Partial upgrade suggestions

Just trying to make my brain realise that spending £250~ on upgrades is a good idea lol.

I only really need the new motherboard, but I really want to give the machine a good boost :D

Haven't clicked the buy button just yet!
 
I just oc'd my cpu to 3.2 and bought a 4850 and now its happy but yeah if I want to upgrade its gonna be a whole new system mobo past it psu past it cpu old hat new everything and as you've noticed it costs a pretty penny :(
 
Just to spice things up the ATI 4850 uses a single Power connector and the truth is it's a very capable card, playing most games on high settings. You could use that card with the Corsair 400w I suggested at first.
Don't get too caught up in worrying though, just decide your budget and determine your options from there, all of the things discussed in this thread will be a big upgrade and plenty good enough for gaming well on.
 
Paul_Canning said:
For the motherboard, I looked at the Gigabyte GA-M720-UD3 (on a different website). Will that meet my needs/allow me to easily upgrade to an AM3 CPU/add more RAM/upgrade GFX again in the future?
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Simply put, yes. It shares all the advantages of other AM2+ boards. Even allows for unlocking cores on chips. I'll link you to the only review of it I know :

http://www.trustedreviews.com/motherboards/review/2009/04/16/Gigabyte-GA-M720-US3/p1

they came away quite impressed.

Here is Gigabyte's product page for the board, more useful info including the manual available here :

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=3006

The only thing i'd add, is it wants to be a bit cheaper than the GA-MA770-UD3, because it is slightly less good.
 
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I would like to have some good graphical grunt, as I play a lot of online FPS's and in the near future upgrading with more RAM and an AM3 processor. the 4850/4870 seems to be a good choice for the rig.
 
It's worth going for the 1gb one if the price difference is quite small. The extra memory mostly comes into it's own for bigger resolution monitors but as you mention the possiblity in future, it could be a good idea.
 
Think I have settled on the 4870 1gb, the MA770 motherboard, and a Coolermaster 520W modular PSU (PSU from a different website though)

Will 520 be ok? The PSU comes with 2 6pin PCI plugs, and is labelled as SLI Nvidia ready so I assume it can cope with the 4870's dual plug usage?
 
that'll be lovely psu's are important as they can take stuff out when they go so reliabilty is the key, mine is a degraded, old grumpy sod but a tagan and is still going strong. :D
 
Yea, in the past I have gone for quite cheap ones, only had one die on me though!

Though I should shell out for a half decent one for the 4870. Just hope it has enough juice!
 
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