New build for Crysis/EP2

Dogboy73

Dogboy73

Dogboy73

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Okay with these 2 excellent titles round the corner it's time to think about an upgrade again. I need a new mobo, CPU, RAM & GFX card (everything else I can keep from my existing system). Let's say I've got £300 to spend. What are my options?! Or is £300 a bit to ambitious for all that stuff? I'm thinking a decent mobo, an Intel Dual core CPU at the budget end of the spectrum, 1-2GB RAM to go with the mobo & a half decent GFX card that will be cheap but an improvement over my GForce 6800LE.
 
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it is a bit ambitious. This is a good build for the money, dont know whether your psu will handle it, you should get a decent clock out of that cpu.

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT12864AA804) Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT12864AA804) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
OcUK ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail OcUK ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £67.99
(£79.89) £67.99
(£79.89)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2140 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.60GHz (800FSB) - Retail Intel Core 2 Duo E2140 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.60GHz (800FSB) - Retail £37.99
(£44.64) £37.99
(£44.64)
Sub Total : £235.96
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £42.86
Total : £287.77
 
i'd up the processor to the E2160, maybe swap the memory to Ballistix 2GB 5300 if its still clocking as well as the 8500 sticks.

need to check you're psu and make sure it has 12v line of around 25A for the 1950pro card.
 
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JeanTech 500W PSU is the 12v rail rating for this sufficient to run say a 1950 pro 512mb ? i am not so sure i have looked on the website and it seems a bit vague it states 15a on one rail 18a on another but we need to know the combined true rating as a decent card is going to need 26-30 a.
The 1950 pro recommended is 30a on the 12v rail but a lot of people will tell you 28a will be enough it's very power hungry that card have owned one.I would look at selling your old stuff and upping your budget it really does look like you will be needing a new power supply if you want a 1950 pro maybe look at some other cards such as the 8600 gt which is 18a for stock and 24a for overclocked.Well worth finding an extra £58 for this spec.
capture_14092007_012159.jpg
 
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C64 said:
The 1950 pro recommended is 28A on the 12v rail but a lot of people will tell you it's more like 30a it's very power hungry that card have owned one.
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yeah but the problem is i've seen people on here say there psu is no where near that and they run fine, guess its down to the quality of the psu :confused:
 
Yea but jeantech aren't those sold in the high st shops and they make those crappy cases?.Personally i'd buy the above bar the psu and if it runs all well and good on the jeantech np if it doesn't upgrade the psu.
 
C64 said:
Yea but jeantech aren't those sold in the high st shops and they make those crappy cases?.Personally i'd buy the above bar the psu and if it runs all well and good on the jeantech np if it doesn't upgrade the psu.
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yeah those are the ones.

to be safe i'd save and upgrade the psu at the same time.
 
yea sell some of your old bits that can't be moved over like the ram and find the extra for the 520hx psu well worth it.
 
Guys, Thanks very much for all the replies. This is so helpful. Everytime I think about upgrading the goal posts have changed again & I'm still a bit of a n00b in he PC parts department. It's hard to keep up with all the changes!

One other thing I should have pointed out is that I've never overclocked before & I'm not sure if I'd go there to be honest. I'm happy to buy the best parts I can for my budget & just let them do their thing. That way I guess I can worry less about cooling & noise. I also use my PC for music so noise is an issue. At the moment my set-up is nice & cool & quiet in my Antec Sonata case so I plan to stick with it.

So if I'm not planning to overclock is it still wise to upgrade my PSU? One thing I've certainly seen suggested a lot for a while now is the X1950 Pro GFX card. This seems to be a favourite. I've not looked into this to much myself but this card seems to be the 9800Pro of it's generation. Is it better than the equally priced NVIDIA cards?

Many thanks again for all your help.
 
with the money you're spending on the upgrade, if it was me i'd upgrade the psu as well.

as for overclocking you should be able to get a small overclock out of that system without having to change any voltages etc so have a look into it, at least give it a try and if you're not happy with the outcome you can always reset it to default.
 
C64 said:
capture_14092007_012159.jpg
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I like the look of this lot. I must say that I'm amazed that you can now buy 2GB of RAM for £64 (inc VAT)! I bought my 1GB of RAM a few years ago now & it was just over £100. RAM has really come done. The GFX card also looks like excellent value for that price. My 6800LE was £150 a few years back. It only has 128MB of RAM onboard!
 
1 more question - How much of a performance boost am I going to see with the new build, with parts as specced by C64 above? Will it be a noticeable improvement over what I have (see signature) or will it blow it away? Will I be able to play HL2 with everything maxed out? At the moment HL2 runs smooth but I have to compromise on full world reflections & I turn model detail to medium for a further performance boost. The Lost coast was a bit flakey on my system & my frame rate made it unplayable. So HDR was a no no really.
 
Any cheaper options on the PSU? I might go for this set-up. EP2 is just around the corner & I could do wth a power boost :-) Then there's Crysis, which is almost certainly going to need a fairly potent rig to get anything like the best out of it.
 
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The spec that C64 posted using the screen grab has gone but I've gone through the parts recommended by Sinny. I've just upped the processor & added a PSU. How's this look?


newbuildix9.jpg
 
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swap the memory to :
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £41.99 (£49.34)

psu should be fine to go with :

Corsair VX 450W ATX PSU (CMPSU-450VXUK) £36.99 (£43.46)

that will come to £326.53 with the gfx card, processor and mobo you spec'd.
 
Hi, i was thinking of buying the same parts to upgrade my pc, but im contemplating delaying the purchase by a month, as next-gen games aren't going to be released until after october (i.e. crysis). Will i save much money waiting? I don't know how quickly hardware prices fluctuate.
 
Hardware prices drop like rocks! But I doubt you will see much change in the short term. You see the real changes when you've not upgraded for a while. Been about 3 years since Ibought any new PC components. My 1GB of RAM was around £100 back then. Now 2GB of much faster RAM costs half that!! My 6800LE gfx card was £150. I could pick up a much more powerful card these days (X1950) for half that price!
 
Aod said:
reccomended GFX for Crysis is an 8800GTS 640MB btw.
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Doesn't Crysis also require Vista? That's me out then! Not ready to make the jump to Vista by a long way. I certainly wouldn't do it for any one game. Crysis can wait.


One more idea I've had - For a cheap quick upgrade would it be worth me considering a more up to date AGP gfx card & getting myself another 1GB of PC3200 RAM (taking total to 2GB)? I guess I could get 2x 1GB stick of that RAM pretty cheap these days .... unless my mobo supports faster RAM? I know you can pick up some good AGP gfx cards pretty cheap these days also. Is this worth conisdering I should I just go the whole hog & upgrade all the main components?
 
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