Spec advice pls <£250...?

Gilbern74

Gilbern74

Gilbern74

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Joined
18 Apr 2006
Posts
44
Hi
My old m/b blew (as per my sig spec) and I replaced it with another of the same bought new off eBay.
This worked fine for a week but then something else went kapput. I kept getting errors when starting XP (stuck at mup.sys driver loading). After another week of trials and tests it stopped completely loading even to the Bios. The error beeps I get (one long beep, 3 short) indicate a video problem. So I have given up :-(

And now I've spec'd myself a new set of components that will hopefully be a new cheapo build. I have all the hard/optical drives I need and a 500w PSU.

I haven't upgraded for years and like to keep it cheap and simple. Could someone assist and advise whether these bits listed below are compatible and would be a good working system. I'm not a gamer but like 1440x900 (I think thats the one) on my monitor so I wasn't sure about the GFX card so chose the cheapest!

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 7750+ Black Edition 2.70GHz (Socket AM2+) - Retail AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 7750+ Black Edition 2.70GHz (Socket AM2+) - Retail £59.99
(£68.99) £59.99
(£68.99)
Asus M3A78 AMD 780G (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Asus M3A78 AMD 780G (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £57.99
(£66.69) £57.99
(£66.69)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Platinum Series DDR2 (OCZ2P10664GK) OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Platinum Series DDR2 (OCZ2P10664GK) £53.99
(£62.09) £53.99
(£62.09)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2900 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2900 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM £24.99
(£28.74) £24.99
(£28.74)


Total = £226.50
 
Make sure you have enough power from your PSU for that HD2900GT. I hear it's quite a fiend.

Doesn't it use 2 pci-e power cables?
 
Dont really need the gfx card. The 780g uses the HD3200 gfx chipset which i believe can playback blu ray, therefore must display at least a 1920x1080 res. The GA-MA78GM-S2H,which is the Gigabyte version of that board seems to be getting the best press at the mo so maybe worth a look

EDIT: I think the above poster is talking about the 2900xt which is a beast, the 2900gt isn't
 
Thanks for the heads up chaps.

So I wouldn't need a GFX card with this m/b?? Interesting... though I might buy that 2900 anyway as I might have enough pc bits now to build another pc for my son and could use that.
Would a system run better using on-board graphics, or a seperate pci-e card then?
I do plenty of video editing so what would be better (my old Ati Radeon X800 GTO used to handle this quite well).

One last thing...this m/b has 1 IDE connector looking at the specs. This has me a little worried as I have 2 ODE drives I use for Mp3's and videos, and also 2 DVD drives. I can ditch a DVD drive but wanted to keep at leats one of the IDE's. Will I be able to connect up the IDE + DVD as master and slave?

Will put the order in so I hopefully get it before NY.
 
Vista Aero may be snappier with a gfx card but thats bout it and you can turn aero off. Afaik video editing is much more CPU dependant than gfx dependant so im not sure how much of a boost the gfx card will be, saying that it is a decent card for a decent price so its decision time. Yeah SATA is the way to go mate, much neater
 
Thanks again. Order complete now and in the warehouse :-)
Ordered the Sata DVD drive too to save problems later. Managed to hit my budget bang on.

Product Name Price Qty Line Total
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 7750+ Black Edition 2.70GHz (Socket AM2+) - Retail £59.99 1 £59.99
Asus M3A78 AMD 780G (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £57.99 1 £57.99
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Platinum Series DDR2 (OCZ2P10664GK) £53.99 1 £53.99
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2900 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM £24.99 1 £24.99
Samsung SH-S223F/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99 1 £13.99
DHL @ Home Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri): £8.49
VAT: £32.92
Order Total: £252.36
 
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