Spec me an..... Upgrade (lol)

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1 Aug 2006
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Currently have an x2 4800 (939) with dfi and 2gig ram - plus nice new 8800gt. Now, i have seen the price my cpu is going for at auction so i figured could be time to move away from sct 939?!?

Please can you guys tell me the best way to upgrade for £300; i quite fancy this wolfdale nonsense.....

Whats the best option for a gamer/browser type of user?

P.S i have seasonic 500w supply, lian-li case, 3 hdd's

Many thanks in advance

:D
 
Given what you already have and what you are selling I think I'd go with the following. If it has to be £300 or less then you can drop down to 2gb Ram but when Ram is this cheap it seems almost a waste not to get it.

GeIL 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz Black Dragon DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GB24GB6400C5DC) (Deal Product) £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £139.99
(£164.49) £139.99
(£164.49)
Sub Total : £254.97
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.25
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £46.06
Total : £309.28
 
Being a clocked E21*0 + 4gb of Ram owner myself,

I would without a doubt say sacrifice a little bit of CPU power for 4gb of ram IF you do/intent to run vista x64 and can't afford £300.

else the spec above looks on the money :cool:
 
Would there be any advantage of getting a better socket motherbaord ??? and would faster ram yield any real world results ????
 
What do you mean by a better socket motherboard? Socket 775 is the standard Intel socket for the moment and the Gigabyte is a solid enough performer.

Faster Ram is only likely to help you much if you are seriously overclocking and the CPU has a 9x multiplier which combined with the Ram being capable of 400mhz minimum gives you 3.6ghz. Beyond that point you might need better cooling anyway although the stock cooler isn't that bad.
 
:confused: sorry i mean the x35 boards etc.

What would a wolfdale chip do with a decent cooler and what ram would i need? i think 4 gig will suffice for the meantime also...
 
Quite a few of the E8400s seems to have been reaching 4ghz(+) but there is no guarantee of that, all you can do is get good components and hope you are lucky.

To get 4ghz with a 9x multiplier you need approx 445mhz from the Ram, if you want to be absolutely certain that your Ram is capable then you need PC8000 or above. However I would be tempted, especially given the limited budget, to simply go for PC6400 and see how far it will go, it wouldn't really be a surprise if it did reach 450mhz since it is good Ram.

A decent cooler will cost you about £15 (Arctic Freezer 7 Pro) and a good cooler (Tuniq Tower, Noctua NH-U12F etc) will cost about £30ish.
 
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