Is this any good? Newbie here (HELP)

tommyslaits · 8 Mar 2011 at 16:32

I currently have an
Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.00GHz
2gb DDR RAM
ATI HD 3650 AGP
ASUS P4P800-F

I'm looking for an upgrade, I have a budget of about 230 pounds.

I have in mind:
AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 555 3.20GHz Black Editio
GeIL 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5450 SILENT 512MB GDDR3 PCI-Express
Asus M4A78LT-M 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard
Which is the best 20-30 pound case?

This is ment to be a low budget WoW Pc. Or Cod4.

PLEASE HELP, THANKS !!!

paradisiac · 8 Mar 2011 at 16:42

the specs for that are ok but nothing special. for the money though, those cpus if you are lucky will unlock to a tri or even a quad core, with a decent cooler you should be able to get a reasonable OC out of it too.
sadly i dont know anything about WoW so dont know if any of that will benefit you.

tommyslaits · 8 Mar 2011 at 16:44

paradisiac said:
the specs for that are ok but nothing special. for the money though, those cpus if you are lucky will unlock to a tri or even a quad core, with a decent cooler you should be able to get a reasonable OC out of it too.
sadly i dont know anything about WoW so dont know if any of that will benefit you.

I get 40FPS with lowest settings at the moment.

What sort of cooler will I need if I can unlock Tri/Quad?

paradisiac · 8 Mar 2011 at 16:48

anything other than stock should be fine depending on how far you want to push it. mine unlocked to a tri-core (core 3 is dead) and running at 3.9GHz but temps do go up after a while, so games get glitches so have dropped back to stock until i get a cooler.
getting it to tri/quad wont need a cooler, that is just down to how lucky you are with the chip you get, but it will run hotter, the cooler is only if you want to OC it.

AdamN · 8 Mar 2011 at 16:50

I've just fitted a Corsair A70 to my i7 @ 4.0 Ghz. Does the trick for me!

tommyslaits · 8 Mar 2011 at 17:03

paradisiac said:
anything other than stock should be fine depending on how far you want to push it. mine unlocked to a tri-core (core 3 is dead) and running at 3.9GHz but temps do go up after a while, so games get glitches so have dropped back to stock until i get a cooler.
getting it to tri/quad wont need a cooler, that is just down to how lucky you are with the chip you get, but it will run hotter, the cooler is only if you want to OC it.

Thanks for your help,
By cooler do you mean Heatsink yes?

paradisiac · 8 Mar 2011 at 17:11

yeh the heatsink and fan part. i myself am going to get the H70 as i have read there are problems with other coolers covering the ram slots, and i use all 4 of mine.

AdamN · 8 Mar 2011 at 17:19

paradisiac said:
yeh the heatsink and fan part. i myself am going to get the H70 as i have read there are problems with other coolers covering the ram slots, and i use all 4 of mine.

Good choice with the H70 but unless you're using a RAM cooler you;d be ok with a standard air cooler if you wanted to save a few £££.

paradisiac · 8 Mar 2011 at 17:22

AdamN said:
Good choice with the H70 but unless you're using a RAM cooler you;d be ok with a standard air cooler if you wanted to save a few £££.

at the moment the ram has small heatsinks on, but if i want to upgrade at any point i dont want to also have to shell out on a cooler, and from my understanding the H70 will fit pretty much any CPU (hopefully BD when its out) so means i can easily swap it to my new build.

AdamN · 8 Mar 2011 at 17:26

paradisiac said:
at the moment the ram has small heatsinks on, but if i want to upgrade at any point i dont want to also have to shell out on a cooler, and from my understanding the H70 will fit pretty much any CPU (hopefully BD when its out) so means i can easily swap it to my new build.

Totally get you. As for BD, as far as I know it's based around the AM3 chip for which there is a fitment in the H70 box.
Hope all goes well. Maybe post up some pictures when you've completed your work?

tommyslaits · 8 Mar 2011 at 17:39

AdamN said:
Totally get you. As for BD, as far as I know it's based around the AM3 chip for which there is a fitment in the H70 box.
Hope all goes well. Maybe post up some pictures when you've completed your work?

I appreciate both of your help, but this Thread is to help me decide if I should buy the new build, not discussing both your coolers with eachother

Dave0w · 8 Mar 2011 at 17:46

For the same price get the Athlon II X4 and your sorted

tommyslaits · 8 Mar 2011 at 17:48

Dave0w said:
For the same price get the Athlon II X4 and your sorted

Athlon quad is better then the Phenom Dual?
I heard different :S

Reaper 392 · 8 Mar 2011 at 18:09

surely for the £230 budget the cost of a good processor cooler would be far better spent on a better graphics card?
(or will the cooler from the dual core not cope when it becomes a 4 core)

tommyslaits · 8 Mar 2011 at 18:12

Reaper 392 said:
surely for the £230 budget the cost of a good processor cooler would be far better spent on a better graphics card?
(or will the cooler from the dual core not cope when it becomes a 4 core)

The reason for this PC is for Low-End gaming, so I thought a 5450 would take higher priority than a Processor Cooler, I don't think I will nudge it to 4 Core..So standard Heatsink would be fine?

paradisiac · 8 Mar 2011 at 18:36

standard heatsink is fine if you dont plan to unlock/oc. but if you dont want to do either, then no need buying a BE an athlon X4 would be a better buy.