Help upgrade i haven't got a clue please help

[andyarmitage]

Hi all, sorry another tedious upgrade post. I have an old system amd 1400 geoforce 4200 ti 128 meg 40 gig hard drive 512 ram windows 98!!!!
etc and i really want to play newer games ie far cry fear etc UT 2007 when it comes out i really don't want to spend a fortune but maybe mid range parts i want something that will last me a few years so what do you think?
i would be prepared to spen around £300 for a good graphics card and would it be a good idea to get an amd dual core or is it a waste of money.
I have a coolermaster case which is very noisy would i keep this or replace it i will need the whole tower and all contents ie new sound card psu well everything i am a complete novice with computers but my friend who isn't will build it for me.
this whole subject is confusing do you get nvidia or ati i have read gibbo saying that the ati cards are great, if so do you need the 512 meg card or is the 256 card ok
also how do you all know which m/board to put with which other parts
is it better to go for a pci? what is sli is that for nvidia?
sorry for so many questions as for budget maybe £800ish or is that unlikely i will go a bit higher if it means it will last longer, also will it be upgradeable ie faster cpu with the same m/board in it i have a new monitor so it's just the rest and is it better to build your own rather than buy a tower unit made up. Thanks in advance

 

[trojan698]

CA-002-TG Tagan TG420-U01 420W ATX2.0 Silent PSU (CA-002-TG)
£41.95 £41.95
CP-134-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£182.95 £182.95
CA-001-AR Arctic Cooling T2 Silentium Silent Midi Tower Case - 450W Seasonic Silent PSU (CA-001-AR)
£49.95 £49.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£109.95 £109.95
MB-101-AS Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-101-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
GX-069-LT Leadtek GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-069-LT)
£169.95 £169.95
HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA)
£48.95 £48.95
Subtotal £673.65
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £12.95
VAT £120.16
Total £806.76

Maybe?

 

[Joe42]

You'll be wanting a new keyboard with a working enter key aswell huh?

Welcome to the forums!

Use the edit button to sort that mess out and you might get a few more responses.
Edit: Ahh much better.

I'll try and answer some of your questions:
-Yes its better to build(i.e cheaper). You should ask your computer builder friend about specs. If he doesn't know anything about the specs he shouldn't be building it.

-Its better not to decide what to spend on which part if you don't have much idea how each part affects performance. Give us a total cost you would like to spend on the whole thing. Prices usually range from £300-£3000. Edit: ahh, £800.

-Dual core depends on if you do two things at once a lot. Games can only use one core at a time at the moment, although dual core does make general performance better as it can do two things at once. If you can afford it its a good investment.

-You will probably need a new case, i recomend the cheap antec cases with high quality psu's included.

-Graphics card performance is not measured by how much memory they have, in the same way that cpu performance is not measured by the clockspeed. You will probably want a 256mb card.

-The motherboard will depend on the processor, but its almost certainly going to be socket 939. Everything else will slot into it fine.

-You will be using pci express for graphics, not to be confused with standard pci. Sli allows you to use 2 graphics cards together, however you probably won't need to use this unless you want to spend a lot on two graphics cards.

Try reading this guide if you can.

 

[andyarmitage]

thanks for your help i appreciate it

 

[ACESHIGH]

CA-002-TG Tagan TG420-U01 420W ATX2.0 Silent PSU (CA-002-TG)
£41.95 £41.95
CP-134-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£182.95 £182.95
CA-001-AR Arctic Cooling T2 Silentium Silent Midi Tower Case - 450W Seasonic Silent PSU (CA-001-AR)
£49.95 £49.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£109.95 £109.95
MB-101-AS Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-101-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
GX-069-LT Leadtek GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-069-LT)
£169.95 £169.95
HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA)
£48.95 £48.95
Subtotal £673.65
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £12.95
VAT £120.16
Total £806.76

Maybe?

spec looks good but do yourself a favour & get this graphics card instead ...

Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO) £234.94*Including VAT.
Much faster than the 7800GT & faster than the 7800GTX even.
A liitle bit more costly but well worth it. Will fit better with rest of spec too.