PCI-e - Very expensive to upgrade system!

danceMB

danceMB

danceMB

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Im sure im not alone here, but there have been quite a lot of people saying how everyone should basically give up there AGP systems and give into PCI-e.

I decided, just for arguments sake, to see how much it would cost to have, what I would call, a "decent" system. The kind of specs I was thinking of is:

Intel Core Duo 2 E6600 - £252.57
ABIT AB9 Pro - £117.44
2 x 1gb G-Skill DDR2 - £176.19
ATI HIS 1900XT-X - £352.44

Thats the bare minimum that I would have to buy to make the switch and to keep up with all current technology, including shipping would be £910.00, and then im not sure how long it would be before it would become upgrade time again?
 
danceMB said:
Im sure im not alone here, but there have been quite a lot of people saying how everyone should basically give up there AGP systems and give into PCI-e.

I decided, just for arguments sake, to see how much it would cost to have, what I would call, a "decent" system. The kind of specs I was thinking of is:

Intel Core Duo 2 E6600 - £252.57
ABIT AB9 Pro - £117.44
2 x 1gb G-Skill DDR2 - £176.19
ATI HIS 1900XT-X - £352.44

Thats the bare minimum that I would have to buy to make the switch and to keep up with all current technology, including shipping would be £910.00, and then im not sure how long it would be before it would become upgrade time again?
Click to expand...

Hmmm im thinking about upgrading to conroe, first of all is a ATI HIS 1900XT-X worth the extra £100 or so? i presumed the 1900XT would be just as good and better if overclocked ? By the way thats more than a decent system :P
 
That is what I would count as decent enough to be worthy of an upgrade at all, as there is no point going all cheap-skate over anything less.

I will be keeping my AGP system for the time being as I simply cannot afford that kind of money this year, but will have to upgrade next year like most of the gaming world will be thinking the same when Vista goes into mass production and games start to take full advantage over whats being offered, but will need fast systems and the latest graphics cards etc to do it with.

Maybe the next time someone says about forgetting AGP and to go PCI-e, I should link them to this thread ;)
 
To be fair, it would depend on the specs of the AGP system a person currently has. But you could easily shave over £200 off that apparent £900 cost by going with lesser hardware that is still likely to be a damn nice upgrade over most people's AGP systems. There's nothing cheapskate about a slightly slower CPU and a 7900GT.
 
danceMB said:
Im sure im not alone here, but there have been quite a lot of people saying how everyone should basically give up there AGP systems and give into PCI-e.

I decided, just for arguments sake, to see how much it would cost to have, what I would call, a "decent" system. The kind of specs I was thinking of is:

Intel Core Duo 2 E6600 - £252.57
ABIT AB9 Pro - £117.44
2 x 1gb G-Skill DDR2 - £176.19
ATI HIS 1900XT-X - £352.44

Thats the bare minimum that I would have to buy to make the switch and to keep up with all current technology, including shipping would be £910.00, and then im not sure how long it would be before it would become upgrade time again?
Click to expand...

get the E6300, the asrock mobo and an x1800xt
the E6300 can be overclocked to beat FX-62's
the asrock mobo only costs £45
the x1900xt is only 10% better then an x1800xt but it costs twice as much

your upgrade should now only cost half as much but should be at least twice the power of your current system
 
You don't need to spend that much for a 'decent' system.

An x1800xt is far cheaper and performs really well.

The 6300 conroe is still an amazing chip, and with a small OC it could paralell the 6600 at stock quite easily.

You can get decent enough ram for £140 - £150 also.

I think you have a made a strange argument, i think the system you quoted is over spec for a 'decent' system.

I'd rate my current system (see sig) as decent, and to build that now would be much cheaper more so then the one you quoted, though its a little old spec now (socket 939), its still a vary capable and decent rig.
 
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danceMB said:
Im sure im not alone here, but there have been quite a lot of people saying how everyone should basically give up there AGP systems and give into PCI-e.

I decided, just for arguments sake, to see how much it would cost to have, what I would call, a "decent" system. The kind of specs I was thinking of is:

Intel Core Duo 2 E6600 - £252.57
ABIT AB9 Pro - £117.44
2 x 1gb G-Skill DDR2 - £176.19
ATI HIS 1900XT-X - £352.44

Thats the bare minimum that I would have to buy to make the switch and to keep up with all current technology, including shipping would be £910.00, and then im not sure how long it would be before it would become upgrade time again?
Click to expand...

That's way above being decent. You can spend half that on a real decent spec. :)
 
Actually you are very wrong. Most people are advised to upgrade to pci-e if they have a decent system already and are looking at the likes of a 7800gs. In that case it would be way cheaper to buy a pci-e mobo and the likes of a X1800XT. You would'nt need to buy anything else. This couls be done for as little as around £220-240 depending on motherboard. Thats £670-690 cheaper than your quoted upgrade cost.

