First question of many.

[Sonic Boom]

Hi all,

Fairly new to the build side of pc's but it has always interested me. Always been a pc gamer though.

System,

power supply 500w

Memory 512 Ram

processor Pent 4, 2.8ghz

Graphics card ATI X1650 pro 256MB

This system plays Doom 3 on 2nd highest setting.

Question
My Graphics card is a ACP 8X but my mother board has only a ~AGP 4X slot.
So I'm thinking about buying a new MB with a AGP 8X slot. How much difference would this make to for example doom 3, Would this upgrade be enough to play D3 on the Highest setting, or is it just that my Graphics card is just not got what it takes.
My motherboard I read is upto the max it can hold on memory, so If I brought another one then I'd like one that could hold more.
Basically what 8X AGP MB which can hold more memory would you all suggest? (on a fairly tight budget up to £100)

Sorry for the long Thread and thanks for you time.

 

[WJA96]

Do you know if the P4 is a S478 or a S775?

If it's a S775 then you want http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=ConRoe865PE

If it's a S478 then you want http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=P4i65PE&s=n

Both boards should be available mail-order for about £30+delivery.

That gives you 4 RAM slots and 8x AGP graphics, plus, depending on what your current chipset is, a bit of a performance boost.

Both also overclock really well and, if you've got the S775 chip, the Conroe865PE will also overclock an E4300 to 2.7GHz, which is quite nice!

 

[Sonic Boom]

Do you know if the P4 is a S478 or a S775?

Thanks for the very quick reply, you can always tell a good forum when a question from a newbie get helped so quickly.
But I don't know what P4 is?

I'm a bit worried about changing the MB, the mechanical side of unbolting and connecting it all up won't be a problem as I'm a engineer.

The worry I have will be, doing all the software side, will there be old MB drivers to uninstall, and is there anything else software side I will have to do.

Again thanks for your time.

 

[WJA96]

Hi,

Sorry, but P4 is a Pentium 4.

Do you know what your current motherboard is? Or even what type of PC you have if it was pre-built?

 

[The Running Man]

hi sorry but AGP4x vs AGP8x isnt going to make any difference really for gaming. the Ati Gfx card is the limitation

why buy a new board? just toss away the current ram and buy a 1GB kit for like £50-£60 drop that in, try and sell your 512 and your away!

 

[WJA96]

It's a very fair point. 1Gb RAM will get you much more oomph too. You should get £20 or so for 512Mb second-hand.

 

[Sonic Boom]

Don't know if this info will help as I say, I must come across very amaturish.

machine: Packard bell NECP700400501

MB : NEC COMPUTERS INT sis6501.0

P4: do I need to take it out to find the type code on it?

Processor 2.50 g, 8 kilobyte prim mem cache, 512 2nd mem catch.


I can't remember were I read this, it was around the time I added a 256 mem stick from crucial. But I'm sure it said somewhere that 512 is the max my MB will take (2 x 256's). Do you think it could take 2 x 512's?

Cheers

 

[ih8modem]

budget is most important

It's actually very difficult to tell what you have, and as such difficult to advise on where to look for the best increase in performance.

As mentioned by others, RAM is generally your cheapest performance boost. If we know more about your motherboard, we could tell what CPU socket type it takes, and what your options are.

I suggest you download a copy of CPU-Z version 1.39 and run it. It is a tiny program that will tell you a bit about your CPU, your RAM and GFX card. Just the basics, but enough to get some decent advice on.

Get CPU-Z from http://www.cpuid.com - its the first item on the top right of the page. Once you run it, get some screenshots and post them here and you will find the advice will flow.

Also try and estimate your budget. If you only want to spend 50 pounds, then RAM, if you have 100 - maybe new board + RAM , if you have 200, then new board/CPU/low end GFX might be in order.

 

[ih8modem]

CPUZ Screenie

 

[WJA96]

Right - that part number says it's a Packard Bell iMedia 5083

If so, it's socket 478 and it's a microATX board with SDRAM which gives us a couple of problems.

Problem 1. You have a very old CPU and there are very few motherboards on sale that support this CPU.

