General advice on a system upgrade

jimbos

jimbos

jimbos

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29 Jan 2007
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98
Hello the OcUK forum.

I have come here with a view to building a machine for gaming. I am currently playing high graphics orientated online games which at present is grinding my PC to a halt anytime i get close to a city or crowd of people (even on lowest settings).

My current spec is P4 2.8, 1GB Ram, Radeon 9800 XT Pro, Abit motherboard (sorry dont know specs, but it is 4 years old.) What i am hoping is for some of you to recommend me some parts relevant to a budget. I have about £500 to spend at the moment, but i dont need a whole system. I already have a good case, CDROM and HDD. What i need is the power to play these games.

I have a basic understanding of computers, and have been looking at the website for parts, but i dont really know what fits with what, and whats the difference between certain parts.

I was thinking of these to start - but im already at £556 pounds.

Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB)
BFG GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC)

If someone has any advice i would greatfully appreciate it. I suppose to sum up what i need is:

processor
motherboard
Ram
Graphics card
Power supply?

I understand it is a fairly open question and some may nto be wanting to spend time looking at parts and compatability for me, but any advice is greatfully appreciated.

Many thanks

Jimbo
 
I'd go for the following:-


GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400DC) - £146.86

Intel Core 2 DUO E4300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail
£112.79

Asus P5N-E SLi nForce 650 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - £82.24

Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) - £72.84

Connect3D ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £119.84

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) - £16.44

Total : £561.52

How's that? If you want more gaming power then you're going to have to spend about £150 and go for an 8800.
 
I would go with melbourneguys suggestion. Just happens to be what i bought this week but i didn't need a PSU.

The main difference in price will be between x1950 pro and 8800 gts. I went for the first after some thought as it is a damn fine card especially compared to what i had

Good luck with whatever you decide
 
OK thanks for your advice there guys. After some thinking and having a very graphically laggy night of gaming, i have decided to up my budget a bit (credit cards, gotta love em).

I am thinking of this system but i have a few questions.

Intel Core 2 DUO E6400 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.13GHz (1066FSB)
BFG GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
Asus P5N-E SLi nForce 650 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400DC)
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK)
Western Digital Caviar RE 160GB 1600YS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775)
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming case

My questions start with the obvious, would these all be compatible and is this build a good one for gaming?

Secondly, are there issues with this MB and the ram? (i have read some posts about decreased performance?)

Also does this board have the x16 SLI slot required for the card i have chosen?

Also if there are recommendations on this or suggestions i'd love to hear them. Many thanks

Jim
 
Looks really good. The mobo can either do 16 x 1 (which will be fine for your 8800 GTS (nice card btw ;) )) or 8 x 2 if you put another 8800 GTS in there. Which will also run fine.

Can't spot much wrong with that, a near perfect build. You could go for a tuniq tower and a e4300 - you'll probably get a faster speed on your CPU, oddly enough, and maybe save a bit. The e4300 has a 9x multiplier, allowing nice high clock speeds.

Get some Arctic Silver 5 for the CPU heat sink if you don't already have some.
 
mattpj said:
I would go with melbourneguys suggestion. Just happens to be what i bought this week but i didn't need a PSU.

The main difference in price will be between x1950 pro and 8800 gts. I went for the first after some thought as it is a damn fine card especially compared to what i had

Good luck with whatever you decide
Click to expand...

I just bought the same too, but with the HIS x1950.
 
Thx Melbourne for your post, i am definately leading towards that build.

Can i just ask whats the difference between the 6400 and 4300. Is the 6400 not quicker or is it due to overclocking potential. I am not very good with processor specs.

Thanks.
 
The e4300 has 2MB cache, 1.8 GHz stock speed, 9 x multiplier, 800 stock FSB.

The e6400 has 2MB cache, 2.13 GHz stock speed, 8 x multiplier, 1066 stock FSB.

