Looking to Upgrade on a budget.

peejaygee · 14 May 2007 at 03:08

Dear All,

I would like some advice, I currently have a pc that has done me for a few years, but I'm wanting to upgrade within a budget.

I currently have a AMD Athlon XP 2600+, 1Gb of ram and a Geforce FX 5600 all running on a MSI6712 Motherboard, it has done me for my needs up till now, until I wanted to play the latest edition of C&C3. Which it runs slows, lags up, has to have the settings all on low, etc, etc...

So I was going to go for,

ASRock AM2NF3-VSTA nForce3 250 Skt AM2 SATA 8 channel audio ATX,
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Socket AM2 Dual Core (2.2GHz) 512kb L2 Cache, Kingston 2GB (2x1GB Kit) DDR2 533MHz/PC2-4200 Non-ECC CL4,
BFG GeForce 7800GS 256MB GDDR3 VGA DVI AGP Graphics Card,

This little lot is going to cost me just under £300.

My Question to you all, is this a viable upgrade? or could you offer advice, alternatives, etc?

I look forward to your replies before I shell out the money...

Regards
Paul.

St0rmer66 · 14 May 2007 at 04:27

Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3P (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail
OcUK GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C3 667MHz Dual Channel Kit

Sub Total : £248.96
Shipping : £8.25
Vat : £45.01
Total : £302.22

Better motherboard, better CPU, better RAM, slightly lesser graphics card but that was so it would fit within your budget (it's still no slouch). Would be a much better upgrade in terms of upgrading in the future also since PCI-E is the replacement for AGP, DDR2 is taking over DDR and the Core 2 DUo CPU's are much better than the AMD equivalents since they overclock like mad (even on stock volts with the stock cooler).

V|per · 14 May 2007 at 05:06

i'd have to agree with st0rmer66 here, the rig he has spec'd is far superior, and will give a MUCH better 'bang for buck' than the one you have stated.. i'd also say that the 76gt is coming close to a 78gt, so is probably as good if not better than the 7800gs

they also clock like absolute beasts too

TheNuju · 14 May 2007 at 10:25

Hey

Have to back up st0rmer66 100% there, lovely spec he has posted, the C2D chips are clearly out performing any AMD chip on the market at the moment. Even on a stock cooler I have got an E6600 running STABLE at 3.11ghz per core @ 47d

Mike

steve258 · 14 May 2007 at 11:39

How about:

Team Elite 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 800MHz Dual Channel Kit (TEDD2048M800HC5DC)
£49.99
(£58.74)

PowerColor ATI Radeon X1950 Pro Extreme SILENT Heatpipe 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
£79.99
(£93.99)

Gigabyte GA_965P_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
£59.99
(£70.49)

Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail
£54.99
(£64.61)

Sub Total : £244.96
Shipping : £8.95
Vat : £44.43
Total : £298.34

Still very overclockable and gives you much better gaming perfomance with a better GFX and decent cooler, much better than the 7800GS for <£100.

DS3P is good value for money but a bit pointless if you are not going to use RAID or crossfire.

The crucial ballistix is ace in overclocking but unless you are aiming for very high fsb an ordinary PC6400 kit will suffice.

Also add in a arctic freezer 7 pro if you want for £20 extra.

peejaygee · 14 May 2007 at 15:02

Thank you for all the input guys...

One of the reasons I was going for the ASRock AM2NF3-VSTA Motherboard is because it has 5 PCI slots on it, and I'm currently using 5 on my exsisting motherboard..

Any other motherboard options but with 5 PCI Slots? and IDE, not just SATA, I don't fancy replcing my HDD's aswell.

Regards
Paul

steve258 · 14 May 2007 at 16:16

I suggest you clearly specify your requirements in the OP next time as it saves a lot of time for everyone.

No most I've seen is 3. What PCI cards do you use? How many PATA devices do you have? Most new motherboards at the moment have only 1 PATA (for 2 devices) with the exception of ASUS P5N-E SLi and Abit IB9 AFAIK.

peejaygee · 14 May 2007 at 16:38

I've got 4 PATA (IDE's?) HDD's and 2 DVD Burners, so I have a PCI Raid Card, I've got a PCI USB 2.0 Card, a PCI USB/Firewire Card, PCI Soundcard, so there is 4 PCI's I need, I have something else in there, but for the life of me I can't remember (as I'm in work and not access to my pc, dumb I know)

Apologies for not being as specific on the inital post, but we all learn from our mistakes.

steve258 · 14 May 2007 at 17:01

No worries

Your best bet is probably the Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA which have 2 PATA/IDE ports and 4 PCI slot. But you need to get a PCI-E graphics card that has a single-slot cooler so the top most PCI slot is not obstructed.

The mobo comes with 8 USB 2.0 ports so hopefully you wouldn't need the USB2.0 card. You will need 2 USB headers though as 4 of the USB ports are supported through motherboard headers. Your case may already have front USB ports which can be connected to one of the headers.

The mobo supports both PCI-E and AGP graphics as well as both DDR and DDR2.

peejaygee · 14 May 2007 at 17:31

So my general consensus now is the following...

Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £54.99
(£64.61)

Team Elite 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 800MHz Dual Channel Kit (TEDD2048M800HC5DC) £49.99
(£58.74)

Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA (Socket 775) PCI-Express/AGP DDR2 Motherboard £39.99
(£46.99)

PowerColor ATI Radeon X1950 Pro Extreme SILENT Heatpipe 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £84.99
(£99.86)

Sub Total : £229.96
Shipping : £8.95
Vat : £41.81
Total : £280.72

Sound like a plan to me....

Thanks for all your help on this matter...

Regards
Paul

St0rmer66 · 14 May 2007 at 17:45

peejaygee said:
So my general consensus now is the following...

Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £54.99
(£64.61)

Team Elite 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 800MHz Dual Channel Kit (TEDD2048M800HC5DC) £49.99
(£58.74)

Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA (Socket 775) PCI-Express/AGP DDR2 Motherboard £39.99
(£46.99)

PowerColor ATI Radeon X1950 Pro Extreme SILENT Heatpipe 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £84.99
(£99.86)

Sub Total : £229.96
Shipping : £8.95
Vat : £41.81
Total : £280.72

Sound like a plan to me....

Thanks for all your help on this matter...

Regards
Paul

Looks great to me.

steve258 · 14 May 2007 at 17:56

peejaygee said:
So my general consensus now is the following...

Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £54.99
(£64.61)

Team Elite 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 800MHz Dual Channel Kit (TEDD2048M800HC5DC) £49.99
(£58.74)

Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA (Socket 775) PCI-Express/AGP DDR2 Motherboard £39.99
(£46.99)

PowerColor ATI Radeon X1950 Pro Extreme SILENT Heatpipe 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £84.99
(£99.86)

Sub Total : £229.96
Shipping : £8.95
Vat : £41.81
Total : £280.72

Sound like a plan to me....

Thanks for all your help on this matter...

Regards
Paul

Change the graphics to this one:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-134-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=404

It's the same price but has a single-slot cooler so the top most PCI slot won't be obstructed.

Nicos Rex · 14 May 2007 at 18:19

Another option to consider is getting adaptors to allow you to connect some of your PATA drives to the SATA connectors on your motherboard.

This would allow you to dispense with your RAID card, widen your options for motherboard choice, and as a bonus would mean a much tidier build with better airflow.

I realise that this is probably not going to be a welcome suggestion as there are cost implications and it makes the motherboard choice more tricky but I felt you should at least be aware of the possibility.