Need advice please on upgrades

Merlin5

Merlin5

Merlin5

Soldato
Joined
17 Aug 2009
Posts
18,602
Location
Finchley, London
Hi. :) Want to spend some money at overclockers.co.uk, since they have great prices. Sorry for the long post, tried to put in as much detail so that you're as clued up as possible. My ancient CPU is an athlon XP2000+ and failed the Tomb Raider Underworld test on the 'can you run it?' site. My AGP 7600 GS only barely passed one notch over minimum. It's tomb raider underworld that motivated me to upgrade, and for future games as well as general pc stuff. My budget is ideally £300.

I want to try and keep my computer case (16.5" tall x 16" long x 8" wide) to save money which has an old ATX form factor asus board at the moment, and this new motherboard (see spec below) is about the same dimensions, fractionally smaller, as my current motherboard. If you think I can get away with keeping it?

Current asus A7V8X mobo ATX - 30.5cm X 24.5cm

New Gigabyte mobo ATX 30.5cm x 21cm


My case also has an 'EZ Cool' 550w PSU which is 3 and a half years old but seems to be fine, which I'd also like to keep to save money. I hope it will be powerful enough to run everything? EDIT: I've read EZ Cool is cheap crap, so maybe it's dangerous for my other components to keep it? I also read that a 600w EZ Cool is actually only 300w. Oh dear, more money to spend.

I've put together a selection of upgrade components which just goes a little over what I wanted to spend. And that's only if I can keep my current case and PSU. Can you tell me if these components will be good to go for the game, and for maybe one or two other higher specced games out there? What do you think?


£91.99 PROCESSOR

Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.93GHz (1066FSB)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-272-
IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=793

..........................................

£56.99 MOTHERBOARD

Gigabyte GA-P43-ES3G Intel P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Spec.aspx?__ProductID=2960

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-217-GI

*** just found out this motherboard doesn't support that processor, nor any of the other gigabyte ones, except for a couple which aren't PCI-E 2.0 and only support 8GB ram. Any other mobo you can recommend from overclockers?
........................................



£59.98 HARD DRIVE

Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD10EADS)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-246-WD

OR £60.98

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-211-__SE&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=


*** Someone said to me that seagate are more reliable than WD, true or false?

.............................................

£40 MEMORY

OCZ Gold Edition 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 Dual Channel (OCZ2G10664GK)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-149-OC

..........................................................

GRAPHICS CARD - don't know yet. Gainward GeForce 9800 GT Green Edition 512MB at

£70.99
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-109-GW

OR Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 at £79.99

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-179-

SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=938

*** The 4850 is only £9 more but I've read it outperforms the 9800 GT by approx 30%, would that be about right?

I also don't know if one of these cards will fit inside my case better than the other. How much bigger are they than my 7600 GS?

Many thanks for any help.
 
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Ah, this is now getting to be a nightmare. I can't find any motherboards on this site, at least, within my price range, that are compatible with that processor, so I have to start over.

Can someone recommend me a dual core processor at around 3GHz, or an AMD equivalent I don't mind, and a compatible motherboard that is PCI-E 2.0, takes 16GB of ram, or maybe 8GB, and has one slot of IDE support, for about the same prices as I listed for the gigabyte board and E7500 cpu? It's a tall order I know.

EDIT: I found this combo which seem to be compatible. Works out even cheaper which is a bonus. What do you think of this board and processor?

Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 AMD 770 (Socket AM3/AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £60.98

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-180-GI

http://www.gigabyte.eu/Products/Mot...board&ProductID=3097&ProductName=GA-MA770-UD3

HAs IDE and PCI-E 2.0 and does 16GB DDR3

+

AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 245 2.9GHz (Socket AM3) £50.99
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-251-AM
 
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DDR2 Ram: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=MY-149-OC
WD 1TB HDD: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=HD-246-WD
AM3 Micro ATX Mobo: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=MB-357-AS
AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core AM3 CPU: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=CP-249-AM
Sapphire 4850 GPU: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=GX-179-SP

Sub Total: £274.74
Shipping : £9.50
Total : £326.88

I personally would recommend WD, I think they are very reliable. I'm curently using their 1TB Caviar Black series and mt portable HDD is also WD. No problems whatsoever.

Yes you are risking damaging your components by not using a quality PSU. I would suggest that you get rid of you old PSU and buy a decent one. Since yours has been serving you for 3 years+. Averged life of these things is roughly 5years or so.
 
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A little over budget, but I think it is fairly hard to cut back much more without sacrificing too much performance.

You might want to go for a smaller hard drive and re-use your existing Hard drive? This way you can combine the storage space rather than going for a full 1TB HDD. This way it should allow it to sit within your budget :)
 
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Pakjai, thank you so much! I'm really happy with that system, particularly since you recommended it, because I'm going to assume that you think it will be a good system for gaming amongst other things. :D

Actually, that £326.88 is ok, because previously I'd worked out a system that was coming to £340 and upwards. I will buy a decent psu, I dunno, antec or something, 500w or more?

I must ask though about the micro ATX mobo. It's got EVERYTHING on it I wanted, IDE, PCI-E 2.0, etc, but my worry is, does it fit into my ATX case or is it too small meaning I need to buy a new case? And if so, which case would be good for it, with decent airflow? If I'm going to change cases, I wouldn't mind something that looks a bit like the antec 300 with those big fans top and side, and that antec case is a good price too. But it's for ATX.

