Socket 775 upgrades

robb192002

robb192002

robb192002

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15 Apr 2010
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Hi, I d like to "hand me down" my current system to one of my kids for Christmas, but as always, the budget is limited. However I would like to treat myself to a better CPU and graphics card, so I have allocated around £100 to be spent on each of those. But since there's a VAT rise imminent I can be tempted to spend a little more on the graphics card, up to £150.
Luckily I ve 2Gb of DDR2 RAM and several spare hard drives available that will save costs and would like to recycle these in the build I give to the child.
So with that in my mind, I should tell you about my current system used for gaming.
Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 2.4Ghz
MSI Neo P35 motherboard,MS-7392
OCZ 4Gb DDR2
XFX HD4870 512 GDDR5
So basically I d like to replace the CPU, graphics and motherboard, and find a decent value for money case. Any advice appreciated, thanks.
 
What res do you game at?
CPU: 2nd hand Q6600 (around £70-£80)
Graphic card: GTX460 768MB at £120~130, or GTX460 1GB at £150~£160, or wait for HD6850 and see how it perform on reviews- it should be out tomorrow if no more delays, and price should be around £135+VAT according to Gibbo (OcUK staff).
 
Personally id keep your motherboard and go for a used Q6600 as said above. GFX wise a GTX 460 768Mb is a good choice.

Case wise i like my Coolermaster 335, but the Antec 300 is a decent choice as well.
 
Marine-RX179 said:
What res do you game at?
CPU: 2nd hand Q6600 (around £70-£80)
Graphic card: GTX460 768MB at £120~130, or GTX460 1GB at £150~£160, or wait for HD6850 and see how it perform on reviews- it should be out tomorrow if no more delays, and price should be around £135+VAT according to Gibbo (OcUK staff).
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Cheers for the reply. Have a SyncMaster P2450 so 1920 x 1080. Hadn't considered a second hand CPU, but will take a look at the Q6600 you suggest.
Likethe idea of getting a 460 but shall definitely wait for the new ATI card then.
Will just leave a case to decide upon. Not mithered about the monitor at the moment. Interested in a touchscreen if I can find a few decent reviews, but will probably settle for something less extravagant.
 
MeatLoaf said:
Personally id keep your motherboard and go for a used Q6600 as said above. GFX wise a GTX 460 768Mb is a good choice.

Case wise i like my Coolermaster 335, but the Antec 300 is a decent choice as well.
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Would still need a motherboard obviously, unless I can still get hold of the same one new?
Will look at the Antec case, ta.
 
Wouldn't recommend the Antec 300 since its price has ridiculously rised from the original £35 to now £50. Look are other cases in the low £40 range or £30 range.

About the previous recommendation for the CPU, I forgot you'd be handing the motherboard to your kid too. If that's the case, I would recommend you to go AMD and get a AM3 motherboard at £50~£85, and CPU you could either try to get a new Phenom II X4 955BE (around £105) or try to get one 2nd hand; a 2nd hand Phenom II X3 720 is also worth considering, if you can find one at £50~£60.
 
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I would keep the mobo as you will be able to oc it a bit, which combined with a quad, will be pretty good.

And then just buy a generic s775 mobo for the kids machine for about 30 quid, or less if second hand.

Reason being is the p35 is a great chipset to pair with a q6600.
 
mattyfez said:
I would keep the mobo as you will be able to oc it a bit, which combined with a quad, will be pretty good.

And then just buy a generic s775 mobo for the kids machine for about 30 quid, or less if second hand.

Reason being is the p35 is a great chipset to pair with a q6600.
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This.

I can confirm that the MSI P35 Neo's are fantastic overclockers and even support 45nm so you could go for a Q9*** if you can get one for good price. Obviously this is all dependant on other factors such as cooling , RAM and PSU.


As far as GFX are concerned the 4870 is still a hell of a card and with ATI releasing new cards over the next few months I would definitely hold on.

Edit:
Just noticed the 480 is a 512mb, maybe not a "hell of a card" but I would still wait for the ATI releases. You can kill the time by overclocking your new quad.
 
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Why not give the kids the P35/E4600/4870 and grab an AMD four core Athlon II or a Phenom II for use in a AM2+ socket DDR2 board?

At least you then have a further upgrade path to hex cores when prices fall or a cpu that you can roll forward into future builds The next AM3+ socket will be backwards compatible for current AM3 processors.

Going for a used Q6600 leaves you with two dead-end 775 rigs in the house with nothing that could be rolled forward in future - not the mobos, not the cpu's, not the DDR2.

