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Zefan

Zefan

Zefan

Man of Honour
Joined
15 Jan 2006
Posts
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Location
Tosche Station
My ancient 6800gt AGP has finally done itself in so I'm looking to upgrade my current PC which consists of...

Gigabyte 3D Aurora
Corsair HX 520w
MSI K8N Neo 2 Platinum
2*512mb Corsair XMS4400
A64 3000+
Corsair cool watercooling (old and leaky :D)

Now I have a pretty good idea of what I can get out of my budget, which is less a strict figure than it is me being comfortable with getting value for money/bang for buck.

It'll be used for games, HD media and browsing. I'm quite happy playing new/demanding games like Crysis, Supreme Commander and World in Conflict at less than highest settings however I don't want to have to budge much from 1920x1200 on my Dell 2407. Minimum of 1680x1050 really.

I'm planning on keeping only my power supply and hard disks/optical drives and I've sourced a ATI 3850 512MB for £60 so I need a case, RAM, CPU and motherboard.




Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.53GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (£89.29)

G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-6400C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (£61.09)

Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L Intel P31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (£46.99)

Total : £207.06



As for the case, I'd love a Hiper Osiris (opinions on these would be good) however I can't find anywhere that stocks it. Have they even been properly released yet?

If there are any glaring holes or any room for improvement/suggestions then please let me know :)
 
It looks fine to me.
You may want to chuck in a cpu cooler- keeping with the bang for buck theme I'd go with an arctic freezer 7 pro.
I'm tempted to say that that card may well struggle at that res though even with settings turned down a notch.
 
Ben M said:
I'm tempted to say that that card may well struggle at that res though even with settings turned down a notch.
Click to expand...

I thought as much. I'm running low on funds at the moment so can't afford to spend £100+ on an 8800 so I just need something that goes. Passing up the £60 offer would've been rude :D

Good point about coolers, totally forgot!
 
The 3850 should be fine in Supcom. Unsure on the other games.
Last time I looked the HD2900's gave the 8800GTX a panning on supcom. It loves ATI cards.
 
Zefan said:
I thought as much. I'm running low on funds at the moment so can't afford to spend £100+ on an 8800 so I just need something that goes. Passing up the £60 offer would've been rude :D
Click to expand...

If you get an X38 mobo it'll cost more for the mobo, but you can add another 3850 at a later date... personally though I'd keep the mobo you specced and just upgrade to a newer card when you have the money.
 
PhillyDee said:
The P31 isnt much good at overclocking. At least, the one I have in my foldy rig doesnt overclock well.
Click to expand...

What results/lack of results have you had? Reviews seem to suggest it's alright, just lacks VRM cooling.
 
PhillyDee said:
The P31 isnt much good at overclocking. At least, the one I have in my foldy rig doesnt overclock well.
Click to expand...

I have the complete opposite experience. I have been playing with one for the past few days and have got a E2180 up to 3.6Ghz. That's prime stable too. For a budget board it has a lot of clocking option in the bios, don't forget the Ctrl+F1 to get all the options up. The P31 chipset also runs a lot cooler than any other Intel chipset i have ever used. The best bit about mine is, i got it brand new off Ebay and only paid £18. :D:D:D

Another good budget board that i am playing with at the moment is the Biostar TP35D2-A7. It's another good clocker which also got the E2180 to 3.6Ghz. Not so many bios options as the Gigabyte P31 though. The power sockets are in a terrible place but for £35 i can live with that. It's only got a single 16x Pci-e slot like the Gigabyte but that's not a problem for me. That P35 chipset does'nt half run hot though. Even testing it as a bare sytem on a bench (no case) i had to stick a fan over it.

My problem is which one to keep. One is for my sons budget upgrade and the other is for my second pc. At the moment i am more inclined to go for the Gigabyte. Should go nicely with my E4300. Both boards support 1333mhz 45nm cores by the way.
 
i would wait for the p45 boards to come out shortly in the hope the higher end p35 mobos drop, dont touch the p31's though.
 
aproctor said:
i would wait for the p45 boards to come out shortly in the hope the higher end p35 mobos drop, dont touch the p31's though.
Click to expand...

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Gigabyte P31 DS3L, it's a cracking board. Don't label all P31 boards as bad just because some of them are (MSI P31 Neo-F is terrible).
 
Nope. Searched "OcUK value ip35" but there were just hundreds of threads where people had said ip35 or ocuk :p

I'm still not too sure what to do really. It's £25 more, and to be honest I'm not sure I'll really need more than 4GB for a long time or crossfire ever. What's the clocking like compared to the P31?

Meh changed my mind, going for the P31 :D
 
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