If you had an Athlon socket A rig or an Intel rig that you could'nt get a pci-e mobo for then you would (or should) be advised to make the best of what you have until you can afford to buy a whole new rig. In those cases you would have no other option anyway.
 
The thing is that I like all my components that are in my PC to be really good, high quality ones rather than just scraping the barrel. The quotation that I posted earlier had future-proofing in mind, which it very much could do for quite a long time before it gets over-taken by events again.
 
People are not usually advised to upgrade though unless they already have a decent rig and just want a new graphics card. The 7800GS is the fastest agp card that there is likely to be and because it is on agp then it attracts a price premium. The cheapest on here is the BFG 7800GS OC which goes for £193.82. These are crippled cards with less pixel shaders and vertex units than their pci-e counterparts. On the other hand you have the fastest, the Gainward BLISS GeForce 7800 GS+ SILENT 512MB which goes for a ridiculous £270.19. It is a 7900gt that has been crippled with a pci-e to agp bridge and gets an added 256mb to give it 512mb of memory. Look at the price difference to the pci-e 7900gt's. You can get a pci-e 7900gt for £170 now making the 7800GS by Gainward a whopping £100 extra. Thats a top of the line pci-e motherboard and a X1800XT and still have change to spare.

The standard 7800GS's on agp are consistently slower than the pci-e 7600gt in this review which goes to prove that they are not worth the money unless of course you are stuck with a rig that you cannot get a pci-e mobo for. Switching to pci-e makes sense as it allows you to upgrade your graphics card now and then carry it over in any future upgrade.

As for only wanting top of the line components, there is nothing wrong with that but you are talking about building a new rig. That is entirely different to upgrading to pci-e. I upgraded in November to pci-e on 754 (sli actually) and still think it's the best choice i could have made. I still have a rig that is more than capable of handling everything i throw at it at 1600x1200 with all the eye candy and detail turned up to full.
 
danceMB said:
The thing is that I like all my components that are in my PC to be really good, high quality ones rather than just scraping the barrel. The quotation that I posted earlier had future-proofing in mind, which it very much could do for quite a long time before it gets over-taken by events again.
Click to expand...
A 500 quid spec is hardly scraping the barrel. An E6300 will spank an FX62 on even a cheap motherboard like the gigabyte DS3. It's patent nonsense to say that such a spec with an x1900xtx is just "decent". Heck, that's just about the fastest single card money can buy. In that area you're experiencing some SERIOUS diminishing returns.

For example, how much faster is an X6800 in comparison to an E6600? It's probably about 10% faster for twice the money.
 
BillytheImpaler said:
A 500 quid spec is hardly scraping the barrel. An E6300 will spank an FX62 on even a cheap motherboard like the gigabyte DS3. It's patent nonsense to say that such a spec with an x1900xtx is just "decent". Heck, that's just about the fastest single card money can buy. In that area you're experiencing some SERIOUS diminishing returns.

For example, how much faster is an X6800 in comparison to an E6600? It's probably about 10% faster for twice the money.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Once you reach a good value for money rig, like 6300 + x1800xt, other components might cost a lot more, but not really be worth the upgrade when you can put that £200-£300 away for a years time when that money would see a serious increase. Of course, oc'ing the 6300 helps even more. You're getting the speed of a £600 CPU for less than £150!
 
At stock speed, the slowest conroe is inline with the 2nd fastest AMD chip.

A very small OC will see you on par with the top AMD cpu.

In reality, any conroe based system is going to rock.
 
danceMB said:
The thing is that I like all my components that are in my PC to be really good, high quality ones rather than just scraping the barrel. The quotation that I posted earlier had future-proofing in mind, which it very much could do for quite a long time before it gets over-taken by events again.
Click to expand...

Why don't you tell us what spec you have now then you'll get more informed answers.
 
CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£114.95 £114.95
MB-061-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI)
£94.95 £94.95
MY-014-GS G.Skill 2GB DDR2 NR PC2-6400 (2x1GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-6400PHU2-2GBNR) (MY-014-GS)
£114.95 £114.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£129.95 £129.95
Subtotal £454.80
VAT £79.59
Total £534.39

Better than anything you can get with AGP...
 
I apologise, I never knew how cheaply all these prices have gotten recently, and makes me feel a fool buying the same system as I had when it stopped working due to a faulty water-cooling setup, but that was months ago now, with hind-sight thats what I would have done now.

The specs I have are:

P3.2 Prescott S478
ABIT IC-7 Max 3
2 x 1GB Corsair XMS
Gainward 7800GS+ 512mb

From those specs, you could understand that I dont really feel the need to currently go upgrading until next year. In fact, by then it would be worthwhile to buy a whole new machine as the rest of it is getting a bit too old for my liking. Might be tempted to buy a new rig ready-made from here?
 
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