Some advice on upgrade please

Bam

Bam

Bam

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Joined
23 Oct 2003
Posts
212
Hi all.
Current situation is I need an upgrade. It will be used for games @ 1680 x 1050 mainly, as I have a 2nd Server PC for encoding etc. My limit is £400 ish.

Current system:
AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 (2.41GHz)
CPU Cooler: 120mm Zalman 'Flower' Heatsink and Fan
PSU: Jeantech Orchid 500 Watts
MBoard: A8N32-SLI-Deluxe
Graphics: 2 x NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX in SLI-Mode
MONITOR: V7 22" Widescreen monitor @ 1650 x 1050
DVD & HD: DVD NEC DVD / Seagate (160GB) / WD Raptor (34GB)
Sound: Creative SB Audigy 2
Mem: 4GB DDR-SDRAM | Speed : PC3200U
Case: Thermaltake Tsumani Dream

After some reading I am thinking about:

Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card + Colin McRae Dirt 2 Full Game £123.99
Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD3P AMD 790X (Socket AM3/AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £83.98
AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3) - Retail + Colin McRae Dirt 2 Full Game £77.99
Antec Solo Quiet Mini Tower Case - Black/Silver (No PSU) £72.99
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme Rev.C (Socket 1366 / 775 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3) £42.99
Akasa AK-FN057 Apache Super Silent 120mm Fan - 4 Pin PWM £13.98

Total : £429.44

I am hoping to keep my PSU, CDROM, HD. I needs some tips on some cheap but decent memory.
Am I right in thinking you can unlock all cores with tha mobo?.

Any suggestions/replacements would be welcome :)

Thanks
 
Your PSU isnt the best tbh, Id look at replacing it
Theres no guarantee about unlocking any cores on the cpu
cheap memory doesnt exist at the moment
Now I've cleared that up (sry not good news) have a look at the top thread for a £400 build
 
Cheers for the quick reply.
The System Build thread isn't much good for me in my position as I don't need some of the components.

Core unlocking isn't vital, but a bonus really.
Ok not cheap memory, but a compatible memory for the Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD3P AMD 790X?
Whats wrong with the PSU, as in not enough wattage, or just not compatible. Remember I'm trying to reuse parts, not at the cost of a poor system though :)

Cheers
 
Its compatible just not the best make tbh, youd have to check the outputted amps, they may well be quite low, Id invest in a decent new one, also if your old optical drive is IDE Id get a new SATA one, theyre only £20
You're spending £57 and £73 of a £400 budget on a cpu cooler and case, seems disproptionate to me, money could be used better else where, A £20 cooler would suffice and a £45 case, that gives you £55 extra to play with, however you were already over budget before looking at RAM which will be about £80 on top. How flexible is your budget?
 
As flexible as dead stick of non flexible stuff.

I take your point, but my current case is rubbish, as in bits falling off etc, so wanted to get something that I could have for a long time, hence the investment. I also liked the cooler due to it being silent, but yeah there are other cheaper options. I will have a fiddle now and post a revamped list.

Cheers for the quick replies.

PS checked your guide as well, excellent, sorry thought it was just builds, shows how p***ed I am....err...tired.
 
I can see the upside of an i5 build, I just can't afford it, and as this PC is 80% gaming (I have a Dual Core Server PC) I've decided on an AMD.

How does the below spec check out?.

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card + Colin McRae Dirt 2 Full Game £119.98
AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £97.99
Asus M4A79XTD Evo (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £83.98
Lian Li PC-8NB Midi Case - Black (No PSU) £83.98
OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3P1600LV4GK) £80.99
Corsair VX 550W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-550VXUK) £68.99
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 939 / AM2 / AM2+ / 775 / 1156 / 1366) £19.99
Total : £567.41

I opted for a 5770 as it seemed a toss up between that and a 4890. I will be playing games at 1680x1050. I would have preferd to not get a case, but mine really is a dirty little thing, with drive bay covers missing etc.

Any insight into the graphics and mobo choice's woudl be welcome.

Thanks
 
I don't like Asus boards for AMD. I used to have an M3A78 Pro, don't know what the M4A is like, but i had some real trouble trying to overclock.

I know these suggestions are a bit more expensive, but by posting that build yourself, you've gone well above your original £400 limit.

