New Mobo/processor to upgrade an aging PC..

Deaco · 3 Feb 2009 at 10:04

Heya, just wondering if anyone has any opinions on upgrading my PC with an Asrock 4CoreDual mobo with an E5200 CPU.

Basically I'm currently running an Athlon XP3200+ with 2x1Gb RAM (DDR-200), ATI 3850 (512mb) AGP and a 480 ish Enermax PSU.

I know everyone will just say upgrade the lot, but only bought the GPU/RAM last year and so far it runs everything I play at 1920x1200 (Company of Heroes on Ultra settings, Warhammer online etc) however with the new Dawn of War 2, Athlon's arn't supported so I'm a bit screwed

Was thinking of corei7 but can't justify spending about £1.3k on a new rig when this does everything I need it to.

So would the above combo be enough to keep this going for another year or so, or am I just throwing my money away? PSU going to be enough or is that somethign else to perhaps look at? - I know the 3850 laps up a lot of juice.

or..

Should I just cut my losses with the upgrades I made last year and either stick with what I have or prepare to fork out for a new socket/RAM/GPU (775 or 1366)

I know the last option is probably the most sensible and in all fairness I do regret spending my money on keeping this going (can't run source based games with the new GPU) but I have, so hmm.

Any help would be appreciated

Gunda · 3 Feb 2009 at 10:23

can't really beat that mb as a cheap upgrade path, if your funds are that limited.

having said that, this upgrade is only really worth it if you plan on upgrading to pcie graphics and ddr2 ram in the near future as you can upgrade as and when you get the funds. Otherwise i would wait a little more and upgrade to a asus P5Q/e7200 or e8200/ati4850 graphics and 4gb of 2x2Gb ddr2-800 ram.

Deaco · 3 Feb 2009 at 11:02

Funds arn't that limited, just can't bring myself to get rid of 'working' components.. but the more I look at it, the less sense it makes to keep upgrading. Just looking to see how much it would cost to upgrade to a s775/phenom 2 path and seems to be around the £700 mark.

Which I don't mind spending aslong as the performance gain is a lot better than spending £100-£150 on the asrock/e5200 - which I'm guessing it will be, but whether or not is 6 times the performance is another thing

S.A.S · 3 Feb 2009 at 11:14

Asus ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail (90-C1CLC0-J0UAY00Z) £104.99
(£120.74) £104.99
(£120.74)
Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £96.99
(£111.54) £96.99
(£111.54)
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.80GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £91.99
(£105.79) £91.99
(£105.79)
Zalman ZM500-HP Heatpipe Cooled 500W Modular PSU £69.99
(£80.49) £69.99
(£80.49)
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB ATA-100 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKB) £59.99
(£68.99) £59.99
(£68.99)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK) £28.99
(£33.34) £28.99
(£33.34)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £17.99
(£20.69) £17.99
(£20.69)
Sony NEC Optiarc DRU-V200S 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black/Silver) - Retail £14.99
(£17.24) £14.99
(£17.24)
Sub Total : £485.92
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DHL @ Home Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.99
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £74.39
Total : £570.30

A case of your liking and your set, even keep your Graphics card, and save £120. but that 4850 is a bargain for a good deal of power.

Deaco · 3 Feb 2009 at 11:22

Graphics card is AGP, but cheers jsut heading out the door now but will have a proper look later

S.A.S · 3 Feb 2009 at 11:24

oh right, well the 4850 is a fantastic card for the price, ive used about 7 in builds that i've done

Gunda · 3 Feb 2009 at 12:25

no need to replace the 480enermax, there good psu's and if your only putting a e7400 in and a ati 4850 then your good to go.
something like:

Asus ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI £104.99
Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £96.99
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.80GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £91.99
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 £28.99
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £17.99
sub total £340.95
all in inc deliver and vat = £403.58

reflux · 3 Feb 2009 at 12:30

Can I bagsy your DDR RAM if you choose to upgrade, and if it's 2x1GB sticks?

Deaco · 3 Feb 2009 at 17:15

Cheers for the system's, a lot cheaper than I thought it would be - but then I always seem to go over the top when speccing a rig for myself.

Maybe in a couple of months when the core i7 matures that might be the best process - see already starting to double the cost..

Can I bagsy your DDR RAM if you choose to upgrade, and if it's 2x1GB sticks?

Will bear it in mind, but might keep it all in one piece as a second PC. Or sell it as a server with my old chieftec dragoon case

Uriel · 3 Feb 2009 at 17:38

Don't touch the 4CoreDual. It's crippled by PCI-E only running 4x.

As I've suggested in another thread, you could do a lot worse than the ASROCK ALiveDual-eSATA2.

It has AGP 8x, PCI-E 16x and will take any AM2 CPU up to phenom 2. One possible disadvantage for you is it won't run an AGP Radeon in Vista (lack of chipset drivers from nVIDIA). In XP it will run fine though.