Big upgrade help

lvad48 · 17 Jun 2009 at 12:54

Hi im in the process of prepping for a major upgradehaving only fitted hard drives, ram and graphics cards before im a little cautious...

Anyways i have a budget of around £300 for a new motherboard, processor andgraphics card. My problem is that my case has a 450 watt psu (its an antec sonata 2 if that helps) so i don't want to go over the top but i do want a fairly good system.

Im currently running an E4500 which is completely standard, i guess what im basically asking is to be specced something good and cheap.

shadowake · 17 Jun 2009 at 13:09

Slightly over but with DDR3 memory:

Asus M4A78T-E AMD 790GX (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £98.99
(£86.08) £98.99
(£86.08)
AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3) - Retail AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3) - Retail £79.99
(£69.56) £79.99
(£69.56)
Asus ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail Asus ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £74.99
(£65.21) £74.99
(£65.21)
OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Dual Channel (OCZ3P13334GK) OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Dual Channel (OCZ3P13334GK) £46.99
(£40.86) £46.99
(£40.86)
Sub Total : £261.71
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £40.68
Total : £311.89

lvad48 · 17 Jun 2009 at 13:12

Sorry to be a pain but can someone explain the amd vs intel battle atm, until my current system i alway used amd

cmndr_andi · 17 Jun 2009 at 13:12

Here is my idea, should give you a nice speed boost:

That PSU should be fine for this upgrade.

If you already have 4GB of decent DDR2 RAM then re-use that.

If you want to try overclocking the CPU (that AMD X3 can hit 3.8GHz) you will need a nice cooler like this.

Building a PC is not too tough and you clearly have already got some good experience with your upgrades. Have a good look at the motherboard manual and some youtube videos to clear up any gaps in your knowledge.

shadowake · 17 Jun 2009 at 13:20

lvad48 said:
Sorry to be a pain but can someone explain the amd vs intel battle atm, until my current system i alway used amd

ATM AMD wins on budget Intel takes the high spec/price stuff.

lvad48 · 17 Jun 2009 at 16:26

Are the motherboards above any good for overclocking i know it seems a lot to ask for especially running a 450 watt psu but im feeling experimental now