New build for Crysis/EP2

if you still have a budget of £300 available :

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £37.99 (£44.64)

Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £49.99
(£58.74)

EVGA nForce 650i Ultra (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (122-CK-NF66-T1) £49.99 (£58.74)

OcUK ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £65.99 (£77.54)

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

Sub Total : £240.95
Shipping : £8.95
VAT : £43.73
Total : £293.63
 
Sounds good, mp26067. Cheers for you post.

But any thoughts from anyone on my idea of just replacing my existing RAM & GFX card? Worth it? Anyone know the fastest RAM I can use with my mobo? (see signature).
 
Id strongly suggest you save up some more money tbh. Skimping on parts only costs you more in the long run.

Crysis looks like its going to be a memory hog. They devs pritty much said you will need at least 2gb of ram. The graphics card recommended is the 640mb instead of 320mb of the gts. This is probably for the DX10 and all that lot. But still should take it into consideration that its not a great deal more to save considering the huge difference in performance from a 1900xt to a 320mb gts. If you really cant strech to a G80, then at least get a 512mb 1900


They also said that you will need to keep equaly powerful cpu and gfx to get the best performance. They said no point having a good graphics card and poor cpu and otherway round.
 
you're mobo can take :

dual channel DDR 266/333/400

as specified on the msi site.

unless u can get a decent 2nd agp gfx card i dont think it would be worth it game wise.
 
8igdave said:
Id strongly suggest you save up some more money tbh. Skimping on parts only costs you more in the long run.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately around £300 is my limit. I have to be strict with my budgeting here or before I know it things spiral out of control & I've got to many other commitments to justify it ....... on the other hand I do want to build myself a decnt rig that will allow me to at least play current games (Crysis aside for the minute) with settings up & at a good Frame rate.

With this in mind will the parts specced above (the ones chosen by myself & mp26067) give me a significant performance increase over my current set up? (see signature below). The gfx card specced has 512MB of onboard RAM. I'm currently running a 6800LE with only 128MB of RAM so I guess that should make a huge difference on it's own. I'll have twice as much system RAM + a much more up to date (though still only 2.0ghz) dual core CPU. That's my thinking behind the £300 upgrade. At least on paper it looks like wiping the floor with my current rig & at a very palatable price.
 
Thought this might help :)

Intel Core 2 Duo E2140 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.60GHz (800FSB) - Retail

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC)

Abit IL9 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

OcUK GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Antec Basic 500W PSU

Sub Total : £302.95
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 : £54.58

Total : £366.48
 
Well you will beable to play most games with settings up on that new spec dude .. I mean I play Episode 2 flawlessly on a AMD 3500 @ 2.57GHz / x1800 512 and 2 gig of ram and my in-game settings are Max!! 4aa + 8AF @ 1280 by 1024.

You should beable to play Crysis fine in XP dx9 .. just not on max settings dude.

Cheers
Andy
 
akirru said:
Well you will beable to play most games with settings up on that new spec dude .. I mean I play Episode 2 flawlessly on a AMD 3500 @ 2.57GHz / x1800 512 and 2 gig of ram and my in-game settings are Max!! 4aa + 8AF @ 1280 by 1024.

You should beable to play Crysis fine in XP dx9 .. just not on max settings dude.
Click to expand...
That's good. At the moment I'm playing EP2 with everything turned down! HDR is off, textures are set to medium, reflections are on simple & if I switch the damn flash light on I can count the frame rate quite easily! I get terrible slow down at the 'cut scene' parts i.e. when you find the Combine slug thing & on similar scenes to that. It's not happy at all. HL2 ran fine on my system but EP2, Portal & TF2 run a bit pants to be honest.
 
OC have this RAM on special;

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-072-OC


Looks good. Very cheap. I'm still not sure about the PSU though. The JeanTech I have is 500W but people have suggested the output might not cut the mustard. If I'm going to get a new PSU then I might as well get at least 500W & a good make like Antec.


