Help with my next upgrade please fellow speed monkeys

richieboy · 18 Oct 2006 at 18:10

Hi chaps,

Im looking to upgrade from a Socket 939 machine to an AM2 one, i already have a case (Lian-Li V2100B - beauty of a thing), and an Enermax Libery 500w PSU. The machine is mostly used for gaming on a 2407WFP, and i'll be needing all the core components such as:

- CPU
- Mobo
- RAM
- GFX card (the manlier the better, for running stuff like COH @ 1920x1600)
- HDD (need around 100GB of storage, not too much)

If you had an unlimited amount of money and wanted a top notch machine, what would you go for?

Minstadave · 18 Oct 2006 at 18:33

Could you be tempted to ditch AM2 for Conroe?

richieboy · 18 Oct 2006 at 18:43

Minstadave said:
Could you be tempted to ditch AM2 for Conroe?

I could be tempted, but unless things have changed i always thought AMD were the way to go for gaming? :confused:

MagicalTrevor · 18 Oct 2006 at 18:53

richieboy said:
I could be tempted, but unless things have changed i always thought AMD were the way to go for gaming?

things have changed

richieboy · 18 Oct 2006 at 18:55

MagicalTrevor said:
things have changed

Care to elaborate?

semi-pro waster · 18 Oct 2006 at 19:01

I've not gone with a totally unlimited budget but this is about what I'd be looking at before the law of diminishing returns kicks in, hard. The Conroe chips are better at any given price than the AM2 equivalents and most overclock beautifully. The hard drive is 200gb because that is the smallest 7200.10 and also even if you think you will only use 100gb the chances are you will use more.

MB-152-AS Asus P5W DH Deluxe WiFi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-152-AS)
£134.99 £134.99
CP-128-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN)
£195.99 £195.99
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£164.99 £164.99
GX-050-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1950 XT-X SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR4 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-050-CO)
£244.99 £244.99
HD-085-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 200GB ST3200820AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-085-SE)
£45.99 £45.99
Subtotal £786.95
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £8.95
VAT £139.29
Total £935.19

richieboy · 18 Oct 2006 at 19:07

semi-pro waster said:
snip

Thanks, i was looking at an Nvidia 7950GT card over an ATI as i prefer the Nvidia drivers...is the ATI definately the better option without a doubt? After looking at charts for GFX cards the results seem to be up and down all over the place, sometimes the ATI takes the lead and other times the Nvidia does.

Is GeIL any good? I have always been a Corsair man myself, but can be persuaded to change?

EDIT: Are the DFI Socket 775 boards any good? I've got a DFI Ultra-D Expert and love it to bits!

EDIT2: What about the Asus P5WDG2-WS Professional Intel 975X (Socket LGA775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard?

semi-pro waster · 18 Oct 2006 at 19:15

The X1950XT is faster than the 7950GT I believe although have a check of the graphics card forums as I haven't checked the results on that one.

The Geil is good Ram, you could buy Corsair just as easily but the Geil is good value(given current Ram prices, of course).

I don't know too much about the DFI motherboards but I do know that the Asus P5W DH Deluxe matches well with the 6600.

If you want to buy the more expensive motherboard then that is up to you but the main benefit seems to be in the fact that it has PCI-X slot(s?) which isn't generally necessary at a consumer level although some Raid cards use it, they aren't all that common though.

richieboy · 19 Oct 2006 at 22:46

Any good?

Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
Intel Extreme D975bx-305 975X (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX (2x1GB)
EVGA GeForce 7950 GT KO Superclocked 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

I'm likely to go slightly less crazy with the RAM, most likely some GeIL etc...