Advice required

snoopdopey · 24 Jun 2007 at 17:04

Hi all,

I'm going to upgrade my pc but haven't kept myself up to date with all the changes in hardware. Four years ago I wouldn't have needed to post this but times have changed!

I want to upgrade so that I can play Call of Duty: Modern Combat, Crysis, Colin Mcrae: Dirt and the new GTA when they are all out. I'm not bothered about having all settings up "max", just a medium to high at smooth fps rate would be fine

I was thinking of buying the following:

Asrock ALiveXFire-eSATA2 (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £52.86

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+ 2.40GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail £79.89

OcUK 1GB (2x512MB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £21.14

HIS ATI Radeon X1950 Pro ICEQ 3 V2 TURBO SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (H195PRQT512DD-R) £135.11

Samsung SH-S182D 18x18 DVD±RW ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.26

I'm going to get a new 22" widescreen monitor towards the end of the year so will leave that out for now.

I already have PSU, Hard disks, cd-rw etc... It's really just a speed boost on cpu and gfx that I think I need. I figured if this setup works for a year and a bit I can always buy a second gfx and link them up to get a bit more life out of the system - I'm not a serial upgrader, only what I need when I really need to!

So, do you think the above would allow me to play the new games at a reasonable speed/quality?

Thanks.

Cupra · 24 Jun 2007 at 17:06

whats your full budget

"claimed!"

semi-pro waster · 24 Jun 2007 at 17:08

Welcome to the forums. I'd probably suggest something like this, it shoudl also allow good potential for overclocking.

Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £81.99
(£96.34) £81.99
(£96.34)
Optiarc NEC AD7170S Serial ATA 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £89.99
(£105.74) £89.99
(£105.74)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £68.99
(£81.06) £68.99
(£81.06)
Crucial 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C5 Dual Channel Kit (CT2KIT12864AA667) £42.99
(£50.51) £42.99
(£50.51)
Sub Total : £300.95
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £54.23
Total : £364.13

snoopdopey · 24 Jun 2007 at 17:09

As little as possible!!!

I want to get hardware that will play the games I listed without jitters in the fps mainly. I've been running on bits and bobs off mutliple machines up until now! I currently have a 3500 amd 64 with 2Gb pc3200 ddr and Ati 9700pro - It's on it's last legs...

Ps. This will shock some forum people but I used to be into tweaking and overclocking but really don't have the time now, too busy with other things. I'm just looking for something "plug and play".

snoopdopey · 24 Jun 2007 at 17:13

Semi-Pro Waster,

Are the Intel chips better than AMD now? Also, would the cheaper gfx card give the same performance? What does the extra £40 get me on that motherboard?

I thought the 1Gb ram wouldn't be enough, you have just confirmed my suspicions!

bliss · 24 Jun 2007 at 17:16

Samsung SH-S203BEBN 20x20 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Gigabyte GA_P35_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Gigabyte GA_P35_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £79.99
(£93.99) £79.99
(£93.99)
Intel Core 2 DUO E4400 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail Intel Core 2 DUO E4400 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £79.99
(£93.99) £79.99
(£93.99)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail OcUK GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £149.99
(£176.24) £149.99
(£176.24)
Crucial 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C5 Dual Channel Kit (CT2KIT12864AA667) Crucial 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C5 Dual Channel Kit (CT2KIT12864AA667) £42.99
(£50.51) £42.99
(£50.51)
Sub Total : £369.95
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £66.31
Total : £445.21

With the games you have listed the above spec should do you proud.

snoopdopey · 24 Jun 2007 at 17:45

Ok, I can see some trends coming through.

Why would you choose intel over amd? Also, I see that the nvidia card has less memory than the ati card, how will that affect it's longevity?

For someone who will not be overclocking, will I notice a difference between branded ram and ocUK ram?

Thanks.

Cupra · 24 Jun 2007 at 18:07

to be honest if your not overclocking get an amd setup its cheaper and a little faster stock speeds

semi-pro waster · 24 Jun 2007 at 22:43

Intel chips do tend to be better for overclocking at the moment and performance at stock is good but depending on the prices it can make sense to go for AMD still if you aren't overclocking.

The Sapphire graphics card will perform as well as the HIS one because almost all graphics cards are built to the reference design, the cooler is possibly not as good but it will make very little difference. The 8800GTS is better than both though and does support DX10 (for whenever that actually matters) but more importantly it is faster for current games and the lower amount of memory matters little for the resolutions you would be playing at.

Branded or non-branded Ram won't affect you too much if you aren't overclocking, the OcUK stuff is bog-standard generic Ram which will do what you ask of it but have a look as sometimes there is other Ram that is cheaper. e.g. for the 2gb PC6400 OcUK kit it is £58.74 but for the 2gb PC5300 Crucial kit it is £50.51 (and it is fine for stock speeds).