Newcomer who needs help!

stalin

stalin

stalin

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Joined
7 Apr 2009
Posts
47
Hi guys, I signed up with the hope that you'd all be able to help me out.

5 years ago I bought a PC, bought the goods individually and then put it together, ended up setting me about £1100 for a 6800GT, 3700+ and 2 gig ram, crazy how prices have gone down a bit since then, but anyways, having finished uni, I now want something better.

I only really play CS 1.6 and FM09 as my main games, but I always have a lot running [firefox,photoshop,msn,media player,vent,an anti cheat, a game] etc. and I've noticed even with the 6800GT my 1.6 is starting to suffer frame drops because of the sheer age of the machine. Bare in mind it's been running at 100 degrees for the past 3 years, and I think it's time to upgrade.

As a student still, money will be a bit tight, but I think I can reach to about 400 or 450. I don't want anything top of the range, because I don't need it to be like that, but would love for 1.6 to be incredibly smooth and meat through any tasks I set the pc with regards photoshop etc.

I know 400-450 isn't a great deal, but if needs must I can provide a dvd-drive, a hard-drive, monitor and some cooling from my old pc[although how good that is when the 6800GT is running at 100 degrees I don't know!]. I can also provide vista.

I don't really know what to say other than someone who briefly tried to help recommended a c2d and a hd4750, but whether I could get that within that budget I don't know. I can always upgrade later too, maybe in a year or two so don't feel you need to say 'you should get a 400 quid cpu and a 400 quid graphics card mate, save.' That's not an option at the minute.

My dad will freely put the PCtogether as I'm slightly clueless, but I look forward to whatever help you can give, thanks.
 
i'd with the following, can still use your current 6800gt and memory, with the processor giving performance a decent boost, and would be more than enough for what you do.

Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.50GHz (800FSB) - Retail £62.09 (£53.99)

Corsair VX 450W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-450VXUK) £57.98
(£50.42)

Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 Rev2 (Socket 775) PCI-Express/AGP DDR2 Motherboard £57.49 (£49.99)

Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) £40.24 (£34.99)

Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black (No PSU) £34.49 (£29.99)

Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM3/LGA775) £28.74 (£24.99)

Sub Total : £244.37
Shipping : £11.75
VAT : £38.42
Total : £294.54

EDIT:

If you wanted to go with a new graphics card, memory and motherboard you could go with:

XFX ATI Radeon HD 4850 "XXX Edition" 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail (£99.98 inc VAT £86.94 ex VAT ),

Asus P5QL Pro Intel P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (£75.89 inc VAT £65.99 ex VAT)

Corsair XMS2 2GB DDR2 6400C5 TwinX (2x1GB £22.99 inc VAT £19.99 ex VAT )

which would raise it to a Total of £435.91.
 
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Thanks!

Firstly, yeah I want an almost complete new fit, save for a hard-drive.

Assuming I went with the case, graphics card[which I like the look of btw], psu and cooler etc. is it worth me spending another 40 quid to get the lowest end c2d over the 5200 dual core?

Think I might go with everything you suggested, except get 4 gig of ram rather than 2, and upgrade the processor to a c2d, which would bring me in at around 450?

Thoughts/ideas welcome :)
 
not really, 5200 will provide you with a decent performance update, included and after market cooler so you could always overclock it a little as well :).

as for the hard drive, if your old one is ide i'd go with a new sata drive.
 
Well assuming your mobo is socket 939 then how about getting a used X2 CPU ( 4800+ i think is the best one for 939 ) and a better GFX card, anything from a 9600GT upwards would be good
 
Wow, I feel out of my depth, bare in mind I'm unlikely to play anything bar CS 1.6 and Football Manager, I think the 5200 might be the one for me. Someone said 'yuck' when it was suggested because it wasn't c2d, but if it's essentially the same I'll go with that.

Don't see the point in going from an AMD 3700 to AMD 4800, just doesn't seem enough of a 'positive' step as it were.

I think the 5200, with the mobo suggested, case etc. will go nicely, and a 4850 as well.

So I'd be looking at:

5200 - 55
HD4850 - 100
4 Gig Ram - ?[can get for 30 elsewhere but no idea how much on OC]
Hard-drive - not needed.
Disc drive - not needed
Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black (No PSU) £34.49 (£29.99)
Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM3/LGA775) £28.74 (£24.99)

Those two look good. Any suggestions then on a mobo? The build seems a bit of a mish mash, but, sat at about 220 so far, needing a mobo and Ram would be quite comfortable.
 
memory wise have a look at :

Corsair XMS2 4GB DDR2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) £33.98 inc VAT £29.55 ex VAT

or if you plan on giving the 5200 a good overclocking

Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 X 2GB) DDR2 8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX8500D2K2/4G) £42.99 inc VAT £37.38 ex VAT


Motherboard :

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £98.89 inc VAT £85.99 ex VAT
 
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