A few questions...

RaGe · 19 Mar 2006 at 15:39

Hi all,

I have an aging p4 northwood 3ghz build with 1 meg of crucial pc3200 dual ddr ram and a x850 xt pe which I use almost exclusively for gaming/lans. The p4 is really starting to bottle neck..

Now I have £1500 budget to upgrade.

My questions are, should I wait 4 months and see what the intel conroe and the new am2 AMD stuff is like?

If so is there any quick fixes I can buy now to give me a performance boost?

Thanks,

Rob.

Alexrose1uk · 19 Mar 2006 at 15:55

You could always spend £300, and get an agp nforce3 board, a san diego 3700+ and another gig of ram to tide you over

That way you get a processor better for games, and another gig of ram for preventing those annoying swapfiles and have £1200 in case you decide to upgrade in 6 months

Runningkid · 19 Mar 2006 at 16:03

i suggest the asrock board with both AGP and PCI-E , more room for upgrade later.

Alexrose1uk · 19 Mar 2006 at 17:57

Tis what I'm getting, unfortunately, my first board arrived doa arrival from an electronic buyer site, so I'm going to have to wait around a week no doubt for a replacement...will be agony

RaGe · 19 Mar 2006 at 20:33

Which ram would be best to get?

ACESHIGH · 19 Mar 2006 at 23:46

GeIL Value ram is good for the price

RaGe · 20 Mar 2006 at 08:16

How does this sound?

Asrock ULi M1695/M1567
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-150-AM)
Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-079-CS)
Coolermaster Hyper6+ RR-UNH-P0U1 Cooler (Socket 754/939/478/LGA775) (HS-021-CM)

I currently have a enermax 400w PSU, should I upgrade that too?

Thanks,

Rob.

ACESHIGH · 20 Mar 2006 at 13:10

The 3700+ is a great single core CPU.
Corsair ram is good too.

as for the enermax 400w PSU - should have no problems, i wouldnt buy a new PSU.

RaGe · 20 Mar 2006 at 13:14

Thanks for the advice!

Would anyone else recommend another type of ram over what I have specced?

Cheers,

Rob.

ACESHIGH · 20 Mar 2006 at 13:16

you have something against Geil value ram?

RaGe · 20 Mar 2006 at 13:21

No no.. just been out of touch for a long time and was wondering if anyone else had an opinion.

I didn't mean to cause offence.

On a side note for an extra £53 I could get an x2 3800+.
Would it be worth it?

Cheers,

Rob.

ACESHIGH · 20 Mar 2006 at 13:32

No, no offence taken, just though you had missed the post & was redirecting your attention.

If it was me, i would go for the X2 3800+. They are pretty good clockers. More & more games & apps are being patched to dual core or made with dual core in mind. And if you want to use multiple apps then definitely get the X2.

BTW - if you want the best ram, get either the Mushkin Redline or Mushkin Extreme Performance.

RaGe · 20 Mar 2006 at 20:05

Ok, almost made up my mind now.

Asrock ULi M1695/M1567
AMD Athlon 64 4200+ X2 Manchester 90nm OEM
2gb Mushkin Extreme Performance
Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower

Next question, I have a 400w enermax psu. Will I need to upgrade it to run the above? I will still be using my x850 XT PE agp 8x card. 3 hdd's running too..

Cheers,

Rob.

Alexrose1uk · 20 Mar 2006 at 23:01

I'd recommend it. It might not be necessary but you're powering more stuff, and also, perhaps consider some of the GSkill, I think it might be cheaper, and if you're not clocking, the ZX has some seriously nice stock timings.

ACESHIGH · 21 Mar 2006 at 06:25

imo, the 400w enermax psu, should be fine, but it might pay to get a 550w+ psu if you intend getting a better card at some point like the X1900XT - they use a fair bit more power.

Perhaps...
Akasa Ultra Quiet 550W PowerPlus Active PFC ATX2.0 PSU - Black Nickel (CA-014-AK)
£79.84 Including VAT