Advice needed on upgrade

[[email protected]]

Hi all

I've had a horrible time with a Gigabyte P35-DS3R, the horror stories around the web about it's memory controller seem to be true. It won't allow any overclock of RAM, and after a time it stops working even at stock speeds. Put some new sticks in and everything is rosy, meanwhile put your old sticks in aother machine and they're fine. It just seems to get bored and need a change! All very strange.

Anyway I digress. I've made do for the last few months with this board to wait for Nehalem, but am disappointed by yesterdays Nehalem reviews as all I do on this PC is play games. I'll stick with Penryn until next years 'Tick'.

My current setup:

- Giga P35C-DS3R
- E6750 2.66G dual, clocked at 2.66 due to board flakiness
- 1 x 2GB PC6400 PC World generic RAM (board flakiness)
- ECS Nvidia 8800GTS 320MB
- On-board audio, LAN, etc
- 1 x Hitachi Deskstar 250GB SATA
- Corsair HX620 PSU

Ok, so I want more gaming speed, and although the money isn't critical I'd like it to be a cost-effective upgrade. My current thinking is:

- New mobo - P45 or X48? Which chipset and which board?
- Stick with current CPU and clock it, plan to move to quad after Penryn prices are cut due to Nehalem launch
- 2 x 2GB PC8500 Kingston HyperX on special atm
- ATI Radeon 4870 - 512MB or 1GB?

What do you think of the above? Which mobo should I go for, which gfx card? Also will my Corsair 620W PSU support this new rig, assuming I'm going to push the CPU to 3Ghz?

Thanks in advance!!

Bertie

 

[pastymuncher]

I have a rev 2.0 DS3R and have'nt had a single problem with it. I have had my E5200 up to 3.7Ghz prime stable and my Geil Ultra PC2 6400 kit running at 900mhz. Have you flashed to the latest bios? It could be your generic ram that's at fault. When you tried overclocking did you adjust the ram speed as you raised the fsb? They are linked and you may have inadvertantly clocked your ram past it's stock speed which would have led to instability or even refusing to boot. Do you know about the advanced options on Gigabyte boards? You have to hit Ctrl+F1 on the main bios menu screen to bring them all up in M.I.T.

There will not be a price drop due to the launch of core i7. Prices are rising due to the poor exchange rate.

 

[[email protected]]

Have you flashed to the latest bios? It could be your generic ram that's at fault. When you tried overclocking did you adjust the ram speed as you raised the fsb? They are linked and you may have inadvertantly clocked your ram past it's stock speed which would have led to instability or even refusing to boot. Do you know about the advanced options on Gigabyte boards? You have to hit Ctrl+F1 on the main bios menu screen to bring them all up in M.I.T.

There will not be a price drop due to the launch of core i7. Prices are rising due to the poor exchange rate.

Hi, yes I'm convinced it's the board at fault, I've been building for about 10 years so although not a pro I have a good grasp of what's what. I've been through 2 sets of Crucial Ballistix in this board already, both of which are now working fine in friends' PC's. I've tried all BIOS versions, same issues.

It could be an incompatibility issue between Crucial and this board, but since I've been offered an RMA for it I may as well replace it and save the worry.

So onto my other questions...? I'm particularly interested in other board and chipset choices, and whether my PSU will support my proposed new rig?


Thx
B

 

[pastymuncher]

I would stick with your current cpu as it should clock to 3.2-3.4Ghz with a decent cooler.

Your psu is fine.

What res do you game at? 4850 for 22" and below. 4870 for 24" and above. I think that 1GB is only worth it on massive monitors although i could be wrong.

Kingstons own website list's that ram as having timings of 7-7-7-20 which are appalling. I would'nt touch them. Look's like OCUK has the description wrong yet again. I would spend the extra for this kit. That really is fantastic ram.

For a motherboard, assuming that you will not be going crossfire at some point, i would go for a Asus P5Q Pro. If you will be going crossfire then a X38/48 board would be the way to go.