New £1k PC Spec

EdinAndy

EdinAndy

EdinAndy

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Joined
8 Sep 2003
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95
Location
Scotland
Hi everyone,

I'm currently wondering whether to upgrade my current PC (XP2200, 512MB, X800Pro) after trying to play the Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter demo and almost crying. I know that people are making a lot of Intel's new processors and the dispointment of AM2, but as the AM2 4200+ is the same price as the Socket939 4200+ was back in march when I last looked - I don't feel that the AM2 is a bad option.

I'm basically looking for a new full PC, I've got a 17" Iiyama CRT that I still really like so probably not looking for the move to a TFT quite yet. I've never been much of an overclocker - so the PC will most likely run at stock its whole life.

Here's a first stab at a spec:

CP-168-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ 2.20GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-168-AM)
£219.95 £219.95
MB-069-MS MSI K9N Platinum nForce 570 SLi (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-069-MS)
£99.95 £99.95
MY-084-CR Crucial 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C5 Dual Channel Kit (CT2KIT12864AA667) (MY-084-CR)
£116.95 £116.95
GX-079-LT Leadtek GeForce 7900 GT Extreme 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-079-LT)
£199.95 £199.95
CA-005-AK Akasa Eclipse-62 Aluminum Case (CA-005-AK)
£69.95 £69.95
CD-030-PL Plextor PX-716AL Dual Layer Slot Loading 16x16 DVD±RW ReWriter - Retail (CD-030-PL)
£67.95 £67.95
HD-017-SA Samsung SpinPoint P SP2004C 200GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-017-SA)
£46.95 £46.95
CA-045-AN Antec NeoHE 500W Modular ATX2.0 PSU (CA-045-AN)
£59.95 £59.95
OS-001-MS Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (N09-01528) (OS-001-MS)
£49.95 £49.95
HD-001-OK OcUK Value Floppy Drive - Black (HD-001-OK)
£5.95 £5.95
Subtotal £937.50
VAT £164.07
Total £1,101.57

Thanks!
 
I would replace that 4200+ with the 4400 (latter has double the cache) Why the floppy? You don't need to boot from floppy to install Windows...might need it to flash BIOS but I would recommend flashing from a FAT partition on a spare HD (safer than floppy, more space as BIOS firmware could be bigger than 1.44MB). Replace HD with WD or Seagate. Apart from looks good
 
squiffy said:
I would replace that 4200+ with the 4400 (latter has double the cache) Why the floppy? You don't need to boot from floppy to install Windows...might need it to flash BIOS but I would recommend flashing from a FAT partition on a spare HD (safer than floppy, more space as BIOS firmware could be bigger than 1.44MB). Replace HD with WD or Seagate. Apart from looks good
Click to expand...

I needed my floppy drive to install the SATA Drivers.

Also, the Samsung HDD's are awesome, I have one and it's literally silent. Pretty fast too. :)
 
IMO you should go 939, the performance is ever so slightly better and I think its all cheaper, allowing for a better gfx card.

2Gb Skill ZX, 4200+ and a Ultra-D, could get a X1900XT/7900GTX if you go that way :)
 
Looks a decent setup - no glaring problems at all.

I would comment that the 4200 is a bit of a waste of money over the 3800 though (they have the same cache, just the 4200 is 200MHz faster), considering how easily the 3800 can be clocked COMPLETELY SAFELY - see here. In preference though, I would definitely replace this with the 4400.
 
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
£311.22
Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS)
£64.57
Mushkin 2GB DDR EM3200 Enhanced Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) CAS3 (991461) (MY-006-MK)
£129.19
Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (3056) (GX-047-CO)
£276.07
Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31636) (HD-002-HI)
£62.22
OcUK Value Floppy Drive - Black (HD-001-OK)
£6.99
NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE)
£24.62
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£17.57
Tagan TG530-U22 530W ATX2.01 2Force SLi Compliant Silent PSU (CA-005-TG)
£70.44
Akasa Eclipse-62 Aluminum Case (CA-005-AK)
£82.19
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (N09-01528) (OS-001-MS)
£58.69

Total inc VAT: £1,103.77

£3 more expensive, but you get a much better CPU and graphics card. Will play all games very well on your 17" monitor.
 
Thanks to everyone for their input!

Agreed on the 4400+ over the 4200+, I didn't know about the cache thing!

I don't think I can stretch to a 7800GTX, and I think I want to stick to the nVidia route having had ATI cards for years now - I'm still not sure their drivers are as stable as nVidia's (hoping not to start a war here! :p )

Trying to keep a control of the costs as the PC was supposed to be £1000 not £1100 (oh well!) - I've knocked the memory down to 1GB. Does anyone feel that makes a big difference with current games. It would be an easy upgrade to add an extra GB without throwing away the first GB further down the line wouldn't it?

Unsure about sticking with 939 over AM2 (although Explicit's spec looks really good) as it's a dead end when it comes to upgrading?

OK - Here's where I am right now:

MB-069-MS MSI K9N Platinum nForce 570 SLi (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-069-MS)
£99.95 £99.95
CA-005-AK Akasa Eclipse-62 Aluminum Case (CA-005-AK)
£69.95 £69.95
CD-030-PL Plextor PX-716AL Dual Layer Slot Loading 16x16 DVD±RW ReWriter - Retail (CD-030-PL)
£67.95 £67.95
HD-017-SA Samsung SpinPoint P SP2004C 200GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-017-SA)
£46.95 £46.95
CA-045-AN Antec NeoHE 500W Modular ATX2.0 PSU (CA-045-AN)
£59.95 £59.95
OS-001-MS Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (N09-01528) (OS-001-MS)
£49.95 £49.95
HD-001-OK OcUK Value Floppy Drive - Black (HD-001-OK)
£5.95 £5.95
MY-081-CR Crucial 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2 PC2-4200C4 Dual Channel Kit (CT2KIT6464AA53E) (MY-081-CR)
£58.95 £58.95
CP-169-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ 2.20GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-169-AM)
£284.95 £284.95
GX-076-XF XFX GeForce 7900 GT Extreme Edition 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (PVT71G-UDER/UCE7/UCER) (GX-076-XF)
£184.95 £184.95
Subtotal £929.50
VAT £162.67
Total £1,092.17
 
Im surprised no one has mentioned it yet... but have you considered waiting for intels conroe chips. They are due out in july and will perform significantly faster than the current AMD 64 chips.
 
EdinAndy said:
I'm currently wondering whether to upgrade my current PC (XP2200, 512MB, X800Pro) after trying to play the Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter demo and almost crying. I know that people are making a lot of Intel's new processors and the dispointment of AM2, but as the AM2 4200+ is the same price as the Socket939 4200+ was back in march when I last looked - I don't feel that the AM2 is a bad option.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't go the AM2 route yet if I were you......

The current batch are just glorified socket 939 chips with DDR2 support. Later in life the AM2 chips will differ in other ways to S939 but the current gen don't.

If you have to buy now get a s939 system, if you can wait until August/September time then get AM2 or look at the new Intel Conroe.

As far as the Conroe being miles better then the AM2....well we'll just have to wait and see. In the comparison tests they did they compared a new Conroe to an FX60 which is current gen, the Conroe was 200mhz slower and about 20% faster, but what does that mean. Nothing IMO, wait and see what happens with AM2 to decide on that one.
 
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