Recommend an Upgrade for < £200

MadLeo

MadLeo

MadLeo

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Joined
8 Jan 2005
Posts
21
I have a budget of around £200 to upgrade my gaming system. Any spare parts "liberated" by the upgrade may also be sold second-hand to finance the upgrade. The basic remit is to speed up games and improve graphics quality (isn't it always?) as well as keeping it quiet.

Current Specs:

Antec Sonata Case (First edition I think with 350W Power Supply)
DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Not SLi modded atm but capable of it)
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester 90nm (S939) - mildly overclocked
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Dual value Kit (CAS2)
Zalman CNPS7000B-ALCu Cooler
Gigabyte Geforce 6600GT 128MB - GVNX66T128VP - [SILENT NO FAN]

Any suggestions?

BTW I see "MM" mentioned where ppl buy/sell second-hand components what/where does this refer to?
 
The Members Market is a trading area for people who have been here for 90 days and have 250+ posts, you can find out more in the FAQ.

You could buy yourself a decent graphics card as an upgrade and then try overclocking your CPU a bit further, maybe buy a decent cooler to get a better overclock. For the graphics card I'd suggest either a 7800gt or maybe an X1800XL which will be in your budget.
 
I would get a better CPU Heat sink and fan, overclock your CPU a bit more. Then buy a nVidia 7600. Hopefully your power supply can just handle that, no guarantee though.

CPU HSF = £20
7600 (depending on brand) £146 (Fit with Artic Cooler to reduce sound £20)

In fact dont worry about the CPU overclock as you wont notice much of an FPS difference anyway (Unless you overclock it really heavily) Get a new power supply maybe a Hiper Type R they are about £50 just to make sure your system stays stable.
 
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If your a heavy gamer get a new graphics card, if you never game then I suggest mabye getting a new CPU and another gig of ram.

Tbh it depends waht you do on your computer to waht you need upgrading? Do you feel your computers even lacking? If it is doing the job then just hold ya horses and save the money until you really need to upgrade it.

Dave
 
Could always get a new socket 939 Opteron, but i think a new graphics card is definitely the way to go, you should notice a massive jump from a 6600 to a 7600. Although there are also some impressive Ati cards as well.
 
Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)

Just over £200 and easilly and by far the best buy available. If you can stretch to about £260 the 512 is a better buy.
 
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