If you order it before wednesday, the Coolermaster Storm is on offer, £74.99 and this is a fantastic case. Plenty of space for everything, and the cable management is also very good.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-190-CM&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=29

This board is really good, although it doesn't have Crossfire upgradeability
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-198-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1481

I love these Gigabyte boards. By going from my M3A78 Pro to the MA790XT-UD4P, I gained a 200Mhz CPU clock boost, and a 200Mhz boost in both HyperThreading, and CPU-NB speeds.

This is my board: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-168-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1481 I don't plan on ever getting an Asus board ever again because of the trouble I had with the M3A. The one you've got might be better though, you'd have to do some googling and find out.
 
Hmm I've always had an Asus mb for as long as I can remember, and they have always been fine. I will do some googling for Socket AM3 though, cheers.

As for the budget, yeah it's over, but I have some christmas cash due as well.

Thanks Santa! ;)

EDIT just to add that XF isn't 100% required, but I would like to have that option to add some longevity to the build.
 
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basket1.jpg


Managed to get it below £500, opted for a cheaper case.

Final thoughts on the build before I do the deed?.

Thanks
 
basket2.jpg


I have bitten the proverbial bullet and opted for an AM3 build based on the lack of encoding, and main use being gaming.
(I also have a Pentium D for encoding on my raid server)

Could I get some experienced eyes on this build. I need a cooler but couldn't spot a decent AM3 one. I wont be using XF so is the mobo ok?.

Thanks in advance.
 
Hey
If youre not going to xfire you could just get a 770 mobo, save some cash there
Again to save money you could just get the 955, not much different to the 965
Also Id recomend the Coolermaster Sileo case with 500W PSU included, great bargain at £80, much better case than the 335
Those 3 should save you about £50
Now you can either pocket it or get the vapor x version of the gfx card, it runs quieter, and get the blue ripjaws, has lower cas which is better and only a few quid more

That would look like this

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4890 Vapor-X 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £164.99 (£143.47)
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail + Colin McRae Dirt 2 Full Game £125.98 (£109.55)
G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL8D-4GBRM) £82.00 (£71.30)
Coolermaster Sileo 500 Silent Case - Black (500w Extreme Power Plus PSU) £79.99 (£69.56)
Asus M4A77TD Pro AMD 770 (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £68.99 (£59.99)
Sub Total : £453.87
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £69.84
Total : £535.46

Not much different from yours, just a few tweaks
 
95thrifles' advice is spot on. As for a cooler, the arctic cooling rev 2.0 is still a great value choice, plenty good for a Phenom II X4.
You could get by quite happily with a 770 chipset motherboard, the only advantage of the 785 chipset board is if you had a graphics card failure, you can still run your pc on the onboard while you wait for a replacement to arrive.
One thing to bear in mind with the Gigabyte boards is if you up the multipler to overclock, you lose cool & quiet. Some other brands do this too. Asus boards can apparently still use cool & quiet when upping the multiplier, as can some other brands.
 
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Quixote said:
Gigabyte boards is if you up the multipler to overclock, you lose cool & quiet. Some other brands do this too. Asus boards can apparently still use cool & quiet when upping the multiplier, as can some other brands.
Click to expand...

Didn't know that :eek:
Everything is more or less sorted, but I was unsure regarding mobo. Always had an Asus and not really had any problems. For my budget, meaning a sub £100 AM3 mobo, which would be best?. I will be overclocking a little, and don't need XF, anything stand out? or are they all pretty similar?.

I've added the Rev2 Arctic Cooling and the Coolermaster Sileo Case/PSU to my list now so thank you both for that.
 
The best mboard I could find is the one you have in your build - the Asus Evo.
It's the only sub-100 mboard that is good for crossfire (x8/x8 - others in this price range drop the second slot to x4), and has as wide a range of bios overclocking functions as you get in more expensive boards.
If crossfire not important, the one in 95thrifles list is of course fine.
 
Hmm.
Had a bit of a rethink ;)

I've got the 4890 being delivered tomorrow, but I opted to go for the i5 build instead:
new_build.jpg


One final question. Is that mobo ok?. It's cheap, but as it will be the basis for any upgrade to a i7 in the future, I want to check it's not 'nasty' in anyway shape or form.

Almost there :)
 
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R Intel P55 seemed to get some excellent reviews, especially with regards to overclocking, so have opted for that one.

Anyone know if the Fenrir fits on the UD3R ok?.

Thanks
 
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