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Advise needed for temporary 939 upgrade.

Zaphrod

Zaphrod

Zaphrod

Associate
Joined
13 Feb 2003
Posts
342
Hi all,

My gaming rig is a bit long in the tooth and the UT3 demo really put the point home. I currently have a Lanparty UT NF4 SLI-D with an opteron 146 which I am no longer overclocking due to artifacts appearing now at almost any speed. I have a 7800gt and what I would like to do is buy a 8800gtx and get the best CPU that this board will take but I am unsure as to what is still available and what is the best of the lot. Again this is meant to be an economical and temporary upgrade so an FX57 or whatever at £500+ would not be suitable, I am looking cheap. If this is not really feasible what would be the best value upgrade for me? Say in the region of £600 including the graphics card.

I currently have
Coolermaster Wave Master
Lanparty UT NF4 SLI-D
Opteron 146 with Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower
2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR PC4000
GeForce 7800GT 256MB
all the other peripheral gubbins

I would like to use as much from above as possible but get a decent boost in performance and as I already mentioned an 8800GTX is what this should be based around so if upgrading to the fastest 939 would still be a CPU bottleneck then what is the option on Motherboard/CPU that would make use of my other parts such as memory and heatsink?

Thanks
 
Ok, having a little look around I am now seriously considering the e2180 and a new motherboard so now the question has become what value motherboard can I use with this CPU and my current ram and get a decent OC, alternatively if my ram is not suitable recommendations on RAM and Motheboard. If I set a budget of £600 I have so far:

e2180 = £58.74
OCUK 8800GTX = £299.61

which leaves £241.65 for anything else, 2GB ram if necessary and motherboard, maybe a new heat sink if required but I would hope my Zalman would still do the trick.

Any thoughts? improvements for the cost.
 
Try the below. Of course this is with the assumption that your current PSU is up to the task, and bear in mind that most new Mobo's these days come with only 1 IDE slot on them.

552_screen.jpg
 
Looks good and quite cheap too, thanks. Whats the gigabyte board like for overclocking? What about the Heatsink, is there any real benefit to buying a new one or will mine do the job? if so which one would you recommend?
 
Zaphrod said:
Looks good and quite cheap too, thanks. Whats the gigabyte board like for overclocking? What about the Heatsink, is there any real benefit to buying a new one or will mine do the job? if so which one would you recommend?
Click to expand...

My overclock with a Giga DS3, check the the FSB and its totally stable

2217_screen1.jpg


By heatsink I presume you mean the one for your CPU. Your current one won't fit but you get the standard one with the CPU, but I'd recommend the Arctic Freezer 7, keeps my CPU at extremely respectable temps and its cheap.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-017-AR&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=821
 
ManCuBuS said:
By heatsink I presume you mean the one for your CPU. Your current one won't fit but you get the standard one with the CPU, but I'd recommend the Arctic Freezer 7, keeps my CPU at extremely respectable temps and its cheap.
]
Click to expand...

Why wont my current one fit? Zalman says it is suitable for Core2duo, it is a problem with the motherboard?

Nice OC what kind of memory are you using? Any chance the OCZ will do that well?
 
Last edited:
The X2 4200 skt 939 is a good buy at the moment and should overclock nicely to FX 60, 2.6Ghz or beyond with little effort. While your 3dmark06 scores will be a little lower, ingame with the GTX you'll be more than happy.

Add in an OEM GTX and save the rest for a new year upgrade when AMD and Intel sort out the new options.

One thing you don't mention is PSU...

Is yours up to the job of a GTX and a dual core? Your're going to need around 30A @ 12v so you may need to budget for a Corsair hx 520 or better.

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I currently have a Hiper HPU-4K580-MK Type R power supply, I don't know if that is sufficient. I have 4 hard drives and a DVD-RW also. Might need to consider something better but maybe I will try it and see then buy another if its not enough.
 
Zaphrod said:
Why wont my current one fit? Zalman says it is suitable for Core2duo, it is a problem with the motherboard?

Nice OC what kind of memory are you using? Any chance the OCZ will do that well?
Click to expand...

It says its suitable then it should be fine. My apologies.

I'm running some OcUK PC8500 1066mhz ram so its still actually underclocked, leaving more headroom for overclocking at some point if my chip will take it.
 
Well, I have gone with ManCuBuS' suggestion .. thanks, but with Value PC2 8500 memory instead of the branded 6400. We'll see if that was a good decision or not.
 
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