4 more years for £400?

act smiley · 3 Mar 2006 at 17:50

OK, so I'm a cheapskate, I admit it. Last time I did an upgrade of the basics was 4 years ago to a mighty XP2200/512mb ram/Geforce 3, so I'm looking to upgrade CPU, Memory, Motherboard, Graphics card, PSU for the money.
I was thinking along the lines of an Athlon 64 3200, 1gb Geil value RAM dualchannel kit, not sure about which graphics card to get and which nforce4 motherboard would be best (although I know I won't be needing SLI) and I was thinking about getting one of Enermax's cheaper ATX2 models.

So basically does:
AMD Athlon 64 3200 skt939 retail £112
1gb Geil Value Dual Channel Kit £58
ATI X800GTO £105 / X1600Pro £105 / X800GTO16 £123 / nVidia 6800GS £135
Asus A8N5X £61 / Gigabyte K8N £65 / MSI K8N Neo4F £68
Enermax Noisetaker 370W £41 (is this powerful enough considering its a good brand and won't be doing any SLI, or would I need 400w+?)

Sound like a good plan? Which graphics card is the best option - I know that the X800s don't have Pixel Shader 3, but is the X1600Pro quick enough and is the 6800GS worth the extra money over the rest?

Dark_Angel · 3 Mar 2006 at 18:00

If you wish to play games, then truthfully you are not going to have much luck with it lasting 2 years.

Even if you buy a dual core CPU, and 2GB of ram, plus a 7800GTX the problem is that UT 2007 will use that hardware quite nicely, and then next year you will need to put things at a very low resolution to enjoy them.... its a shame, but gaming is becoming a lot more pricey

ste_bla · 3 Mar 2006 at 18:09

buy a xbox £360 if you want more than a year of good quality gaming tbh

act smiley · 3 Mar 2006 at 18:13

Yeah, the priceyness sucks - I spent £100 on a Geforce 3 and its only really toward the end of last year it couldn't keep up and now everything seems to have got even quicker in terms of how fast its out of date.
Still though, I think for me personally now is the right time to buy, as I don't think I'll have the cash to spare in the future. With that in mind, do you think those would be good purchases in the short to medium term, rather than long-term?

Dark_Angel · 3 Mar 2006 at 18:51

If possible, drop to a athlon 64 939 venice 3000, buy cheaper ram if possible, and grab an x800XT or something similar. Hmm... is 400 the max you can go?

ste_bla · 3 Mar 2006 at 19:13

And then in a year get something along the lines of a x1800 which should be cheap by then!

brightside_ · 3 Mar 2006 at 19:43

unless it's second hand, it's unlikely the X1800 will be around by then

ste_bla · 3 Mar 2006 at 19:46

Pretty sure it will be as iirc the x500 was around ~1 year ago when i first got my PC

Explicit · 3 Mar 2006 at 19:57

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3700BNBOX) (CP-121-AM)
£152.69
Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS)
£72.79
OcUK Value 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-004-OK)
£46.94
HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X800 GTO ICEQII TURBO 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (RX800GTO-256ICEQT) (GX-044-HT)
£105.69
FSP Sparkle ATX-400PNF 400W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-006-SK)
£30.49

Total inc VAT: £408.60

BigDom · 3 Mar 2006 at 20:36

ste_bla said:
Pretty sure it will be as iirc the x500 was around ~1 year ago when i first got my PC

Given stocks are low and production has stopped, no the X1800 won't be available in a years time.

ste_bla · 3 Mar 2006 at 20:43

x1900 then, you get the general idea thou

ACESHIGH · 3 Mar 2006 at 21:40

Explicit said:
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3700BNBOX) (CP-121-AM)
£152.69
Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS)
£72.79
OcUK Value 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-004-OK)
£46.94
HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X800 GTO ICEQII TURBO 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (RX800GTO-256ICEQT) (GX-044-HT)
£105.69
FSP Sparkle ATX-400PNF 400W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-006-SK)
£30.49

Total inc VAT: £408.60

Thats a damn good spec, now thats your best bet imo.

Soul Rider · 4 Mar 2006 at 13:05

Yeah, Explicit comes up trumps again. Very nice spec.

Explicit · 4 Mar 2006 at 13:28

Cheers guys!

act smiley · 4 Mar 2006 at 22:06

That does sound rather tempting, except for one thing - I've gone over my money again and I've managed to sort out an extra £100 that I can spend on it without starving. Would a 7800GT be worth the extra money?

Explicit · 4 Mar 2006 at 22:23

act smiley said:
That does sound rather tempting, except for one thing - I've gone over my money again and I've managed to sort out an extra £100 that I can spend on it without starving. Would a 7800GT be worth the extra money?

Well, the 7800GT would make a huge difference. So yeah, you can just add that to the above spec if you like. Also consider the ATI X1800 range as they are better than the 7800GT, even the XL.

Or you can upgrade the ram to 2GB and get a better power supply, such as the tagan 420w.

ACESHIGH · 4 Mar 2006 at 22:36

The best bang per buck card at the moment is .. if you do want a better card ...
Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO) £229.07*Including VAT
This Week Only Price !

Quicker Than a 7800GTX, so much quicker than the 7800GT, for not much more.