building a budget pc with big upgradability.

Arge

Arge

Arge

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Hey,

Basically I want to build myself a pc at around christmas time as my current rig is sorta dated.........

P Supply : ******** - 550watt powersupply
MBoard : Asus - a7n8x-e deluxe motherboard
Processor : AMD - athlon xp 3200+
GPU : ExpertVision - Nvidia Geforce 6600gt 256mb
Ram : No Brand - 1gb pc3200 ram (2x512)
HD : 2x Maxtor - 120gb 7200rpm ide/pata hard drives

Oi, dont laugh !!

Anywho, I am having real trouble deciding which route to go , this is why i am getting on the case early!

So i have a few questions to get the ball rolling....

1. My first concern is that i eventually want Dx10 (just watched crysis vid on google video!), now am i rite in thinking that its just a Dx10 compatible graphics card i will need for this ?

2. secondly, as im after futureproofing, would Am2 or core2/775 be my best option ? now i have read how conroe kicks ass but remember its a budget pc so i will always be a couple of years behind on hardware so i was thinking amd single core 64bit in an am2 socket with upgrade path to dual core ??

3. lastly, what do you guys think of asus motherboards ? Bearing in mind that i dont want to go mad with overclocking, have only ever experienced using coolbits on my 6600gt so inexperienced id say ! Im looking more for stable standard performance. What you think ?

Cheers guys, i come to you with the view that sum time soon i will know the exact spec of my budget pc build !
 
I think your best bet is to go for a conroe capable motherboard and then fill in the rest of the system around that. If you can afford a core 2 then great otherwise get a cheaper P4 / PD and upgrade the cpu at a later date.

The best thing you can do is give us a budget so we can see what fits.

Basically that PSU is no-name and probably not a good idea to use with a fast cpu/graphics card. Your hard drives are fine as is any optical device. So you need PSU, mobo, cpu, memory, graphics.
 
Thanks, yeh the only reason i was thinking am2 is that it is fairly new out so shouldnt be changed for a while, but 775 has been around for ages and didnt want to buy a core2 an then they upgrade the socket type !

unless u think that 775 will be around for a while ?

Also, as am2 is new, you would have thought that whatever amd's answer to core2 is, it will use the am2 socket ?

cheers
 
oh yeh and also, i think my budget could proberbly stretch to around £500. I know its not a lot, thats why i want to be carefull what i buy !

I already have everything from my current pc (keyboard, mouse etc.) including a stacker 830 case and 17" samsung screen (to be upgraded when my bank balance has recovered!).

So all i really need is the hardware.
 
The spec depends on a couple of factors; can you re use your hard drives, optical drives?

Here is a base spec with a new power supply and new drives.

CP-126-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN)
£114.99 £114.99
MB-064-GI Gigabyte GA_945PL_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-064-GI)
£57.99 £57.99
MY-030-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB5300DC) (MY-030-GL)
£79.99 £79.99
HD-051-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB ST3808110AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-051-SE)
£28.99 £28.99
CD-059-LO Liteon DRW-6S160P-05C 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-059-LO)
£19.99 £19.99
CA-000-SS Seasonic S12 430W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-000-SS)
£43.99 £43.99
GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG)
£79.99 £79.99
Subtotal £425.93
VAT £74.54
Total £500.47

Note the power supply is lower watt than your current one, but I have no idea about the quallity of a ******** unit; you can probably get away with re using it, and spending extra on the graphics to bump it up to either a Radeon x1950 pro or nV 7900GS.

One other idea is to use ASRock's duel VSTA board, where you can use your current ram, AND current graphics card, whilst keeping a PCI-E slot available for a Dx10 card when they become available.

It all depends on how much you want to spend :)
 
cheers hxc,

yeh that looks like a pretty good spec think what i may do though is spend a bit more on the motherboard to ensure i have the neccesary features for the future, and i dont need the optical drive as i have a dvdrom and writer im my current system.

I quite like the look of asus, how do people rate their motherboards boards here ?

Also, from my current 6600gt (agp) will i see a big difference moving to a 7600gt (pci-e) or would it be worth the money for a 7900gt ?

cheers
 
That motherboard is as "future-proof" (god I hate that phrase) as your going to get really.

I'd try and spend the little bit extra for a 7900GS as they are only £115.

If your re-using your hard drive that saving would pay for the extra graphics power.
 
cheers dureth, sorry bout the noob talk but we all gotta be noobs once rite ?

anyway, yeh i have reviewed specs and can see that a more expencive mobo isnt nessecerely gunna last longer and as im not gunno go mad with overclocking (mite experiment) can lose sum of the high end features.

one more question, i know sata replaced ide for hard drives, but what about optical drives ? arent they ide aswell ? god dam i hate them massive ribbon cables !
 
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