Is this a good setup??

Badkarma · 31 Mar 2006 at 21:57

Hi all, need some help determining if this is a good upgrade

Thermaltake Soprano (windowed) = £50.47
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra Motherboard = £76.32
AMD 64 3700+ San Diego Core (OEM) = £149.17
Gigabyte G-Power Pro CPU Cooler = £26.97
Total minus gfx = £302.93 incl tax

now I cant decide which is better to go for...the 7800GT 512mb Goes like hell or the XFX 7900gt 256mb extreme (would say the latter)

need recomendations on a PSU and possibly RAM (pref 2Gb)

keeping my dvd writer, HDD and soundcard. Does the motherboard support High Density Ram...if not need new RAM

All help appreciated

Monstermunch · 31 Mar 2006 at 22:09

This is the stuff I would reccommend:

MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£89.95 £89.95
MY-057-OC OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series EL-DDR CAS2 (OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K) (MY-057-OC)
£139.95 £139.95

The Geil is excellent value but for clocking the OCZ is about the best available.

CA-008-TG Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£59.95 £59.95

I would reccommend at least 500w these days and this is one of the better ones.

GX-112-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-112-SP)
£254.95 £254.95
GX-121-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-121-SP)
£179.95 £179.95

Graphics card wise, I think that the ATI cards are offering much better value for money, one of these two would be good. The GeForce cards are not really as quick and are more money.

Also if you are upgrading now I think you should seriously consider dual core. If you don't by this time next year I think you'll be kicking yourself!

Badkarma · 31 Mar 2006 at 23:08

thanx for the fast reply, heard that not many progs support dual core at the moment and that sticking with single would be best..but will look into it

Monstermunch · 31 Mar 2006 at 23:26

Badkarma said:
thanx for the fast reply, heard that not many progs support dual core at the moment and that sticking with single would be best..but will look into it

Not specifically yet no.... However multitasking etc in windows is faster and it wont be long before games etc support dual core, then you'll want to be upgrading again!