OH NO! Another "spec me" thread...

ALLI

ALLI

ALLI

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Joined
9 Jun 2004
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Lovely Wolver-ampton!
Realising now, I cannot really upgrade my pc much more than it is now (too old, small, underpowered, yadda yadda).

So, for a hypothetical budget of £300 (or less) what could I build.

The CPU / RAM / MOBO bundles seem good value.

Then there's the case and PSU.

I already have a couple of hard drives (160gb WD 8meg cache and a 240gb 16meg cache Maxtor) which I can donate, and I currently have a 6600GT AGP card, which, assuming new mobos have AGP AND PCI-E (?) I could use that for now - or perhaps spec in say £60 for a new PCI-E card without comprimising the overall spec /toooooo/ much?

Here's my current spec...

Athlon 64 skt754 3000+
2Gb Ram
6600GT AGP
Built inside a teeny tiny Biostar iDeq (No idea why I went for this rather than the Shuttle at the time - guess it was a bit cheaper and to be fair, it's lasted a good 2 or 3 years).

Hmm.. Thinking out loud I guess. Back to my care plans.... *sigh*

Talk amongst yourselves.
 
Oh, and I'm not a mahoosive gamer. Just the odd bit of CS:S and GTR2 but that new Quake looks yummy and I do have BF2 which is an occasional play.

Mostly for burning DVD's, surfing, word docs and image manipulation.
 
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+ 2.40GHz Retail / Asus M2N4-SLI / 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C5 Dual Channel Kit - Bundle £166

NorthQ Basic Power 400W Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply £30

Akasa AK-ZEN-01-WH Zen White Case - No PSU £30

OcUK GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £60

Total: £290 + delivery.


Spose I'll need cables etc too.... Which I'm sure I can source for a tenner or so?
 
Why, are things cheaper if you clock them? confused by your comment :s

I used to be into the clocking game but dont bother now. Current chip is at stock (2ghz). Surely a faster card will take some of the pressure off the cpu, so although I'm not going up a massive step in clock speed, I'll be moving to dual core and faster connecting bits, which will be some kind of improvement?

As a baseline, it usually takes over an hour to convert and burn a dvd.

are there chips that clock better than their value now? have NO clue. certain chips used to clock REALLY well and you could save a fair bit of cash. this still the case?
 
ALLI said:
Why, are things cheaper if you clock them? confused by your comment :s

I used to be into the clocking game but dont bother now. Current chip is at stock (2ghz). Surely a faster card will take some of the pressure off the cpu, so although I'm not going up a massive step in clock speed, I'll be moving to dual core and faster connecting bits, which will be some kind of improvement?

As a baseline, it usually takes over an hour to convert and burn a dvd.

are there chips that clock better than their value now? have NO clue. certain chips used to clock REALLY well and you could save a fair bit of cash. this still the case?
Click to expand...

'cause you can go for something slower i.e. cheaper, and then simply overclock it to and oftentimes, past the previous' performance on stock. Thus saving money for other components. :P
 
So that's a dual core chip @ 1.6GHz, effectively giving 3.2GHz right?

And that could be oc'd to what speed (with ease) ?

Would it require any adaptions or modding, or just through the BIOS?


And that mobo - does it have an AGP slot or is it a case of opening the wallet a tiny bit more to get a new PCI-e graphics card?

And, finally - both my drives are IDE, not SATA. Assume IDE connections have not been phased out on new mobos. Ultimately I will get a SATA drive, but it's pushing the budget if I do.
 
Last edited:
=C0ld c4Th0d3= said:
'cause you can go for something slower i.e. cheaper, and then simply overclock it to and oftentimes, past the previous' performance on stock. Thus saving money for other components. :P
Click to expand...

LOL - yeah I get the concept of overclocking, that hasn't changed. I just have no idea what's good or bad in the world of decent chips these days.

