSU

In about a months time, I'll have around £370 so spend on upgrading my system to PCI-E which means new motherboard, graphics card, and possibly new CPU.
I've been looking at the Intel Core 2 DUO E6400 as I've heard they are great CPU's for the price.
As for graphics card, I've been kinda torn between the X1950 Pro and the 7900GT. These 2 perticularly caught my eye:

X1950 Pro 512mb:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-141-SP

7900GT 256mb:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-028-GW

I would love some recommendations from some of the "experts" here, im sure someone can come up with a better solution for my upgrade

thanks anyway.

thefishdude · 5 Jan 2007 at 18:50

if im not mistaken yoru current system uses ddr memory core 2 duos systems are 99% based on ddr2 memory so you will need some of that. 2gb is reccomended but woud put you way over budget.

tried to keep it as close to orig cash and yet make it decent

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
(£124.54)
OcUK 1GB (2x512MB) PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
(£75.19)
Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
(£126.89)
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
(£99.86)
Shipping : £8.95
Vat : £65.08
Total : £436.99

deadeyedic30 · 5 Jan 2007 at 19:34

Or if you can find it the

http://www.asrock.com/product/939Dual-VSTA.htm

upgrade your graphics now while keeping the other components till you can aford a bigger jump.

Jonny L · 5 Jan 2007 at 21:16

TBH the list above would be best, but swap the ds3 for the s3, only difference is the ds3 has solid capacitors so doesn't make any difference to performance. If your an overclocker get the oem e6300 and buy a arctic freezer 7 pro, comes out at just over the price of the retail e6300, also, you could go for a 7900gs to bring the cost down a bit.

Andeh · 5 Jan 2007 at 21:27

so how does this look:

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail - £124.54
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-126-IN

Gigabyte GA_945PL_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - £58.74
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-064-GI

OcUK 1GB (2x512MB) PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit - £75.19
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-011-OK

Gainward BLISS GeForce 7900 GS "Golden Sample" SILENT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail - £116.31
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-049-GW

Total = £374.78

just Scott · 5 Jan 2007 at 22:06

Andeh said:
so how does this look:

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail - £124.54
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-126-IN

Gigabyte GA_945PL_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - £58.74
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-064-GI

OcUK 1GB (2x512MB) PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit - £75.19
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-011-OK

Gainward BLISS GeForce 7900 GS "Golden Sample" SILENT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail - £116.31
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-049-GW

Total = £374.78

Looks very good. Perfect for the budget.

[TR]SweetSpotOz · 5 Jan 2007 at 22:12

Andeh · 5 Jan 2007 at 22:40

it doesn't really "struggle" in any games, but I have a 21" widescreen TFT so im kinda stuck using resolutions like 1680x1050 and 1280x800 etc, so, im lucky to get over 40 fps in most of todays games. Im kind of a high fps fiend. Ive not upgraded my system in quite some time, and to be perfectly honest, im not too interested in having a top notch DX10 capable card. I just want something that will give me much better performance than what I have right now.

Andeh · 5 Jan 2007 at 22:42

H2F Scott said:
Looks very good. Perfect for the budget.

cool, I will keep that setup in mind for when I have the cash available in roughly a months time, maybe by then, prices might drop a tad, and I could possibly get something a little better

Jonny L · 5 Jan 2007 at 22:45

TBH you would get more for your money interms of performance if you bought the 965p version of the s3, it will overclock much better, you could easily get the e6300 to around 3ghz or more.

Andeh · 6 Jan 2007 at 16:05

just out of curiosity, does PCI-E motherboards require an ATX2.0 PSU?
Im pretty sure my PSU isn't ATX2.0 so would it still work?