Simple upgrade spec check pls...

Gilbern74 · 1 May 2006 at 20:35

Hi
I have put a few components together to make an upgrade for under £500 which I hope to future-proof me for about 4 years...
Can someone please tell if these go together ok (the NEC DVD is just an extra)?? Or are there better combinations you can suggest??

I'm not sure if the graphics card is any good at all, or the mobo, but I don't play games very often - if I do it's usually flight sims, Medal of Honour or Battlefield. Mainly to be used for web, office and graphics/video editing.
To go with this I have a Q-tec 400w psu, my case is fine, a 160GB IDE HD which I would upgrade in a year or so.

CD-027-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Beige) - OEM (CD-027-NE)
£21.95 £21.95
CP-134-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£183.95 £183.95
MB-101-AS Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-101-AS)
£64.95 £64.95
MY-005-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BHDC) (MY-005-GL)
£48.95 £48.95
GX-109-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1300 Hyper Memory 512MB DDR2 AVIVO TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-109-SP)
£71.95 £71.95
Subtotal £391.75
VAT £68.56
Total £460.31

semi-pro waster · 1 May 2006 at 21:38

They go together in that they will all work but instead of the X1300 I'd recommend an X800series card such as even the X800GTO 128mb regardless of the fact it has theoretically 1/4 of the Ram it is a much better card. The X1300 is a pretty nasty card, it has 128mb onboard and then uses system Ram to make up the rest, it has a 128bit memory bus as well as 4 pixel pipelines compared with the 12(minimum) on an X800series card. Better than both is the X800GTO 256mb which is in the clearance section.

You will probably also be advised to change away from the Q-Tec as they do have a bit of a reputation for being poor and 400w isn't a huge amount to be running a modern system off but it should be just about ok.

Gilbern74 · 1 May 2006 at 23:55

Thanks a lot for the reply. Will finalise my order tomorrow.

mdixson · 2 May 2006 at 00:03

i had a qtec and it blew, never buy them.... they are evil.. go for at least a £60 psu imo

Joe42 · 2 May 2006 at 00:07

semi-pro waster said:
You will probably also be advised to change away from the Q-Tec as they do have a bit of a reputation for being poor.

Under statement of the century. We don't call em 'Q-bang's for nothing.
And aren't you the guy who's system just blew up?
I'd have thought you'd have had enough of fireworks...

Gilbern74 · 2 May 2006 at 09:40

Joe42 said:
Under statement of the century. We don't call em 'Q-bang's for nothing.
And aren't you the guy who's system just blew up?
I'd have thought you'd have had enough of fireworks...

Been running the Q-Tec for 4 years (constantly, apart from about 3 wks a year when I go on holidays) with no problems. So not going to worry about it now!

hp7909 · 2 May 2006 at 09:54

Highly recommend you get a new PSU. Those components might require more than 400w and better AMPS on the rails, especially +12V. Besides that, just do a simple search of Q-Tec here on this forum and you will see the reality. Other PSU’s makes do fail, but they do not take out all your other components with them!

Gilbern74 · 2 May 2006 at 10:05

hp7909 said:
Highly recommend you get a new PSU. Those components might require more than 400w and better AMPS on the rails, especially +12V. Besides that, just do a simple search of Q-Tec here on this forum and you will see the reality. Other PSU’s makes do fail, but they do not take out all your other components with them!

ok, point taken. Is there a psu for around £50 - £60 that's recommended?
I've seen one for £25 on another site - ADVANCE EA 550w PSU - which sounds cheap but would prefer to buy a proven make/model.

Gilbern74 · 2 May 2006 at 10:12

ah-ha, I've seen the Hiper in This Week Only for £41.95+vat which should do the trick.