:)
 
A little bit over the budget but should offer a very overclockable system, if you can't afford the extra £20 or so then drop the Arctic Freezer and see how far you can get on stock cooling - some people have managed 3ghz+ which is getting on for a 100% overclock. :)

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £31.99
(£37.59) £31.99
(£37.59)
Antec NSK 4480 Mini Tower Case - 380W Earth Watts PSU £45.99
(£54.04) £45.99
(£54.04)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
OcUK ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £41.99
(£49.34) £41.99
(£49.34)
Sub Total : £259.94
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £47.41
Total : £318.30
 
Only oddball motherboards have AGP anymore. Everything's PCI-e.

Some applications use only one core in a multi CPU system. Others, like most DVD rippers, graphics applications, and rendering engines, use as many as possible.

An E2140 should be good for about 3.0 GHz without too much effort with a decent cooler.
 
Uber tempting.

See I *was* meant to be simply buying a new monitor and gfx card - the missus has let me have a budget of £300 to do this. Makes more sense to upgrade the lot, sell what kit I have left, and THEN upgrade the screen.


Than ks for all the input. I now have something to show my financial advisor. *grins*

ta muchly.
 
semi-pro waster said:
A little bit over the budget but should offer a very overclockable system, if you can't afford the extra £20 or so then drop the Arctic Freezer and see how far you can get on stock cooling - some people have managed 3ghz+ which is getting on for a 100% overclock. :)

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £31.99
(£37.59) £31.99
(£37.59)
Antec NSK 4480 Mini Tower Case - 380W Earth Watts PSU £45.99
(£54.04) £45.99
(£54.04)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
OcUK ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £41.99
(£49.34) £41.99
(£49.34)
Sub Total : £259.94
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £47.41
Total : £318.30
Click to expand...



Sitting in my Basket right now. With regards to cables... What do I need? Just the IDE cables for my hard drives and DVD drive? Or do they come with the mobo?
 
semi-pro waster said:
A little bit over the budget but should offer a very overclockable system, if you can't afford the extra £20 or so then drop the Arctic Freezer and see how far you can get on stock cooling - some people have managed 3ghz+ which is getting on for a 100% overclock. :)

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £31.99
(£37.59) £31.99
(£37.59)
Antec NSK 4480 Mini Tower Case - 380W Earth Watts PSU £45.99
(£54.04) £45.99
(£54.04)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
OcUK ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £41.99
(£49.34) £41.99
(£49.34)
Sub Total : £259.94
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £47.41
Total : £318.30
Click to expand...

For the games he mentioned he could get away with a lower graphics card, and with the money saved could go toward a SonataIII and a better cooler...

A DDR3 7300GT will run BF2 maxed out of 1024x768, so i guess the question is how much graphics power does he need and at what resolution?
 
Stick with the X1950Pro IMHO. A new cooler can be bought at any time and you should still see a fairly decent overclock on the stock cooler as some have suggested.

The reason I say stick with the X1950pro is that even though the Sonata III is a better looking case, the 7300GT is nothing compared to the X1950 which runs BF2/CS:S/GTR2 exceptionally well and more so with the Intel CPU and DDR2 RAM. The SonataIII with the 7300 would be like a Ferrari body kit on a Vauxhall Vectra whilst the Antec NSK doesn't look as gorgeous as the Ferrari but when that light turns green :eek: just watch that Antec and X1950 combo fly!!!! ;).

Antec NSK 4480 Mini Tower Case - 380W Earth Watts PSU
ca095an400vz8.jpg


Antec Sonata III Piano Black Quiet Case - EarthWatts 500W PSU
ca073an400wg2.jpg


A sexy case with not so sexy parts? (don't even think the 7300 is much better if any better than a 6600) or a not so sexy case with a beast under the hood in comparison?.
 
Just ordered...

Saturday delivery :)

Decided to go with the stock cooler for now. Will do a bit of research into coolers. Also added on a Samsung SH-S202JBEBN too.

Thanks for the input. It's not going to be a pretty looking system, but it should last me a couple of years. Look out for my spare bits going in the members market over the next week or so.

Spose you guys will want some benchies when it's built? What's best - 3dMark?
 
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