Moving from a 939 system (omg hurray)

Rice Fiend

Rice Fiend

Rice Fiend

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Joined
29 Oct 2006
Posts
30
Hi Peeps,

I currently have:

XP dual core 3800+
ATI 1950 Pro
1 gig ram.
4 hardrives.

My system is old. It's too old.

I've been stuck in the land of AGP for years so I've been doing a fair amount of research on these boards and came up with this:

HIS ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (£183.99)

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) (£149.49)

Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard(£105.79)

Sennheiser PC350 Pro-Gaming Headset (£83.94)

Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (£78.19)

Corsair TX 650W ATX2.2 SLi Compliant PSU(£74.74)

Antec 900 Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black (£74.74)

OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel PlatinumDDR2 (£66.69)

I use my PC for so much so I know Quad Core is the sensible option, but my games are the priority :) which I run at 1650x1050.

So I was hoping somone can comment on the above and suggest any changes they would make. I'd really like to save some money and was thinking about downgrading the GPU to a 4850 but I don't really want to.

Many thanks n' Merry Xmas :)

Note: The hardrive won't be my OS drive, it's just for storage. I will also be using XP so I hear the 4th gig of ram won't be used...? Got a Zalman heatsink too.
 
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that spec looks fine

regarding the GPU, if you like upgrading and buying new hardware to play with, then getthe 4850 and upgrade again at a later date. however, if you are not going to change any hardware in the PC for the entirety of its life unless it breaks then i would say get the 4870 or even the 1GB version.

also how old are your current 4HDDs, because if they are very old, look into getting a new drive for your OS, this should help performance.
 
Not too sure if I would save the cash and go for an amd one instead, the performance difference and overclockability is not worth the savings imo. Unless the savings were like are quite significant
 
some will say change the memory for Corsair as some have experienced probs with OCZ & Asus....it's runs ok in my setup though :)
 
for the little extra, if budget allows obviously, swap the 8400 for the 8500 processor.

as mentioned, seen some issues with the asus p45 mobos and ocz memory, if it hasnt been sorted maybe have a look at something like the Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3.
 
AMD can't offer anything near the value for money (i.e. performance and price considered) that Intel can at the moment imo, not given the overclocking potential of the Core2Duo range.

I'd say your spec was fine, but could be improved with some simple changes.

I'd go with the Samsung F1 over the WD, but many would disagree with this. I'd also change the Corsair PSU to a HX620 - these are modular which helps massively with keeping the cables tidy. If you can stretch to it, I'd go for a mobo with an x38 chipset, but it's probably only a luxury really (unless you're looking to add a second gfx card in crossfire at any point soon, where it becomes more important to go for an x38 board).
 
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