Please dont laugh - serious question

The course of action I would take is the used phenom II motherboard bundle and used GTX460 option I mentioned earlier. As sadly your motherboard only supports Pentium 4 architecture chips (such as the P4 and PD.)

You could do a full system re-spec, but looking back at my previous post, I recon that is your best option regarding value for money and performance boost.
 
I won't cheat you: you are NOT in black hole ;-) altough you have no chance to put C2D in there.

Your motherboard doesn't support CONROE and successors, which means C2D architecture. But you still are able to put some 2-core Pentium-based CPU, not CONROE Pentium Dual Core, but Presler-based Pentium D 960 which is 32 pounds on Ebay.

This is described here:

http://en.community.dell.com/what-do-i-buy/for_enterprise/f/4516/t/18220539.aspx

As you can see, you may gain some improvement, but under one condition: your actual CPU must be single core Pentium D (not 925/930) :)
Those Pentium D CPUs are 64-bit, so you can install Windows 7 x64 on your quickie SSD and use DX10/DX11 features in case of better GPU(s). Win7 Home Premium x64 is for 42 quids, if you can search (genuine).

You may try to buy something like

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-184-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1699

(83 pounds) or used GTX 460 - which normally performs better, especially on BFs, but due to some strange nature of higher dual-core CPU usage by nV drivers with weaker CPUs it may take any role - so this Radeon would be better.

In total you pay 157 pounds, you receive brand new card (possible to sell, if efficiency of such system wouldn't be good enough), brand new OS (may stay for longer, if you decide to buy something else - like platfom change) and CPU worth 32 quids - one and only real, potential, risk :)

BTW, don't go this way :) and don't compare PentiumD+7770 vs C2D+7770 or AthlonII+7770, because it's obvious the latter is more efficient, so don't bother with bottlenecking. Look for efficiency gain.
 
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Single core Pentium D? I think you'll find that the D stands for dual core :p
If it were a solo core, it would be a Pentium 4.

Putting a GTX460 with a Pentium D is pointless. The bottlenecking would be endless :rolleyes:

The Pentium D is hopeless and needs to go.
 
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this but unless you already have your own product key for Windows the moment you change your motherboard it will no longer work as prebuilt systems tend to need the original motherboard for the product key to work.
 
Antony101 said:
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this but unless you already have your own product key for Windows the moment you change your motherboard it will no longer work as prebuilt systems tend to need the original motherboard for the product key to work.
Click to expand...

I think if you get a retail version of the windows you can activate it on any motherboard you want
 
Antony101 said:
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this but unless you already have your own product key for Windows the moment you change your motherboard it will no longer work as prebuilt systems tend to need the original motherboard for the product key to work.
Click to expand...

I swapped the motherboard on a Packard Bell iXtreme which had a Packard Bell-ified licence, to an Asus Maximus III Gene and it was fine.

That was only one time however. I have done it on other pre-build machines successfully as well. But not 'branded' ones.
 
thanks for all the replies to my question.

I think consensus has been reached and the best thing is to either buy a decent graphics card now and see how i get on then upgrade to haswell or just wait and do a full on upgrade to haswell once that is released.

Now the real work begins...what card, case, psu, mb, 4770k or 4670k, liquid cool or not, ram, how many fans, shall i braid my sata cables etc....you get my point :)

once again, thanks all. Great community :)
 
4770k decent gigabyte z87 mobo 4x4gb of sammy greens overclock them to ungodly frequencies take a 7950/670 and a 650w se\asonic psu with a massive hsf rather than water cool and then braid your power supply cables and sata cables with maybe a corsair obsidian 650d
 
acc with the 650d do water cool but buy the water cooling parts when you get the haswell cpu and mobo

YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H795QC3G2M) £239.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 650D Gaming Midi Tower - Black £149.99
1 x XFX Pro Series 650W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £74.99
2 x Samsung Green (MV-3V4G3D/US) 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit £49.99 (£99.98)
Total : £579.95 (includes shipping : £12.50).



otherwise this is the shopping list although you could fit in a seasonic xfx was just cheaper but thye are made by seasonic
 
I don't have anything to add (I don't have the time to be as dialled in as I used to be), but I want to comment on how well you guys have stepped up to help the OP.
 
Leprechaun312 said:
anychance this is a "i'm 13 posts away from the members market post?"
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Not at all... I had access to the members market 15 years ago (note that the "member since 2002" is due to the forum reboot).

The OP started the thread with some apprehension and the members have stepped up. Just take the compliment! If I was the type to make posts for the sake of it, I'd have a much higher count for the time I've been here!
 
Freddie1980 said:
I have would concur with the 2nd hand route a great way for keeping costs down. In the members market slmeone was selling their q6600 for 35 quid the other day. I'm not sure if I would get a video card second hand, normally they have overclocked to a inch of their lifes and typically video cards don't habe great shelf lifes before they start to breakdown and begin to artifact and crash.
Click to expand...

I've generally been pretty lucky with the cards from the members market. I think I've had around... 3/4 cards over the years and had zero issues with them.
 
Stu said:
Not at all... I had access to the members market 15 years ago (note that the "member since 2002" is due to the forum reboot).

The OP started the thread with some apprehension and the members have stepped up. Just take the compliment! If I was the type to make posts for the sake of it, I'd have a much higher count for the time I've been here!
Click to expand...

true. 11 years on the forums apologies for doubting
 
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