A good buy?

Azonic-Mantra · 4 Jun 2007 at 10:46

Hi guys

First post as i think i may look at overclocking my latest purchase. It will be my first attempt and i was wondering if i could get an opinion on this system. I got it for £175 from ebay, was it a good deal or could i have built this myself cheaper?

Spec:

> AMD Athlon64 3700+ San Diego Core
> Nvidia 7600GT with Zalman Cooler and RAM Sinks
> 1GB (2x512 Dual Channel) Geil RAM
> Maxtor 200GB Sata2 Hard Drive
> Asus DVD RW
> Gigabyte Motherboard

Any advice on what to upgrade would be greatly appreciated

semi-pro waster · 4 Jun 2007 at 11:04

Welcome to the forums, using those parts you can't build it new from OcUK cheaper, in fact it would probably cost an extra £50 or so. Which makes it a bit of a bargain in that sense however there isn't too much scope to upgrade since socket 939 does not have any new CPUs being made for it.

Before looking at upgrading what does the system not do that you want it to? There is no real point in upgrading just for the sake of it.

Azonic-Mantra · 4 Jun 2007 at 11:14

Hi and thanks for responding so quickly. The system is on its way so i havent had a chance to run it yet. I had a feeling it was cheap for £175, but thanks for confirming this.

I have to admit i'm a semi noob, i have never overclocked and im still trying to get my head around all these different socket types etc.

I have a few pictures of the system that i was going to attached but couldnt for some reason. It appears from the picture that the motherboard may be able to support SLI so i was thinking maybe adding another 7600gt. How much would this cost?

My current card is a geforce 5600 so i guess i'm going to notice a big difference already? but would an additional 7600gt give me an even bigger change?

If you could direct me on how to show attached pictures it would be great if you could tell me some more about the parts (the ebay seller was a bit quiet on this)

Many thanks

semi-pro waster · 4 Jun 2007 at 11:25

Since the system is socket 939 it could be either AGP or PCI-E, if PCI-E then there is a chance it might be capable of SLi but it depends on the motherboard. A new card would cost around £65 such as this one however it normally isn't worth going for SLi, your PSU might not be up to it and it is usually more effective buying a new single graphics card solution.

Just see what the system is though before deciding on upgrades, you will notice a huge difference from a 5600 anyway.

You can't attach pictures directly, you need to use tags linking to outside webspace (such as Imageshack etc or a website you own) but the code is [ IMG]http://youraddresshere.com/imagename.jpg[ /IMG] without the spaces and then you should be able to show the pictures.

Azonic-Mantra · 4 Jun 2007 at 11:38

Brilliant

Thanks for all your help, i'll take your advice and run it first, see how it performs and then look at upgrades.

Dureth · 4 Jun 2007 at 11:59

A 7600gt will be a big boost over your old 5600. That system does have the option of buying a dual core socket 939 CPU in the future, although due to rarity these are now quite expensive.