£400 gaming rig

[krooton]

A mate wants to upgrade his machine, but is limited to £400.

He wants to re-use his 9600GT, but with the limited budget, the best I could manage is this:

image removed because it might breach forum T&Cs (thought I am not sure how)
or

Anything I could improve on but keep it at £400?

 

[waso_dude]

i'd remove the competitor cart unless u want to risk a ban,

 

[krooton]

i'd remove the competitor cart unless u want to risk a ban,

How? There is no mention of the comp, and I am hosting the image on my site...?

 

[reiyushin]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-249-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1328

Get the X2 instead of the X3 put the £30 you save into a good cooler and overclock/(maybe) unlock it

 

[krooton]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-249-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1328

Get the X2 instead of the X3 put the £30 you save into a good cooler and overclock/(maybe) unlock it

Is unlocking mobo dependant, and if so, is the one I chose up to the task?

 

[R088ieS86]

If you wanted to go down the Intel route:

If you have a left over HDD i would get a decent cooler and over clock the CPU.

 

[ssmacc]

How about the below, although I'd get hold of a 'X3 435' if you can find one elsewhere (don't know why Overclockers don't stock them?). As stated elsewhere use the spare cash to get a good cooler and Overclock away!

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Corsair 4GB (2X2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMV4GX3M2A1333C9) £74.58
(£63.47) £74.58
(£63.47)
AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3) - Retail £71.99
(£61.27) £71.99
(£61.27)
OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Certified Modular Power Supply £64.99
(£55.31) £64.99
(£55.31)
Asus M4A78LT-M LE AMD 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £57.99
(£49.35) £57.99
(£49.35)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £39.99
(£34.03) £39.99
(£34.03)
Coolermaster Elite 334 Midi Case - Black £27.99
(£23.82) £27.99
(£23.82)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
(£15.31) £17.99
(£15.31)
Sub Total : £302.56
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.25
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £54.92
Total : £368.73

 

[reiyushin]

Is unlocking mobo dependant, and if so, is the one I chose up to the task?

It is mobo dependant, something to do with the southbridge....but I'm not sure SB710 and SB750 is what I think you need.

 

[ssmacc]

It is mobo dependant, something to do with the southbridge....but I'm not sure SB710 and SB750 is what I think you need.

SB710, very easy to do (takes seconds), but it either works or it doesn't...

 

[Banzai_Joe]

If your mate is 'upgrading' does he need a new case? dvdrw? hdd?
The savings if he doesn't could be quite handsome and put towards much better components.

 

[krooton]

If your mate is 'upgrading' does he need a new case? dvdrw? hdd?
The savings if he doesn't could be quite handsome and put towards much better components.

He isn't sure, and will be giving me a list of what he currently has now for me to review, but I am going on the basis of him having a machine from 2004, so probably need to replace everything, lol.

 

[Banzai_Joe]

Lol, err yeah, i'd say go for new in that case.

 

[Ast3r]

Here is a good spec for 400 quid.

 

[thingemajib]

i would go with the x2 and try my luck with the unlock (im running a sempron 140 and plan to do just that once my next paycheque comes through

from what i gather, gigabyte boards in general (with sb710, 750) seem to have the best unlocking potential, but obviously this depends mostly on it being a good CPU.

Ive also heard about asus boards allowing you to choose to unlock both extra cores, or one extra core of your choice in a recent bios update. not sure if that applies to all sb710/750 asus boards or just specific models though