Confused!!!!

slips · 18 Apr 2006 at 11:19

My first post so go easy on me!!!!!

I've been out of the hardware scene for a while now but after my Motherboard died on me a week ago, i've managed to scrape together £350 for a new MB, Graphics Card and CPU.

My current rig is;

Epox 8RDA+ Motherboard
Radeon 9500 Pro
AMD Athlon 2500+
1Gb TwinMOS PC3200

What i'm thinking about is whether it's worth just changing the MB and carrying on with my current rig (cheap option) or just replacing the whole lot and go PCI-E with a new CPU thrown in to boot and if £350 would be enough to see a big improvement over my old spec.

I mainly use the PC for gaming purposes and i'm confused about what to get for the biggest bang for my buck. I'm not a massive overclocker, although my old rig was overclocked slightly, my rig is just air cooled so it's not a huge requirement for me.

I've looked through some of the other threads on here and getting more and more confused as i go!!!

Any help would be great

n3x · 18 Apr 2006 at 11:32

Welcome to the forums!

Thats a tough one seeing as u dont have all that much money to throw around. I would personally sell all your old stuff and a completely new system. 500 quid should get u a half decent system.

Epox 8RDA+ Motherboard <--this is dead right?
Radeon 9500 Pro
AMD Athlon 2500+
1Gb TwinMOS PC3200

u should be able to get around 150-200 for the other bits im guessing? Would i be right in assuming u dont need a hdd or dvd? also would u need a new case?

MB-120-AS Asus A8N5X nForce4 (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard £49.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 £89.95
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) £15.95
CP-130-AM AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM £59.95
CA-040-AN Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU £64.95

Subtotal £280.75
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £9.95
VAT £50.88
Total £341.58

Then what even money u make from your old stuff can go towards a gfx card!

Datamonkey · 18 Apr 2006 at 11:32

im not much help at specking, but an a64 setup would make a big improvement over what you have.

Scary thing though, when i saw your title, first thing i thought of was confused.com lol from that poxy advert.

slips · 18 Apr 2006 at 11:40

n3x said:
Welcome to the forums!

Thats a tough one seeing as u dont have all that much money to throw around. I would personally sell all your old stuff and a completely new system. 500 quid should get u a half decent system.

Epox 8RDA+ Motherboard <--this is dead right?
Radeon 9500 Pro
AMD Athlon 2500+
1Gb TwinMOS PC3200

u should be able to get around 150-200 for the other bits im guessing? Would i be right in assuming u dont need a hdd or dvd?

Thanks n3x, i've been browsing the forums for ages but finally plucked up the courage to post, sad really!!!

Yeah, it's the Epox Motherboard that's died on me, i've got all the other components, HDD, DVD, TFT Monitor and the like it's just MB, graphics card and CPU that i'll be looking to change. I guess i could go up higher (£500 max if i sell old components) if that would be better??

Datamonkey said:
Scary thing though, when i saw your title, first thing i thought of was confused.com lol from that poxy advert. ?

Lol as soon as i posted i though the same thing to.

n3x · 18 Apr 2006 at 11:47

I'd probly go for somethin like this and clock it like a mofo

AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler £15.95
Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £184.95
DF DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard £79.95
AMD Opteron UP 146 San Diego 2.0GHz 1MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail £129.95

Subtotal £410.80
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £8.95
VAT £73.46

Total £493.21

I would also recommend squeezing in 2gb or ram but u can always do that later cant u. U could cut costs by getting the opteron 144 or even the althlon64 3000 if u wanted aswell

slips · 18 Apr 2006 at 13:19

Cheers n3x, but tbh i'm not really into Overclocking all that much and looking for the best "out of the box" setup as possible.

Octavarium · 18 Apr 2006 at 13:53

slips said:
Cheers n3x, but tbh i'm not really into Overclocking all that much and looking for the best "out of the box" setup as possible.

Plus you'd need a new power supply to enjoy that spec

n3x · 18 Apr 2006 at 14:24

Octavarium said:
Plus you'd need a new power supply to enjoy that spec

depends what hes got already... but yea probly.

Hows this?

FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler £15.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £184.95
CP-147-AM AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM £99.95
MB-120-AS Asus A8N5X nForce4 (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard £49.95

Subtotal £350.80
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £8.25
VAT £62.84

Total £421.89

Plenty spare for a decent psu + u've got an arctic freezer incase u fancied overclockin abit later on (although im not sure how good that asus board is for that).