Cheap upgrade < £300?

Wej

Wej

Wej

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I currently have an A7N8X mobo, Athlon 2600+, 1gb RAM (DDR1) and Radeon 9800 Pro. I want to upgrade but have very little money - will any of the following specs for under £300 give me substantially better performance, or can anyone suggest anything better?

Spec 1
Motherboard: MSI K9N Neo-F nForce 550 (£52.86)
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (£61.09)
Memory: Corsair 1GB DDR2 XMS2-5400C4 (£46.99)
GFX: Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB (£123.36)

Total: ~£285

Spec 2
Motherboard: MSI K9N Neo-F nForce 550 (£52.86)
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (£61.09)
Memory: Corsair 1GB DDR2 XMS2-5400C4 (£109.26)
GFX: BFG GeForce 7600 GT (£82.24)

Total: ~£305

Spec 3
Motherboard: Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA (£46.99)
Processor: Pentium 4 LGA775 Prescott 3.2GHz (£51.69)
Memory: Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-5400C4 (£109.26)
GFX: Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB (£123.36)

Total: ~£331 (a bit too much, but possible)
 
definatly the last the one, but have you considered

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB6400DC) £51.99
(£61.09) £51.99
(£61.09)
Intel Core 2 DUO E4300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £94.99
(£111.61) £94.99
(£111.61)
Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £104.99
(£123.36) £104.99
(£123.36)
Asrock P4VM890 (Socket 478) PCI-Express DDR Motherboard £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
Sub Total : £281.96
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.95
Vat : £50.91
Total : £341.82


A bit over I know BUT you are on C2D and it should overclock to 2.6 on stock at lest. Pretty good system for 340 quid.
 
What do you want to upgrade for?

Is it games? Just an AGP gfx upgrade will give you big boost, but dead end for future.

For flexibility, consider this board

Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA (Socket 775) PCI-Express/AGP DDR2 Motherboard

and a cheap conroe C2D

with that board you can upgrade slower - keep existing ram and gfx card is it supports AGP and PCIe plus DDR1 & DDR2

Keep your old RAM for now, get -

Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA (Socket 775) PCI-Express/AGP DDR2 Motherboard = 50 quid

C2D 110 to 150 quid

If for games, get a PCIe card too
X1950 pro or 7900 = 110 to 130quid

That'll be in your budget and give you scope for getting better RAM (you will want to save for 2Gb really) and mobo at a later date.
 
Last edited:
***F1ZZY*** said:
No, only if it has DDR slots too


with that board you can upgrade slower - keep existing ram and gfx card is it supports AGP and PCIe plus DDR1 & DDR2


Here at OCUK, read details for yourself...!!
Click to expand...

LOL. Didn't even read the spec of that board- it looks better and better as an upgrade option since it has AGP/PCI-E and DDR1/DDR2. I hope it's stable for the price, but I can't really see where I can go wrong...

Thanks for the advice guys - much appreciated.
 
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