AM2 Spec

[Founder_film]

Just thinking about upgrading my PC to go along side my Mac for programming at uni. I have been looking at the new AM2 socketed Athlons 64's. What do you guys reckon to this spec?? I only need CPU, Mobo, RAM, GPU and PSU.

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1.80GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-162-AM) Price: £54.95 (£64.57 Including VAT at 17.5%)

MSI K9N Neo-F nForce 550 (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-071-MS) Price: £49.95 (£58.69 Including VAT at 17.5%)

GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB5300DC) (MY-030-GL) Price: £54.95 (£64.57 Including VAT at 17.5%)

PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 GTO 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-061-PC) Price: £119.95 (£140.94 Including VAT at 17.5%)

FSP Sparkle ATX-400PNF 400W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-006-SK) Price: £25.95 (£30.49 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Total: £359.26 Including VAT

As you can see I am going for cheap, but I am hoping that I can upgrade to a X2 cpu if I need to in future as AM2 is a new socket and will be around a while.

I will use the PC for gaming and programming, do you think it will do alright? How about Call of Duty 2 and Half Life 2, will it run them ok? I am not after a work horse as I do everything on my Mac accept gaming and programming.

So any suggestions? I might be looking to overclock the CPU a bit to try and get as much as I can for £65.

Thanks in advance.

 

[PinkFloyd]

Looks fine. Graphics card will cope with HL2 no problem, and I imagine COD will be good too.

I presume you already have a case and harddrives etc

 

[SiriusB]

Aye that looks pretty good to me. Will handle the likes of HL2 just fine. Heh, programming wont be a problem either. In fact it will increase productivity! You get compiler errors at lightning speeds now



SiriusB

 

[Founder_film]

Rats I forgot about a hard drive but thats not hard probably get the following:

Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA) Price: £37.95 (£44.59 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Yeah I got case, keyboard, mouse, DVD drive etc etc Hoping to get a 20" widescreen TFT for my Mac with a DVI and AGP input so I can swap between the two computers on the one monitor.

So it all looks good? I have had Half Life 2 on my shelf for ages got it for £12 but my Athlon XP 3200+ and Radeon 9600pro did not do it justice so I stopped playing till I get an upgrade.