Help on upgrade decision!

[Mr Paul]

What do I do?

Option 1:-

DFI LanParty UT nF4 SLI-DR Expert PCI-E £106.34
Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900XT 512MB DDR3 Dual DVI/AVIVO (PCI-E) - £219.95
Icy Box Aluminium USB2.0 3.5" Enclosure +LED - Silver - £17.95
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATAII NCQ 3Gb/s 320GB 16MB Cache OEM - £60.40

£487 inc P&P and use current Venice @ 2.5~2.6GHz

Option 2:-

DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard - £74.95
Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - £139.95
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM - £62.95
Icy Box External Enclosure IB-351U-BL USB2.0 - Silver - £19.95
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) - £99.95

£477.88 inc P&P.

Do I get the better mobo and GFX and keep the Venice or go for a worse mobo and GFX but get a dual core X2?

Only mainly interested in Gaming.

Advice would be great

 

[Mr Paul]

option 3 = Ditch SLi mobo if using ATI GPU,get AM2 based Cpu or Conroe to futureproof yourself as much as possible...

That will involve getting 2Gb of DDR2 which I can't stretch to budget wise. Besides I'd rather wait a year until Conroe is a mature platform.

As long as I've gone PCI-E, 939 is more than enough for me

 

[Mr Paul]

conroe is the main option to go for if building new pc from scratch.

Its not from scratch

Its a small upgrade to PCI-E from AGP.

But do I go for X1900XT and stay with current Venice or get X1800XT 256Mb and go dual core 939???

 

[Mr Paul]

Thing is 939 chips are becoming harder and harder to come by. Espacially X2's for the current excellent price.

 

[Mr Paul]

Do you really need the HD and Ice box? Maybe cutting these out or getting a cheaper model may mean you could budget a better chip AND gpu?

Alternatively you could risk purchasing your hardware from the MM here. I have bought several components, including my opty, from the MM. If you buy from a trusted member you really shouldnt have any problem. Whats best is you get the parts at bargain price's because half these guys want to pass them off quickly in order to fund their UBER E-penis rigs.

Im not sure about coupling the Venice with an x1900xt, a bit of a mismatch? Maybe something like a 3700 with a higher cache? Also, out of curiosty, have you sufficient RAM and is your power supply up to the demands of these high spec GPU's and amount of OC'ing you intend to achieve?

EDIT: Forgot about you sig. Not familiar with "modstreams" and your RAM looks fine for the mo.

The SATAII drive will be my new drive, my current Maxtor will be going in the Icy Box and my 2 WD's will be going in the server in a RAID array (need more air flow inside the case as the 3 HD's sit directly behind the intake fans).

Modstream is well up for the task

I'll have a look at the MM.