So I've settled on this spec for an upgrade:

MY-066-CS Corsair 1GB DDR2 Value Select PC4200 Dual Channel Kit (2x512MB) (VS1GBKIT533D2) (MY-066-CS)
£49.95 £49.95
MB-101-AS Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-101-AS)
£64.95 £64.95
CP-134-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£183.95 £183.95
CD-027-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Beige) - OEM (CD-027-NE)
£21.95 £21.95
GX-118-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X800 GTO 512MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-118-SP)
£89.95 £89.95
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£15.95 £15.95
CA-009-HP Hiper HPU-4M580 Type R 580W ATX2.2 PSU - Black (CA-009-HP)
£41.95 £41.95
Subtotal £468.65
VAT £82.02
Total £550.67

£50 over my budget but will have to bear it...

semi-pro waster · 2 May 2006 at 10:15

Joe42 said:
Under statement of the century. We don't call em 'Q-bang's for nothing.
And aren't you the guy who's system just blew up?
I'd have thought you'd have had enough of fireworks...

Nope you are thinking of someone else here, I've not yet had the misfortune of losing my PC

. I also don't want to overstate the case against Q-Tecs since I haven't used one(nor am I likely to in fairness) and several people have run systems off them without problems.

Gilbern74 it may be worth looking at the FSP Sparkle 500w Bluestorm as it is within your price range a a pretty decent PSU by all accounts. The Enermax Noisetaker 485w or Hiper 580w are also worth considering. My choice would probably be the Enermax as although it isn't modular they are very good solid PSUs.

//edit that system looks fine, you technically don't need the Arctic Freezer as you are getting a retail CPU so you could save ~£20 there if you really wanted.

Gilbern74 · 2 May 2006 at 10:18

semi-pro waster said:
//edit that system looks fine, you technically don't need the Arctic Freezer as you are getting a retail CPU so you could save ~£20 there if you really wanted.

Much obliged to you for pointing that out! Thanks

hp7909 · 2 May 2006 at 10:22

From here, your new system will draw about 255w~370w.

Within your budget, I would consider this:

Tagan TG420-U01 420W ATX2.0 Silent PSU (CA-002-TG) £52.82 incl. VAT
Enermax Noisetaker 485W EG495AX-VE(G) SFMA ATX2.0 PSU (CA-007-EN) £58.69 incl. VAT
FSP Sparkle FSP400-60GLN Green PS 400W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-003-SK) £52.82

Joe42 · 2 May 2006 at 17:36

semi-pro waster said:
Nope you are thinking of someone else here, I've not yet had the misfortune of losing my PC

I was refering to Gilbern74, thread here.

You seem to have a knack of choosing shoddy psu's. Q-tec, Advance, Hyper all substandard poor quality psu's.
These sort of psu's are fine for old low end system but no good for a decent modern pc.
I have a couple of Advance psu's lying around, and they have a place and a purpose and powering high end gaming systems isn't it.

Enermax or FSP will be fine, but the Hyper psu's blow up every so often and usually take the system out too.

The Antec NeoHE 380W Modular looks quite good, as does the Tagan TG420-U01 420W. It depends if you want modular cables or not.

pastymuncher · 2 May 2006 at 19:59

I have a Hiper Type R 580w and it's been running silently with no problems for over a year now. The last six months it has been in the rig in my siggy.

There is no such thing as future proof either. That rig will not last you four years if you like gaming. The X2 3800 is the slowest AMD dual core now let alone in a years time. The way games are going that graphics card will be struggling in a year or so too.

MY-066-CS Corsair 1GB DDR2 Value Select PC4200 Dual Channel Kit (2x512MB) (VS1GBKIT533D2) (MY-066-CS)
£49.95 £49.95

No good!! This is DDR2. You need DDR.

Joe42 · 2 May 2006 at 21:03

Re: Hyper type r:
SPCR say its far from silent, so your definition of silence is of.
TR found it blew up their test equipment.
And we get reports about once a week of a hyper type r going bang on this forum alone.

If you already have one, unlucky. If your considering buying one, don't.

pastymuncher · 3 May 2006 at 12:03

I can tell you that mine is silent mate.

They have temperature comtrolled fans so maybe the people who say they are'nt have poor airflow in the case and that keeps the fans spinning full pelt all the time.

If i say mine is silent i mean it. I don't say things for the heck of it!!

As for blowing up, as i have said i have had mine over a year and is now powering my Sli rig and i have never had a problem. There are scores of others on here that would say the same.