FINALLY can upgrade, but need spec help.

Mystique · 2 Apr 2006 at 22:29

Hi all,

Well, I think I'll finally be able to upgrade my tired 1.4 athlon/512mb ram/9800se depending whether I get this new job or not. Anyway, I'm looking at a price range of about £1000-£1100 (would prefer around £1050) and I've been out of the hardware loop for a while so I'm not too sure how to spec a new PC. After reading a few posts on these boards, I've come up with this:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ (Socket 939) - Retail
- About the right price I want to pay, any compatability issues with other hardware?

DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard
- I've always been an Abit man, but always wanted a DFI.. I'm guessing they're still good?

Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2
- I'm guessing PC3200 is still the optimum speed for AMDs? Are there any better choices such as OCZ, etc?

Asus ATI Radeon EAX-X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
- Am I mainly paying for the name here? I see the other XT-X cards are £25-£40 cheaper, but I know Asus is good swag. However, if the other cards are reliabled and/or as good as the Asus, I'd swap them in.

Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM
- Read these are prolly the best HDD to buy atm. I'm guessing all necessary SATA2 cables will be included? As my current rig is still IDE.

Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU
- Was originally gonna get the Hiper, but have seen people recommending these instead.

Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Silver Aluminium Midi-Tower Case
- Always wanted a Lian-Li, and the PC-7 seems to be about the best in the lower price range. I've read that OCuk don't actually do the 2nd edition of this case and that they only stock the ones with the 80mm rear fan.. is this true?

Total Price: £1,067.62

So, hows that look guys? System will be mainly used for gaming (trying to play Oblivion atm is a joke) and also 3D modelling, etc. I may plan to Overclock the CPU if its possible, so would you recommend a 3rd party cooler?

Any input is appreciated!

Thanks.

beaNN · 2 Apr 2006 at 22:31

Yea you will get the cables for your SATAII drive with the mobo

From what i've read the DFIs are still the best overclocking boards around. Thats if your planning on overclocking.

Arctic Cooling Freezers are meant to be good, not really up on coolers.

mysticsniper · 2 Apr 2006 at 22:34

You should either go for an Thermalright SI-120 and an Papest fan, or a Scythe Ninja for your HSF

beaNN · 2 Apr 2006 at 22:40

That Thermalright one looks rather sweet.

/checks for reviews.

iraiguana · 2 Apr 2006 at 22:43

also look at the big typhoon, also pretty good cooler. the spec looks pretty good.

Monstermunch · 2 Apr 2006 at 22:47

Some people have reported conflicts between DFI boards and Corsiar ram.

4200+ is a waste of money still only having 512k l2 cache per core. Try and fit the 4400+ into budget, if you can't try looking at the opty 165 or 170 models which have 1mb l2 cache per core. It will make a big difference. If you don't like the look of the opty's then downgrade to a 3800+, much better vfm.

Gfx card wise, i've always liked Asus stuff but look at the HIS excalibur model at £358 inc. I've been running a HIS 9800pro for the last year and i'm quite impressed with it.

Other than that, looks good.

Mystique · 2 Apr 2006 at 23:20

Only problem with the 4400 is that its an extra £80 which I can't really afford and the 3800 is 400 effective mhz less for £40. Not really too sure about Opterons ;o. I'll see what the finances are like when I'm ordering which will determine whether or not I'll be able to afford the 4400

.

If Corsair RAM will be a problem, I'll probably swap it out for the OCZ Platinum sticks.

Will check out some reviews on the HIS card, and await some more replies before I make the decision

.

Thanks.

Monstermunch · 2 Apr 2006 at 23:37

Mystique said:
Only problem with the 4400 is that its an extra £80 which I can't really afford and the 3800 is 400 effective mhz less for £40. Not really too sure about Opterons ;o. I'll see what the finances are like when I'm ordering which will determine whether or not I'll be able to afford the 4400 .

If Corsair RAM will be a problem, I'll probably swap it out for the OCZ Platinum sticks.

Will check out some reviews on the HIS card, and await some more replies before I make the decision .

Thanks.

Don't get me wrong there's nothing wrong with the 4200+ at all but buying a new rig now would be advisable if poss to get a 1mb l2 cache per core model. Look at the Opty 165 for £260inc.

The Opty's are basically FX-60 cores originally designed for servers and run cooler, use less power and are generally more stable than std chips.

I know the Opty 165 is only 1.8ghz but will easily hit 2.4 ghz on air cooling and should get to 2.6 ghz.

Mystique · 2 Apr 2006 at 23:48

Monstermunch said:
Don't get me wrong there's nothing wrong with the 4200+ at all but buying a new rig now would be advisable if poss to get a 1mb l2 cache per core model. Look at the Opty 165 for £260inc.

The Opty's are basically FX-60 cores originally designed for servers and run cooler, use less power and are generally more stable than std chips.

I know the Opty 165 is only 1.8ghz but will easily hit 2.4 ghz on air cooling and should get to 2.6 ghz.

Ahh, nice! An Opteron @ 2400 would be running at the same speed as a 4800+ wouldn't it? If thats the case, and I could overclock it to 2.4 on air, then I'd definitely be up for that. Is there any randomness as to how well the CPU will overclock, like steppings back on the old Athlons?

Thanks again.

Monstermunch · 2 Apr 2006 at 23:55

Mystique said:
Ahh, nice! An Opteron @ 2400 would be running at the same speed as a 4800+ wouldn't it? If thats the case, and I could overclock it to 2.4 on air, then I'd definitely be up for that. Is there any randomness as to how well the CPU will overclock, like steppings back on the old Athlons?

Thanks again.

To a degree but I haven't heard of any hitting less than 2.4 ghz, but in theory I would say with a good cooler you have a 70% chance of it hitting around 2.6ghz.

Explicit · 3 Apr 2006 at 00:04

AMD Opteron UP 165 Dual Core San Diego 1.8GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-151-AM)
£260.79
DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF)
£93.94
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series EL-DDR CAS2 (OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K) (MY-057-OC)
£164.44
Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (3055) (GX-046-CO)
£370.07
Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31637) (HD-001-HI)
£52.82
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£18.74
Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£70.44
Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Silver Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-038-LL)
£56.34

Total inc VAT: £1,087.58

This rig will fly when overclocked. The Ultra-D would absolutely love to have an Opteron wedged into its socket, they're made for each other!

Monstermunch · 3 Apr 2006 at 00:09

^^^^Nice....Do it

Mystique · 3 Apr 2006 at 07:15

Looks v. nice indeed

Thanks a lot guys

Now I just need to figure out of OCuk have the Rev. 2 of the Lian-Li case with the 120mm rear fan ;o.

Thanks again.