Also, how well does the 4850 fit onto the board, is it a big card or will the motherboard take it easily?

Regarding hard drive, I might have to stick with the one new 1TB sata drive and reinstall windows on to it. Reason being is that I have 2 IDE DVD drives, reader and writer, that I need to connect to the IDE slot. So first, I can daisy chain both my IDE hard drives to the IDE slot, transfer all my data to the SATA drive, only about 170GB worth of files, then remove both IDE hard drives and connect and daisy chain the DVD drives. The IDE drives can then be stored away to collect dust. With only the one IDE slot I think that's the best and only way, short of buying external USB enclosures for them, which is more money. I'll never in a million years use up I terrabyte anyway so I'll never need more hard drive space, and at least sata is faster. Bit of shame in some ways because my IDE drives are 320GB and 120GB. Oh well, goodbye to old technology. :p

OR ..*brainwave*.. I could bin the smaller hard drive and the DVD reader, and hook up the DVD writer and larger hard drive. Yep, might do that instead. And yep, you're right, I can save £20 if I go for a 500GB sata drive.
 
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Ah! I've googled and apparently micro ATX boards are backwards compatible with ATX cases, so, that's great, saves me buying a new case! I hope the shop that is going to fit it knows how to sort it out, all the screws that have to be re adjusted or whatever :)
 
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AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz Black Edition
HIS ATI Radeon HD 4850 1024MB GDDR3
OCZ Gold Edition 4GB DDR2 PC2-8500C5
WD Caviar Blue 500GB SATA-II 16MB
Asus M4A785D-M Pro AMD 785G (Socket AM3)


Ok, got rig sorted as above. Now need to choose PSU. Which of these would be good for it? I'm thinking one of the first 2 listed perhaps. Antec Basiq Plus 550W £52.99, good price, good brand, unless you think the 500w OCZ at £48.99 is sufficient. Need to keep price low.


OCZ StealthXStream 500w Silent £48.99

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-026-OC&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=
...........................................

Antec Basiq Plus 550W £52.99

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-111-AN&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=
................................................

OCZ StealthXStream 600w Silent SLI Ready £54.99
(out of stock)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-023-OC&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=
..............................................

Hiper S 625W £57.99

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-032-HP&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=
........................................

OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Ready Modular
£60.98

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-031-OC&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=
 
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Hi there.

Yeah it's a tricky budget to work around and I don't want to change it too much and make it too impersonal. That's why I left the ram and graphics card as it is.

For a PSU, 750 is enough to feed the most demanding system nowadays unless you go OTT on the setup running multiple setup of the latest graphics cards. So a 600W will easily do for you.

I would personally recomend you OCZ, since I'm using the modxstream serie myself. I have zero problems with it either. They are amongst one of the best brands when it comes to cooling and power.
 
OCZ it is then ;) Just fine tuning now, basically, everything is ready to be bought. Wanted to ask you about the asus motherboard if I may. It's fine and all but I'm not sure (for future proofing in case I want to change to quad core) if it supports quad core or not. It says it supports AM3 multi-core processors, and CPU: Phenom II/Athlon II/Phenom/Athlon/Sempron. It doesn't say Phenom II x 3 or 4 though. For £2 more, there's the GA-MA770-UD3 which supports the processor I'm buying and quadcore. It's also ATX, not micro. Would you happen to know if I'm better off with one or the other? Even for just ease of fitting the ATX board perhaps? The only drawback for the GA-MA770-UD3 is a note that says " (Note 1) Due to Windows® XP 32-bit operating system limitation, when more than 4 GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory size displayed will be less than 4 GB." Not sure how to interpret that, if it means more than 4GB won't get used, or it will but just falsely show less installed.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Spec.aspx?ProductID=2982
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-180-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=


PakJai said:
Hi there.

Yeah it's a tricky budget to work around and I don't want to change it too much and make it too impersonal. That's why I left the ram and graphics card as it is.

For a PSU, 750 is enough to feed the most demanding system nowadays unless you go OTT on the setup running multiple setup of the latest graphics cards. So a 600W will easily do for you.

I would personally recomend you OCZ, since I'm using the modxstream serie myself. I have zero problems with it either. They are amongst one of the best brands when it comes to cooling and power.
Click to expand...
 
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About windows 32 bit. Basically, if you are running windows 32 bit, your system will only recognise up to 4GB of ram. Adding anymore will be pointless as it is not supported on 32bit windows. If you want 8GB ram or more (depending if your motherboard will allow it), then you will need to install a 64bit version of windows.

About the motherboard, yeah, any current AM3 cpu will work on an AM2+/AM3 board. Difference between an AM2+ and the AM3 board is that AM2 will only accept DDR2 memory as for AM3, they will allow you to install DDR3 dual channel memory.

I think I must have gotten confused with the pc case (sigh late night was to blame!). If your pc case if a midi/medium tower then ATX is fine. If you have one of those cube shaped boxes, then you will need the micro boards.

Hope this helps :)
 
Thanks PakJai, I'll get the gigabyte board then. As far as 64 bit version of windows, I've no idea what version I have of XP Pro :p

edit: I've since googled and am more clued up. I have 32 bit and will be buying W7 premium in october and installing the 64 bit version.
 
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I'm considering a very similar build to you Merlin - only problem is i'm not so sure about that motherboard now. It only accepts DDR2 ram - not DDR3. I'm not sure what the impact of this is though - hence my confusion.
 
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