new cpu/mboard

1337_KR3W · 1 Nov 2006 at 12:39

Looking at getting an old rig going again, its in need of a new mainboard and chip. It had 2800+ and a dfi lanparty nf2 board off the top of my head, the important bits i need are onboard sata (4 sata drives).

I was having a look at the AM2 chipset stuff, 3800+ socket AM2, and Asus M2N-SLi Deluxe (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-144-AS).

I have 1gb corsair ddr ram at the moment, do i need to get ddr2 for it to be compatible with this lot?

I noticed the AGP slots seem to be dying out, i have a 9700pro so it is an option to get a board with an AGP slot, but also an option to get a reasonable graphics card, but I dont know anything about the new ones.

Can you please post recomendations for CPU + MOBO, Graphics card if changed, and ram if changed + a total price?
I can afford to go for round about £500, but can sway if it would be benificial to.
I also will need a waterblock to fit the chipset.

Thanks

Explicit · 1 Nov 2006 at 12:56

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£117.49
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI)
£105.74
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB6400UDC) (MY-057-GL)
£96.34
BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG)
£99.86
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) (HS-017-AR)
£17.61
Tagan TG430-U15 430W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-007-TG)
£55.21

Total inc VAT: £492.25

I'm assuming you will probably need a new PSU because you say it is an old rig, so I have included that. The above spec is ideal for overclocking. I would recommend 2GB of RAM if you can stretch that far, and possibly even an X1800XT or X1900XT 256MB if you can afford it. Having said that, the above will be a big jump from you current spec.

semi-pro waster · 1 Nov 2006 at 13:09

Explicit has given you a good basic specification there, the air cooling is pretty good although if you want to get a socket 775 waterblock instead then that should work just as well.

As mentioned extra Ram or a faster graphics card would also be beneficial but since you need the guts of a whole new machine it isn't really feasible in the budget.

Explicit · 1 Nov 2006 at 13:21

I wasn't sure about the chipset waterblock that you asked for, but you will probably also need a cpu waterblock for socket 775 as pointed out by semi-pro waster

1337_KR3W · 1 Nov 2006 at 14:10

Thanks for your help, I think my psu should be ok, if it is i will pay the extra for better graphics card, I can always add the ram in a few months.
I just need to find all the leads because its a modular one and i've moved house since i bought it lol.

Cheers

1337_KR3W · 1 Nov 2006 at 15:06

on the topic of increasing the ram can that board take 1gb sticks or 512mb sticks?
it doesnt seem to be stated anywhere in the specification.

semi-pro waster · 1 Nov 2006 at 16:50

1337_KR3W said:
on the topic of increasing the ram can that board take 1gb sticks or 512mb sticks?
it doesnt seem to be stated anywhere in the specification.

The motherboard can take both(it can probably also take 256mb and 2gb sticks as well), there is a big thread in the Motherboards forum about compatible Ram in case you want to go for something other than Geil.