Problem 2. Nothing made or on sale today uses your RAM, so you will have to buy new RAM anyway if you upgrade the motherboard.

Problem 3. It's a MicroATX chassis so it's got a fairly low powered PSU and to re-use the case and PSU you'll need a microATX motherboard to replace it.

There really isn't any good news I'm afraid. You're going to have to replace the Motherboard, CPU and RAM so the next question is - what's the budget?

 

[Sonic Boom]

Just down loaded the CPU Z but don't know how to take a screen shot to show you all the info, basically it say just what WJZ96 said in his post.

My power supply is about 3 weeks old as I needed a bigger supply to power my new graphics card. The power supply is a Jeantech 500W atx.

This leaves me a few options I think...

1 maybe spend lets say £200 on this machine,

2 Start a new build Spend the £200 on it, not so it's running and complete it as more funds come in.

3 ask you lot if there is a company who build mid range gaming pc's for sale and how much?

I would love to build from scratch though rather than buy one in built.

Thanks for your time.

 

[WJA96]

My CPU (power supply) am I correct? is about 3 weeks old as I needed a bigger supply to power my new graphics card. The power supply is a Jeantech 500W atx.

OK - well, that's good news as it means you have plenty of juice and a 24-pin power supply.

1 maybe spend lets say £200 on this machine,

ASRock 775i65 mATX Motherboard
Intel Core2Duo E4300
1Gb PC3200 Value RAM

will be your £200 spent.

2 Start a new build Spend the £200 on it, not so it's running and complete it as more funds come in.

In computers this is always the worst thing in my opinion as hardware very rarely goes up in price and it always gets faster, so keep your money in the bank until you're ready to go 100%. It's one thing to be playing Battlefield 2142 knowing that kit is losing half it's value in 6 months, but to see it sitting there unusable would be worse!

3 ask you lot if there is a company who build mid range gaming pc's for sale and how much?

OcUK will do you a decent pre-built games PC for around £600 I think.

I would love to build from scratch though rather than buy one in built.

I would agree - DIY is much more satisfying.

 

[zytok]

How much difference would this make to for example doom 3, Would this upgrade be enough to play D3 on the Highest setting, or is it just that my Graphics card is just not got what it takes.

by the way for Doom 3 specifically, you need a 512MB graphics card to stand a chance of running in Ultra mode without killing the fps. From what I understand the difference to the actual look of the game is minimal anyway.

 

[Sonic Boom]

Thankyou to all who had helped I have learnt LOTS today.

I think I have decided to Save, Save,Save get a good wedge of money, and have a go at a build. So I'll be about on here allot over the next few months.

Great forum , with great people cheers and speak soon.


Malc

 

[Darg]

Well you'll find you learn a lot just from hanging around here.

Here are two systems I specced for a guy a while back. The second one would be more suited to you as it includes a case and psu. They're pretty high end specs, both with 8800 GTS and very good overclocking cpus. Don't take these as being perfect though. They were made about 2 months ago so prices might have dropped since and there's always newer better things coming out.

The first spec comes to £837 inc VAT. The second comes to £782 inc VAT. If you swap the Asus motherboard for the Gigabyte DS3 in the first spec then it drops to £773.

Prices have probably dropped slightly in most areas. Keep in mind that the second spec includes everything you'll need right down to some AS5 compound.

These specs are just to give you a general idea of what goes well together. My recommendation is to just keep an eye on these forums and keep up with whats new and what's good and possibly more importantly what's not good

specs:
1

2

 

[ih8modem]

another option

Here is another option, that may or may not work for you.

Get a ASRock 775DUAL-VSTA motherboard.

Now a lot of people will tell you it's a bad idea, but I have also read many many reviews about why this is a good deal.

Let me explain. The ASRock 775DUAL-VSTA is a bridging motherboard. It will however require you to purchase a new CPU, of the LGA775 variety. I would immediately suggest only a Core2Duo CPU. Even the bottom of the range C2D will blow your current CPU to pieces.

