Reccomend a motherboard

CliffyBiro

CliffyBiro

CliffyBiro

Caporegime
Joined
1 Mar 2008
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Hi, I'm new to PC building and am trying to build a pretty good gaming PC.

The motherboard I use will require:

At least 2 IDE ports
Suitable for 4gb RAM
Video card (currently have a 9550 Raedon but I'm considering SLi, sell it to me ;) )
DDR2 Memory


My current motherboard is an ASUS K8V-X SE and I have an AMD Athlon 64 Processor overclocked from 2ghz to 2.6ghz.


Any other upgrade reccomendations welcome. Here are my full specs:

AMD Athlon 2ghz processor
Asus K8V-X SE Mobo
1gb DDR RAM
Raedon 9550 128mb Video Card
Seagate Barracuda 500gb HDD
Seagate Barracuda 120gb HDD
Sony DVD-RW
LG DVD-ROM


EDIT: Ideally, would love to run the likes of C&C3 and Crysis on decent graphics with no problems.
 
Last edited:
Big.Wayne said:
Hi skippi90,

welcome to the forums :)

Please read the FAQ and whatever you do don't mention anything to do with prices or stocks from any other shop than OcUK

How come your looking at upgrading, is there some tasks that are slow for you with your current system?

Most of us are using INTEL Core2 based machine at the moment so don't be suprised if there isn't a wealth of people rushing to give you advice on an AMD system :D

Ideally you want to spend as little money as possible for your upgrade if your gonna stick with your 'older' AMD system as once you reach a certain budget it makes more sense to build a completely new INTEL rig (£250 ish) and then sell your existing parts to reclaim some of this money back.

I'm not familiar with your motherboard so I did a quick gOOgle and it shows me this?



- 754-pin socket
- VIA K8T800
- 800 MHz HyperTransport
- AMD Cool ´n´ Quiet Technology
- AGP 8X
- Serial ATA

That is a really old motherboard wow, you may well need to consider an entirely new processor and stuff, I mean I really wouldn't recommend paying out for a 'new' socket 754 motherboard if your current one is still working, its just throwing good money after bad.
Click to expand...

Yep that's the one.

Ok, so what components would you recommend with a budget of around £300?
 
Big.Wayne said:
Hi skippi90,

Well I had a little look at the kit for sale on OcUK and tried to put together a set of components that would meet your gaming requirement and your budget . . . this is not a complete system but rather the engine of your new beast. . .

skippi90budgetgaminglp8.jpg


CPU: Without doubt the best bang-for-buck INTEL are selling at the moment, really it will need overclocking to at least 3GHz to shine, shouldn't be too hard to attain this speed.

Motherboard: Made by ASUS using the INTEL P35 Express chipset. This model is a standard version without a ton of extras like Dual-Lan and Wifi etc but it will allow to overclock your CPU and remain rock solid stable.

Memory: Currently the cheapest branded DDR2 kit in the known universe and will not hold you back when overclocking your CPU.

GPU: OEM version of what is currently the best mainstream GPU the nVidia 8800GT, full card with 512MB of memory, total bargain selling at £129.24!

Now there is scope to jiggle the above item a little, maybe use a different brand etc but in essence this is roughly what you are aiming at. .

Now thats £286.36 quid spent and we still don't have hard drives etc. The newer INTEL chipsets don't really encourage you to continue using IDE devices and P35 Express boards only include one IDE port which is no good for you with what appears to be three IDE devices.

So if your hard drives are not SATA I would probably encourage you to also pick up a new SATA hard disk, maybe even a new SATA Optical drive too.

Don't forget that you will be able to sell some of your older hardware to help you with this upgrade, I'm not sure of the exact worth but I think you will be able to get enough money to cover the costs of anything extra you need that is not included in the spec above (hard disk, optical etc).

It will be very hard to beat the spec above in terms of performance vs price, that system when built and tweaked will elavate you into the top 4% of best gaming machines in the world, what a steal at approx £300.

Anymore questions just ask but also spend some time reading the posts in the different forums as there will be a lot of useful info.

Good luck :)
Click to expand...



Extremely appreciated! That looks like a great setup. Not overly familiar with overclocking, only tried it once so may need some help with getting the cpu up to speed. Otherwise that looks good to me. :D
 
OK, so the final spec of my machine will be:

Intel E6600 2.4ghz
Asus P5K Intel P35 Mobo
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2
OcUK Geoforce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR2 HDTV/Dual DVI
Zalman CNPS9500 LED Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler


.....oh and this case I won on eBay for a tenner. :D

c1e3_1.JPG


e18d_1.JPG


Then I have to add a SATA HDD and DVD-RW.


Anyone have any idea on the PSU that will be needed?
 
Last edited:
Big.Wayne said:
skippi90, in all good faith I cannot recommend you buy that PSU, it could well be fine but on the other hand it could cause you problems. If you like living life on the edge and spending hours banging your head against the wall because your PC is freezing or rebooting then spend little money on the PSU.

If you like the easy life and really just want to get your machine built with the minimum of fuss and enjoy yourself then I can highly recommend you throw down more dollar for the PSU, it really is an important component and it will be powering your state of the art system.

I know money doesn't grow on trees but your putting together a real nice system there, get it right!

P.S: regarding that piece of **** case you bought, fair enough we all have different tastes in how we like things to look however the difference between building a system in a POS case compared to a proper thermally advantaged chassis are night and day. Apart from the actual building process which is a one off kinda a bad chassis will not give good airflow to your components and cause them to run hotter than they should.

Lol your pc is gonna be awesome when its built but it will look like something you buy at a computer fair for £250 all in! :D

[edit] happy to be proven wrong btw, you could mod it and make it awesome!
Click to expand...

Haha! Okiedoke. I've just spotted the coolermaster and I'm pretty sure that's the way I'm gonna go.... I think. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-150-CM&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1088


As for the case... think of it as just something to store the parts safely until I get my funds back together again :D

Any suggestions for a half decent case under 50 squid?
 
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