new spec

TommyN · 17 Jul 2006 at 18:10

In need of an upgrade, and in need of the following, what are your thoughts and can you sugggest anything better. budget of £450 max

Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-131-AS) £99.95
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-155-AM) £174.95
Scythe Ninja Plus Heatpipe CPU Cooler (Socket 478, 754, 939, 940, LGA755) (HS-003-SY) £26.95
Seasonic S12 500W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-001-SS) £64.95
XFX GeForce 6800 XT Extreme Edition 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (PVT42E-UDE3) £77.95

Mr Mister · 17 Jul 2006 at 19:11

why have you chosen a crossfire board with an nvidia gfx?

If i were you i would get a DFi mobo if you are hoping to overclock the cpu, or an asus board if you are not. I would try and get a better gfx than the 6800xt because its not a brill card.

If it for games i would suggest going for the asus a8n-e mobo or sli-se (not clocking) or the dfi utra-d (mad clocking) and then get a 3800x2 rather than the 4200x2 because its only 200mhz difference. Then try and squeeze in a better gfx.

This would be ideal for games if thats what you want it for::

CP-152-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-152-AM) 1
£139.95 £139.95
MB-101-AS Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-101-AS) 1
£56.95 £56.95
CA-001-SS Seasonic S12 500W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-001-SS) 1
£64.95 £64.95
GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG) 1
£99.95 £99.95
HS-003-SY Scythe Ninja Plus Heatpipe CPU Cooler (Socket 478, 754, 939, 940, LGA755) (HS-003-SY) 1
£26.95 £26.95
Subtotal £388.75
VAT £68.04
Total £456.79

fenderbass86 · 17 Jul 2006 at 19:38

I think everyone will agree (especially Stelly if he's about

) that this is a much better system:

CP-166-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ 2.00GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-166-AM) 1
£109.95 £109.95
MB-147-AS Asus M2N-E (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-147-AS) 1
£69.95 £69.95
CA-005-SK FSP Sparkle AX500-A Blue Storm 500W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-005-SK) 1
£49.95 £49.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO) 1
£136.95 £136.95
Subtotal £366.80
VAT £64.19
Total £430.99

*edit - balls, just realised you would need DDR2 RAM*

TommyN · 18 Jul 2006 at 17:33

whats the benefit of goin am2 rather than 939, iv done a bit of research and i have heard mixed reviews. Also how does the FSP Sparkle AX500 compare to the seasonic psu in terms of noise as i want it to be fairly quiet.

good spec tho, considering it. what DDR2 RAM would you recommend with that that spec, and how would it cope if i decided to oc it.

fenderbass86 · 18 Jul 2006 at 18:08

If you're on a budget, the G.skill DDR2 PC2-5300 should do you fine. AM2 is the newer chipset from AMD, so it'll have better CPU's in the future, whereas all 939 CPU's have been discontinued.

The FSP is a great PSU, the Seasonic is supposedly the quietest but the FSP isn't gonna be any louder.