My basket so far (minus the PSU);
basbuilduptk2.jpg
 
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one way of saving a bit of cash is getting the EVGA 650i mobo MP recommended .... brilliant board

my E2160 at 3.2ghz

massive performance increase ............ would boost ** system up massively again.. more performance in new games

i got to 2.7ghz without upping any voltages etc etc just increasing the FSB

look into it ;)
 
i SERIOUSLY reccomend getting something more powerfull than an X1900XT (like a HD2900pro) if you want to play Crysis with any Eye candy. no, it doesn't require Vista!

saying you can play HL2:EP2 on max on that card i means nothing, because the source engine is Ancient now. sure, it looks alright but its not a PATCH on Crysis.
 
Ravie said:
one way of saving a bit of cash is getting the EVGA 650i mobo MP recommended .... brilliant board. my E2160 at 3.2ghz. massive performance increase ............ would boost ** system up massively again.. more performance in new games. i got to 2.7ghz without upping any voltages etc etc just increasing the FSB. look into it ;)
Click to expand...
Looks like a good board. It's had great reviews. So I guess now it's the EVGA 650i or the Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R.


Aod said:
i SERIOUSLY reccomend getting something more powerfull than an X1900XT (like a HD2900pro) if you want to play Crysis with any Eye candy. no, it doesn't require Vista!
Click to expand...
Again, it all comes down to budget. I'd consider one of those cards in the future but at the moment your looking at £176 for the cheapest HD2900 pro that OC do. The X1950 people are recommending is only £65! I could almost buy three of those for the price of a HD2900. Might have to scrimp a little on the Crysis settings but a rig to play that a full pelt is way out of my budget at this time. On the other hand my current rig is just going to fall over at the first hurlde where Crysis is concerned (it's really struggling with EP2!). Thanks for the recommendation but it's going to have to be the X1950 at this time (which to me looks fu***ng awesome at the price. A 512MB card was around £300 when I bought my 6800LE!)


Still unsure about that PSU. Should I take a chance with the Jeantech 500W that I have or go for a 550W from a more reliable manufacturer? I'm probably going to order this lot today (while the gfx card & RAM are still on special this week)


Current basket - now with EVGA 650i mobo (saving £18) & 2GB Geil RAM instead of the OC RAM (saving £4). Only problem I see with the EVGA is that it doesn't appear to support DDR3 RAM & the Gigabyte mobo does. With the Gigabyte mobo I'd have the option of swapping the RAM to DDR3 when it's more affordable.

currentbasketid1.jpg
 
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Dogboy73 said:
I could shave a few pounds off my total with one of these;

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-058-OK&tool=3

But how do they shape up against the card I'm currently going for? (the ATi X1950 512MB)
Click to expand...

The 8600 gets beaten by 7300s so id stay away from it. The 1900xt is superior to it.

Ravie said:
one way of saving a bit of cash is getting the EVGA 650i mobo MP recommended .... brilliant board

my E2160 at 3.2ghz

massive performance increase ............ would boost ** system up massively again.. more performance in new games

i got to 2.7ghz without upping any voltages etc etc just increasing the FSB

look into it ;)
Click to expand...

As far as i know the 650i, and 680is have had many bad problems with them. Such as fbs holes etc. You are also paying extra for sli and things you dont need. They also have raid problems and arn't very reliable from what ive heard. Nore do they overclock the new quad cores amazingly. Id stick to P35 boards if you want to overclock.
 
yes, the Gigabye "D" series boards are excellent.

the Geil ram is on a "this-weekend-only" special. if you want it for that price you have to buy before about 10:00 tomorrow morning.
 
I would still say the gigabyte board is better because of reliability tht the 650Is and 680Is lack.

Also overclocking is very simple and id suggest you do when your 2ghz processor can do 3.2ghz with ease. Thats a big performance boost!

Remeber games already are requiring 2.4+ overclock it to 3ghz and it will be very stable and be flying. A game like supreme comander would have a hard time on 2ghz i think.
 
Think I'll go with the Gigabyte board then. I'll probably order this lot today. Just need to find out about the PSU (will I need a new one or stick with what I have?) then I'll order.

I might have a look into overclocking as well. Where's a good place to start with that? I've been put of before because I thought I'd also need to start worrying about cooling & that kind of thing. I also use my PC for music & so keeping it as quiet as possible is important. It's nice & quiet now but my previous PC sounded like a jet engine! Could I get a small overclock with the CPU I've specced without having to worry about heat problems?
 
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