I personally don't see any point in buying any 775 kit, cpus or mobo, anymore. And for the other peeps here - this OP has no access to MM and is a long way off that. Second hand Q6600's from the big bad world or fleabay are a risky gamble. The AMD route is safer and no more expensive given that if the OP stays with 775 then he has to buy a new 775 mobo anyway for his kids.

Cheers,
vfm
 
VFM Addict said:
Why not give the kids the P35/E4600/4870 and grab an AMD four core Athlon II or a Phenom II for use in a AM2+ socket DDR2 board?

At least you then have a further upgrade path to hex cores when prices fall or a cpu that you can roll forward into future builds The next AM3+ socket will be backwards compatible for current AM3 processors.

Going for a used Q6600 leaves you with two dead-end 775 rigs in the house with nothing that could be rolled forward in future - not the mobos, not the cpu's, not the DDR2.

I personally don't see any point in buying any 775 kit, cpus or mobo, anymore. And for the other peeps here - this OP has no access to MM and is a long way off that. Second hand Q6600's from the big bad world or fleabay are a risky gamble. The AMD route is safer and no more expensive given that if the OP stays with 775 then he has to buy a new 775 mobo anyway for his kids.

Cheers,
vfm
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I started to think about AMD when the words "second hand" CPU popped up. Perhaps I should take a look for affordable bundles.

Thanks for all the replies btw, plenty of ideas that wouldn't have occurred to me.
 
I had a Q6600 on an MSI p35 Neo for ages - ran great and was overclocked to either 3.4 or 3.6 depending on my tolerance for fan noise. I only changed to the Asus P5q to get by RAM running correctly at 1066Mhz - could never get it stable with the MSI. But at 800MHz the MSI board was rock stable.
 
For those items a bdget like that will serverly limit buying power...100 is not enough unless you want the kids just playing Peggle and just being on the internet.

Hope I understand the op's question clearly :)

Cheers

Von
 
Something to remember as well is that all of the sockets currently available are dead end sockets as they are all being replaced.

1156 get's replaced with 1155 in the next couple of months.
1366 get's replaced by 2011 in Q3 next year.
AMD's new Bulldozer cpu's will need the new socket AM3+ when launched in Q2 next year.

None of the new cpu's will work on existing boards.
 
True but the reverse is possible. So for those who like rolling upgrades they could move to socket AM3+ but take their AM3 duo, tri, quad or hex across with them initially. This is especially valuable to those currently still using DDR2 where needing to get a new cpu, mobo and ram all at the same time may be a financial blow in the coming year !!!
 
Hex cores won't be of any real use for gaming for quite some time, quads are only just starting to come into thier own, par example, my mate has a mid range Core2 oc'd to 2.9, running a mid range ati card, on xp/dx9 @ 1080 res, and to be fair, it doesnt look that much worse than my rig, which i run with dx10 fully maxed out.

Bad company2 for example - explosions, general eye candy and sand blowing about etc, are not as good, but it does not detract from the general quality and the game play at all.

Theres no point building a PC in tems of upgrade potential, as the market can, and does change direction... even more so if you are on a budget.

Moving from an intel platform to an AMD platform is hardly a 'rolling upgrade', you may aswell go to an i5/i7.
 
mattyfez said:
Moving from an intel platform to an AMD platform is hardly a 'rolling upgrade', you may aswell go to an i5/i7.
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I think you totally missed the point of a 'rolling upgrade'. A 'rolling upgrade' is not a leap where you need to change cpu, mobo and ram all at the same time.

Take the case in hand. Getting a quad 775 is dead end route. Move to an AMD AM3 processor in an AM2+ ddr2 board and you've lots of places to go or roll. The processor can be upgraded or equally the processor rolled onto an AM3+ mobo. Personally I like the Asrock N68C-S UCC as the way to roll on from 775 as you can then even roll too DDR3 even before moving to an AM3+ mobo.

The key with rolling is that you never have to change more than one ot two components at a time.
 
So, the guy is on a budget, and already has some good quality un-tapped components that are not being used to to thier potential, based on the intel platform.

How is swapping to an AMD platform a rolling upgrade? that is probably the most inefficient thing he can do right now, in terms of gaming performance, all he needs is an intel quad and a dx11 GPU, overclock the quad, and he's laughing.

Fair enough there will be no where to go after that, it will be a whole new rig, but, what you are ssuggesting is a whole new rig anyway, so there is no point.
 
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