Another CPU/Mobo/RAM spec request

Pyroblaze · 20 Jan 2009 at 00:25

I just ordered a GTX 295 and a couple of other things (not all from OcUk) earlier on today. I was going to wait to upgrade the mobo, ram and cpu in the next month or so but decided to do it now while i'm in the upgrade mood, if i leave it for a while i'll probably not get round to it.

Heres what i've ordered so far :

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-082-BG&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1324
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-147-CM&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-038-AC&groupid=17&catid=510&subcat=

So now i need CPU, motherboard and ram to complete the upgrade.

For the RAM i'd prefer 8GB, as i'm starting to find 4GB is slowing me down when alt tabbing to desktop with certain memory hungry games, i'd rather have more left over for other apps so i lessen that slow down.

Motherboard and cpu... i don't have a clue what is good and whats not with this nowadays, the last time i knew what was what was about 2 years ago.

Budget is around £400, so need some opinions on what to get. The PC is used for gaming mostly so the aim is for gaming performance. I do enjoy overclocking.

Edit - CPU Cooler may need to be included in there, if people say i7 is the route to go then i've no idea if my Tuniq Tower will be reusable for it.

spitzoid · 20 Jan 2009 at 00:29

Hmmm, Are you not interested in going for an i7, 6GB Triple Channel DDR3 set-up for an extra £150-£200?

Pyroblaze · 20 Jan 2009 at 00:32

For an extra 150 - 200? No thanks, i don't see what spending that kind of money extra is going to gain for me over tradition C2D chips.

Graphics cards i don't mind spending a lot on, but i've never been one to spend hundreds upon hundreds on CPU's when i can just overclock them. Most i've ever spent was £160 on the E6850 i'm using just now. I hadn't realised i7 was that expensive tbh, so i guess whatever spec people come up with won't be on i7. About the most i can stretch to for these 3 items is £450.

95thrifles · 20 Jan 2009 at 00:38

go for the Asus P5QPro bout 105quid
E8500 bout 160 and is best bang for buck at moment
and get 8 gig of Corsair PC8500, well within your budget , prices from memory so dont shoot me if slightly out
enjoy

spitzoid · 20 Jan 2009 at 00:45

An i7 920 can be had for £50 more than you paid for your current one! You can o/c the core i7's as well you know?

I doubt you will see anything like the performance of your 295 that you have seen in the online reviews without an i7 tbh. But, if you're dead against it then I guess you will have to have some sort of awesome watercooling to come anywhere close to it?

jak731 · 20 Jan 2009 at 00:46

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £96.99
(£111.54) £96.99
(£111.54)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Platinum Series DDR2 (OCZ2P10664GK) £49.99
(£57.49) £99.98
(£114.98)
Sub Total : £196.97
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DHL @ Home Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.49
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £30.82
Total : £236.28

i have missed the CPU out because i think you could try and see if you can overclock your current cpu a bit more, and a 65nm core2duo shouldnt be too much of a bottleneck, however if you do want a new cpu, you can get either
an e8400, that will be under your £450 budget

or

the OEM q9550, however this requires you to already have a lga775 cpu cooler, hopefully not a stock one, as no cooler is provided and will also take you about £16 over budget inc del

for the MB, i picked a P45 board as i doubt you will be running GTX295s in sli especially for a 24" monitor

Pyroblaze · 20 Jan 2009 at 01:23

spitzoid said:
An i7 920 can be had for £50 more than you paid for your current one! You can o/c the core i7's as well you know?

I doubt you will see anything like the performance of your 295 that you have seen in the online reviews without an i7 tbh. But, if you're dead against it then I guess you will have to have some sort of awesome watercooling to come anywhere close to it?

From what i can see on OcUK, the cheapest i7 cpu and motherboard would come to £400 alone which is around the price i'd rather stick to, £450 is a stretch but doable.... £550+ isn't.

Surely an i7 isnt going to make that much difference? Remember, i play games... not benchmark them.

Re-reading your post makes it sound like anything but an i7 will make the 295 run crap. From all ive seen they are certainly not that good, better than C2D yes but the diffwerences are not as massive as you're trying to make it sound :s

Pyroblaze · 20 Jan 2009 at 01:27

jak731 said:
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £96.99
(£111.54) £96.99
(£111.54)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Platinum Series DDR2 (OCZ2P10664GK) £49.99
(£57.49) £99.98
(£114.98)
Sub Total : £196.97
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DHL @ Home Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.49
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £30.82
Total : £236.28

i have missed the CPU out because i think you could try and see if you can overclock your current cpu a bit more, and a 65nm core2duo shouldnt be too much of a bottleneck, however if you do want a new cpu, you can get either
an e8400, that will be under your £450 budget

or

the OEM q9550, however this requires you to already have a lga775 cpu cooler, hopefully not a stock one, as no cooler is provided and will also take you about £16 over budget inc del

for the MB, i picked a P45 board as i doubt you will be running GTX295s in sli especially for a 24" monitor

If i don't have to upgrade the CPU then its fine if i don't. I simply want the rest of the system not to be holding back the 295. 3.7Ghz is as much as i can get my current cpu to run stable at in the DS3, but the DS3 isn't even supposed to support it

If new mobo will get more life out of it then that's fine.

Nah i won't be sli'ing 295's.

Pyroblaze · 20 Jan 2009 at 09:45

Has anyone upgraded from a good C2D system to an i7 system lately that knows how much gaming performance differences there are between the two? I simply can't accept people saying that performance will be crap without one, i'd rather have hard facts.

95thrifles · 20 Jan 2009 at 09:55

I havent done it so am not speaking from experience but I gather the i7 doesnt make much if any difference to gaming at all at present, kinda like getting quad is no advantage over dual. If youre wanting the best bang for buck performance re gaming at the moment you cant go wrong with a high end DDR2 based socket 775 system, those advocating quads for gaming or i7 rigs for gaming are trying to future proof your system (impossible) and guess whats going to happen in future, a lot of speculation that "more and more games are going to start using quad cores", imo, theyve been around a while now and there arent many games using them so for me I'd stick to earlier recomendation of C2D/775

spitzoid · 20 Jan 2009 at 10:00

Pyroblaze said:
I simply can't accept people saying that performance will be crap without one

I'm not saying a C2D system will be crap but if you look at all the benchmarking that is done on the top-end GPUs e.g. the 295 you have ordered, 99.9% of it is done on a test system with a Core i7 in the middle.

It would just be a risk imo to buy a C2D thinking that you will achieve the same results - You might be disappointed. Saying that I have not seen the same tests done with a C2D.

Also, DDR3 is obviously going to perform better than DDR2.