Now the biggest deal about this ASRock 775DUAL-VSTA motherboard, is that it takes DDR RAM, OR DDR-2 RAM. It also has both AGP(8x) and PCI-e slots for GFX cards. Granted they are not the best PCI-e, but it just means you can get a awesome CPU, make full use of your 8x AGP card, and not have to break the bank.

The mobo (unfortunately not sold here at OCUK) will set you back between 38 - 50 pounds - just google the name and you should find plenty of suppliers. The cheapest C2Duo CPU e4300 is currently sold at £111-61 incl VAT here at OCUK.

Your power supply will be fine to run this setup, but you may find the board does not fit the case you have - it may well do, but thats something you are going to have to check. If your current board is micro-atx, this one is normal ATX (slightly bigger than micro ATX).

Anyway, you will be well set with the e4300 and your current setup, and you can then purchase some DDR-2 RAM when you have more cash available. This will mean you are not wating money on DDR RAM which you will not likely use again. A few more months and perhaps you have enough to replace the AGP GFX card with a PCI-e card. Once this is done, you can then start looking at a new motherboard that is better suited for your needs.

Bottom line, it offers staged upgradeability, one of only two boards I know of that can do this, and this has consistently rated the better of the two.

Ps. Intel are expected to cut prices in April when they introduce new range of CPUs. I would definitely not buy anything until you see these new prices filtering in around the beginning of May (thats my estimate only!)

 

[Sonic Boom]

You lot are just SO helpful, and have given me lots of food for thought.
I know I keep saying it but thanks

I have always been very interested in all things pc, now I have been on here for just 1 day, I think I have the build bug.

Birthday on Monday so I'll have to get the ball rolling by buttering up the wife

 

[ih8modem]

will he ever shut up ?

Sorry to keep on posting, but it looks like the new board from ASROCK is known as the 4CoreDual-VSTA - still has the same specs as the previous, just it also now supports the quad core processors.

Also, OCUK actually sells this one :

Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA (Socket 775) PCI-Express/AGP DDR2 Motherboard
£39.99
£46.99 inc VAT
10+ in stock
Stock Code: MB-011-AK
Asrock motherboards give great value with great upgradability options for very low prices.
- LGA 775 for Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme / Core™ 2 Duo / Pentium® XE / Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 / Celeron® D, supporting Quad Core Kentsfield processors
VIA® PT880 Ultra Chipset
- Supports FSB1066/800/533MHz processors and H-T Technology
- Supports Dual Channel DDRII667 (DDRII x 2 DIMM slots) and DDR400 (DDR x 2 DIMM slots)- Untied Overclocking : During Overclocking, FSB enjoys better margin due to fixed - AGP/PCIE/ PCI Buses
- 1 x PCI Express Graphics slot
- 1 x AGP 8X slot
- Hybrid Booster - Safe Overclocking Technology
- 2 x SerialATA 1.5Gb/s connectors, support RAID 0, 1, JBOD functions
- HDMI_SPDIF header, providing SPDIF audio output to HDMI VGA card, allows the system to connect HDMI Digital TV/projector/LCD devices.
- 7.1 CH Windows® Vista™ Premium Level HD Audio (ALC888 Audio Codec)
- Supports all features in Windows® Vista™ Premium
- HD 8CH I/O: 4 ready-to-use USB2.0 ports, HD 7.1 channel audio jacks

 

[Cupra]

just get that.. if you can spare more money just say and ill change to what you have but that is the best way forward and you will see a massive change

 

[Sonic Boom]

Now that setup paul 641 sounds good to me, I would add to it the Antec nine hundred utimate gameing case, and that would come in @£287.83 all in.

Sry a Few more ?'S

1, So could I use my old cd, dvd roms and my powersupply(new 500W
) and graphics card for now?

2, The big question, Now we are down to 1 machine (wifes broken)I really cannot balls this one up, How straight forward would this change over be and is there advice anywere to help me through it.More the software setup than the phiysical bolting and clipping the parts)

3, what are others views on paul 641 setup ie will this be indate for a few months or so?

4. The MB above is a AGP DDR 2 slot but my Graphics card is gddr 3 whats the differents or are they totally different things?