Slight upgrade time

WhiteCobra

WhiteCobra

WhiteCobra

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Joined
23 Mar 2008
Posts
275
Right I've been out of the computer world for a good 14 months and quite a bit has changed... At the moment my current set of ram is dieing (random restarts and failing vista's mem tool test).


I'm thinking of a small upgrade at around a budget of £400... £450 max if there's a real benefit. I currently have a qq6600 4gb of ddr2 800 ram and a ASUS P5QPL-VM motherboard (microatx).


I also have a zalman cnps9900 cooler for the processor


Now I was thinking with £400 to redo my motherboard to get ddr3 and obviously a cpu upgrade... Sound realistic? I'm considering a more AM3 route as back then you could get a lot of AMD for your money.. Is this still the case?

Would i be able to reuse this cooler with a AMD? i know it says AM2 (surely fits AM3 aswell) but im sure i chucked the box out with the tools needed.

So my question really.. Can anyone recommend a nice mboard, cpu and ram combo? Needs to be Micro-ATX (mini p180 case).

And a good cooler (can be outside the £400 budget)

Thanks :)
 
Thats just a guideline but youre getting a pretty good processor there and a decent motherboard. The raw has good reviews too :)
 
Also - you could go for the better 6 core with an unlocked multiplier, which makes overclocking easier, aswell as being 3.2Ghz for an extra £70 which will still be in your budget :)
 
Thanks for that :)

Just a quicky, is there much difference in dual channel ddr3 to tri channel? I know you need 3x2gb sticks minimum really but is there a performance increase? or not?
 
Its debated a lot of the time but there is a performance increase. I didnt suggest a tri channel option as its probably going to be out of your budget i'm afraid :(
 
Yeah that's fair enough.. I'll probably stick with dual channel since I doubt i'd notice tbh :) Thanks for that any ways :) Just got to wait for pay day now :L
 
Pay day too, next week :D

You probably won't notice the difference it just depends on what sort of work you do on your computer to be honest with you.
 
Lucky you... Mines monthly -_- 27th :)

Yeah to be honest I'm just a casual gamer now... Do a bit of video encoding for films on the ipod and phone and that's about it... But im very inpatient and get frustrated at any slow down... Or random lockup's from dodgy ram -.-
 
Can't stand BSOD or stutters in games. But a rig like the one i suggested should handle your needs fine, what graphics card do you have?
 
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