Actual FSB = stated FSB (quad pumped) / 4

Actual FSB x multiplier = stock speed.

Because you can adjust the FSB upwards, but not the multiplier (as those are maximum) the e4300 is the better chip for overclocking (although the 6400 is a fine chip also).

Easyrider has a e4300 clocking thread over in Overclocking and Cooling, worth having a look at that.
 
ok thx.

Ive had a quick scan, and not being the best with PC's at this moment in time i dont think i will tinker with overclocking, because knowing my luck, i'll do something very wrong.

If i went with the 6400, is this a good enough chip to game with unclocked.

I'm almost there so soon the questions will stop : )
 
Most games its all (or mostly) on the graphics. The 6400 will easily be enough, as will the e4300. That 8800 GTS with any conroe will chew through any game. For example I have minimum 58fps in FEAR with everything at maximum at 1280x1024. Maximum is 200+...
 
thats good news.

ok my last question before i leave you in peace......if i wanted to SLI 2 GTS's in the future, would this asus board support it, as im sure i read the card required 16x for each card? or am i complete newb?
 
jimbos said:
ok thx.

Ive had a quick scan, and not being the best with PC's at this moment in time i dont think i will tinker with overclocking, because knowing my luck, i'll do something very wrong.

If i went with the 6400, is this a good enough chip to game with unclocked.

I'm almost there so soon the questions will stop : )
Click to expand...

It is almost impossible to do something wrong.

I have Purchased an E4300 and a Asus P5N-E SLI motherboard.

I went to the BIOS, told it I wanted to set manual, raised the Bus speed from 800 to 1200 and it worked flawlessly. Even on a retail heat sink and fan, without adjusting any voltages, and just leaving everything as auto. It literally takes 1 minute to make the adjustments.

I now have it set at around 2.85GHZ, (from the default 1.8) I dont want to push it further till I get my new PSU RMA'ed, and a better cooler than the stock one.
 
No, that is a very sensible question. :)

Although NVidia said that 8800s need 2 x 16, they have tested two 8800 GTXs in a 2 x 8 lane motherboard (I think it was the 650SLi) and there was no/very little performance drop. If the 650SLi was about when I got my 680, I would have probably gone for the 650 instead (that said, the 680 is still a cracking board, just a bit too expensive).
 
dont mean to thread jack but it runs along the lines of this setup, i have two ide hardrives and a dvd drive to plug into the 650i motherboard, you could say ive lost my way with these conections since the introduction of sata hardrives.

My question is will i be able to plug two ide hardrives and my dvd drive into this mobo no problems?
 
It has 2 EIDE ports, meaning up to 4 IDE devices.

I have 2 Hard Drives (IDE) and 1 DVD writter plugged in. All works perfectly, well apart from Windows Home not picking up a particular partion, but that is because I made that partion in XP PRO, so I need to go back to Pro basically. In other words, nothing to worry about, IDE devices work as good as they used to back in the days of P4's/A64's.
 
one last thing... I am almost ready to order but a friend has put a potential spanner in the works and i would like some advice. The components in question are:

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400DC)
&
Intel Core 2 DUO E6400 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.13GHz (1066FSB)
&
Asus P5N-E SLi nForce 650 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

It has been metioned that the memory has FSB of 800 where as the processor has 1066.

Will this memory work well in this set up for gaming, or have i created a bottleneck? should i really be looking at 1066 memory (which will significantly increase my costs)

Many thanks
 
The FSB there is 'quad pumped' and the memory is DDR, or double data rate, so the memory is running faster than the processor FSB (so to speak)!

If you were to run the memory at sync, 1:1 with the FSB, the CPU would have a quad pumped FSB of 1600MHz (which isn't out of the question when overclocking). That motherboard will allow you to put the memory on a divider, allowing you to overclock the CPU whilst leaving the memory at stock (or vice versa).

Basically don't worry, it will be fine. Just remember to unlink the memory if you are overclocking the CPU/FSB.
 
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