help with upgrade choice

thepominlaw · 7 Jun 2007 at 10:50

Decided to upgrade my pc, money is limited want to know what is best value / performance

Currently AMD 3700+ (939) @ 2.6 GHz
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
2 GB ram
Sapphire 1900GT (Rev 2) @ 580/1450
2 x 250 GB IDE HDD
2 x DVDRW IDE
Coolermaster Praetorian 732
Tagan Easycon 530W
Samsung 940Bf (1280x1024)
Vista Home Premium

Fed up of having to run games on low and want to put some life into my PC, wife says its ok so I want to get some kit that offers good bang per buck……..

Looking at a few options

1 Do nothing but install 8800GTS £200

2 Install x2 4200 (939) and 8800GTS £300

3 Buy C2D E4300, Asus P5N-E, 2 GB Ram, 8800GTS £450

4 Buy C2D E6420, Asus P5B Deluxe, 2 GB Ram, 8800GTS £550

5 Buy C2D E6600, Asus Commando, 2 GB Ram, 8800GTS £600+

Wife would prefer option 0 Do nothing take her shopping 

Ok so I have my old kit to sell, but I have a few concerns, will any of these boards take the new Intel chips, or will I be buying dead end like I did with my 939 kit (2 months before AM2 was introduced). Also my hard drives are all IDE cannot afford to go SATA as well, the new mobos except the 650 chipset ones seem very limited in there support. A new mobo means my new copy of Vista OEM is useless as I cannot transfer it.

Any advice or opinions please its driving me mad and I need to have placed the order by the weekend.

Admiral Huddy · 7 Jun 2007 at 10:55

I personally would go for the quick and cheap option >> 2.

You'll see a big difference in dual core and the graphics jump. Although 939 is dead, it still offers great permformance at a bargain price. Vista is optimized for dual core as well so there is a benefit there too.

If I was starting fresh then C2D would be the CPU of choice.. but you'll need a new mobo and memory as well as you've quoted.

Jumping · 7 Jun 2007 at 10:59

As you said you had a few old IDE devices option 3 is probably your best bang for the buck and its the same as my system and I'm very happy with it, and you will have enough slots to use all your IDE devices which non of the other options gives you afaik.

You might be able to transfer your Vista to your new machine if you phone them up and say your motherboard and CPU died on you and since its the old 939 socket it would cost to much to get them replaced and you had to go with option 3

steve258 · 7 Jun 2007 at 11:05

Either option 2 or 3 depends how much you (your wife?) wants to fork out.

mp260767 · 7 Jun 2007 at 12:31

option 1.

thepominlaw · 7 Jun 2007 at 12:45

what about 2900xt or 8800gts......

is it worth spending another £50 to get more ram on a gts?

oh yeah the gts i was looking at getting was the BFG OC2 is this a good one?

mp260767 · 7 Jun 2007 at 13:36

thepominlaw said:
yeah the gts i was looking at getting was the BFG OC2 is this a good one?

wouldnt bother with the oc2 version.

as for the gfx card memory what games do you play/plan to play ?

thepominlaw · 7 Jun 2007 at 15:49

first person shooters and real time strategys

mp260767 · 7 Jun 2007 at 15:58

thepominlaw said:
first person shooters and real time strategys

if you dont play online then i wouldnt bother with the extra memory, if you plan to play some of the newer games like crysis etc when it comes out i would say the extra memory may well help.

steve258 · 7 Jun 2007 at 16:28

What resolution do you play your games at? If it's higher than 1680*1050 then the 640mb version is in order.

thepominlaw · 7 Jun 2007 at 18:10

all games are at 1280x1024 I have a 19" tft monitor

what brand is a good 8800gts?

thepominlaw · 7 Jun 2007 at 18:54

steve258 said:
Either option 2 or 3 depends how much you (your wife?) wants to fork out.

ok her indoors has relented, i didnt see the sense in spending £117 on an old skt 939 processor so i have gone for the Asus p5n-E Sli and E4300 combo, i am not sure how a 1.8ghz c2d will compare to my 2.6 amd?

would i notice a performance increase in my system for games? and will the e4300 cope with the 8800gts

steve258 · 7 Jun 2007 at 19:59

The 320Mb version will go perfectly with a 19" monitor.

If you don't want to spend too much then the OCUK 8800GTS 320Mb is very good, they're Point of View cards and still come with 2 year warranty I think.

I went from X2 2.6Ghz to E4300 and at stock the performance is similar, better in some apps. I think you will see a noticeable boost from dual core alone. Overclock it a little bit and it will really shine.

thepominlaw · 7 Jun 2007 at 20:07

steve258 said:
The 320Mb version will go perfectly with a 19" monitor.

If you don't want to spend too much then the OCUK 8800GTS 320Mb is very good, they're Point of View cards and still come with 2 year warranty I think.

I went from X2 2.6Ghz to E4300 and at stock the performance is similar, better in some apps. I think you will see a noticeable boost from dual core alone. Overclock it a little bit and it will really shine.

what brand? was looking at bfg oc2 or xfx xt any other recommendations

steve258 · 7 Jun 2007 at 20:39

Can't go wrong with either BFG or EVGA tbh, won't go for the pre-overclocked ones though, as you can just as easily do it yourself.

thepominlaw · 7 Jun 2007 at 23:13

steve258 said:
Can't go wrong with either BFG or EVGA tbh, won't go for the pre-overclocked ones though, as you can just as easily do it yourself.

damn just bought xfx

mp260767 · 8 Jun 2007 at 00:34

thepominlaw said:
damn just bought xfx

s;ok if there as good as they used to be you wont be dissapointed, loved my old xfx 6800.