I want to replace my old faulty motherboard then gradually upgrade

PaulMTC

PaulMTC

PaulMTC

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9 Jan 2006
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Hi all,

I need to replace my motherboard as it's faulty.

I would like to take this opportunity to begin a moderate (cheapish) upgrade.

To keep the cost down I was thinking of getting a new motherboard (or barebone system) but keep all the rest of my components. I would then gradually upgrade the system over time (to spread the cost).

I put together my current spec 4 years ago and have the following:

- Abit NF7-S VER 2.0 nForce2 SKT A 400DDR 8xAGP SATA Firewire 5.1 Sound LAN Retail Box
- AMD XP 3200+ Barton CPU
- Arctic Cooling Copper Silent 2l (blue Light) (maximum Support XP3400)
- ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
- NEC ND-3500 Double Layer Dual 16x DVD R/RW - OEM Beige
- Maxtor 6Y120M0 120GB Serial ATA 8mb Cache 7200rpm - OEM
- 2 x Crucial 512 DDR400 PC3200 CL=3 Memory Module
- Antler PC-146 Atx Midi Tower Grey 350w P4 Psu Front Usb

Can anyone offer advice on what to buy (ie. motherboard needs to be able to handle my current components but give me a bit of room to upgrade).

I like the idea of getting a new barebone system to start, and then transfer my existing components over to that (not sure I can be bothered with the hassle of building everything up from scratch).

After I've done this - what should be the order I upgrade the rest of the kit?

I play games so I will be looking to upgrade the Radeon 9600 Pro at some point - but I do not need to have a super poweful card. Just something that is good value these days.

Really appreciate any advice given.

Thanks,

Paul.
 
Sell the cpu (£35ish), 9600 Pro (£20ish) and RAM (£15ish)

That's £70, plus the £30+ you'd need to pay for a new socket A motherboard.

And with £100, you can get:

Gigabyte GA-EP31-DS3L iP31 Socket 775 (about £50)
OCZ 2GB DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 CL 5-6-6-15 Value Series (£20)
Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 2.5GHz Socket 775 800FSB (£60)
Force3D X1650Pro 512MB DDR2 (£30)

So that's around £160, so £60 out your pocket, and this system will be quite a big step up from what you have :)
 
agreed, dont buy a motherboard for your current cpu.... its kind of moving backward (well standing still)

def go for some sort of upgraded chipset/socket
 
Thanks guys.

Krooton - any reason why that motherboard is not available to buy on overclockers?

what makes this one stand out over the many others available!

also - any barebone systems you could recommend?

what about cooling - do i need to buy any cooling kit over and above?

thanks again - it's really helpful.

Paul.
 
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OCUK dont stock P31 boards any more, but they are best budget option to go for.

I'd remove mention of that competitor though, it's against the rules.

Dunno about barebones, but there rest of your stuff can be re-used pretty easily.

And the E5200 will come with a heatsink and fan. :)
 
so the 350W psu is ok?

looking to buy a new hdd to install my os on and keep the other one as data - any advice you can give here?

thanks for the heads up on the rules - i've removed it.

paul.
 
Actually, I thought you had an antec case and psu combo, Antler aren't an established brand, so that might be pushing it a bit...

Antec NSK-4480B Mini Tower Case 380w would be ideal though, but that's another £60, eek!
 
The image doesn't appear to be embedded correctly Krooton.

ahh - it's ok, forget that.

thanks a lot that's really helped.

Will i need to do anything fiddly when putting this together like updating bios or anything like that?

or will i need to fit any additional cooling into the case?

i've built a couple of machines in the past but i'm a bit rusty as it's been a while.

paul.
 
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Nope, case will have sufficient cooling, and the cpu will come with it's own cooler.

Even at stock this will blow your old machine out of the water, and with some light overclocking even more so :)
 
is this motherboard ok (it's not exactly as the one you mentioned) .....

MSI P31 Neo-F V2 Intel P31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

it's £51.54 inc-VAT rather than the £44.61 inc-VAT for the one you mentioned.

the one you mentioned does not show up on overclockers.

thanks,

Paul.
 
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