Spec - Mid Level Gaming

Oliet_No1

Oliet_No1

Oliet_No1

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Joined
13 Nov 2006
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189
Hi Guys - Just getting back interested in hardware after some time (9800 Pro's were king when I was "active"!)

I have around 450 to spend BUT i want to just get up and running intitially then add decent PSU, decent spec GPU etc SO:-

X1600 Pro - About £70 (Better than my old 9800 Pro?)
Sempron 3400 - Just to put me on for 3-4 months (I have kids and its christmas!)
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe WIFI-AP AM2 - Which is know is ridiculously out of sync with the rest of the system but i dont want to have to reload windows etc when i do get better bits - Do SLI Mobo's work with just one card?
Kingston DDR2 5400 2 x 512 sticks
I already have a case (I-Cute ATX Gaming Case with 350W PSU),
Sony DVD-RW x 16 blah blah
Generic Naff 17" Monitor - again onl;y short term(plus i have it lying around)

Opinions?

The Barton 2500 was the best bang for buck in my day - which GPU and CPU currently hold that title (No intel please or Nvidia)?
 
a lot better to go intel atm, but if you're going amd, lose the sempron and get an athlon 3000, also better to get x800 than x1600, personally i'd go for 7600GT , much better value and more powerfull as a x1600pro, unless you have the money for a 1900xt, nvidia is the way to go....



U wana know whats best bang for buck and i have to disappoint you but thats both intel and nvidia :
Gfx: Nvidia geforce 7600GT
cpu: Intel core 2 duo E6300

Depends on price range actually, below 50 quid its amd a64's (cpu's) and above its just better to save up for a core 2 duo from intel...

For gfx cards upto 140 quid, nvidia is much better ( with its 7300gt ddr3 and 7600gt cards, also 7900gs is a nice card) but from 140 ati 1900xt is the way to go, beats anything of nvidia of that price range...


For a psu: I highly recommend enermax and seasonic...



Anyhow if you're sure you wnat to go amd: Dont get a sempron, its total rubbish, i'd even get a athlon 3000 above a sempron 5000 (if one would exist)... (so just get an athlon64 if amd...)


Oh and yes sli boards work with 1 card...











If you can strech the budget i highly recommend you to get this instead, you wont be disappointed...


BU-036-OK Intel Core 2 DUO LGA775 E6300 1.86GHz Retail / Gigabyte 965P DS3 / 1GB GeIL PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Kit - Bundle (BU-036-OK) 1
CP-126-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN) 1
MB-061-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI) 1
MY-057-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB6400UDC) (MY-057-GL) 1
£286.97 £286.97
CA-025-EN Enermax Liberty 500W ELT500AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-025-EN) 1
£61.99 £61.99
GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG) 1
£84.99 £84.99
Subtotal £433.95
VAT £75.95
Total £509.90
 
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Welcome to the forums. SLi motherboards do work with a single card but if you don't like Nvidia then to use a dual graphics card system you'd need Crossfire. snowdog is right that Intel offer better value on a money/performance basis at the moment. Below is roughly what sort of system I'd suggest, based partly on something I specified in another thread.

MB-004-AK Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-004-AK)
£45.99 £45.99
MY-083-CS Corsair 1GB DDR2 Value Select PC5300 Dual Channel Kit (2x512MB) (VS1GBKIT667D2) (MY-083-CS)
£72.99 £72.99
CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£99.99 £99.99
HS-017-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) (HS-017-AR)
£14.99 £14.99
CD-062-LO Liteon DVD-8900 16x DVD±RW/RAM (Black) - OEM (CD-062-LO)
£15.99 £15.99
HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA)
£36.49 £36.49
CA-022-AK Akasa Ultra Quiet 400W Paxpower Active PFC ATX2.2 PSU - Black Nickel (CA-022-AK)
£36.99 £36.99
GX-040-OK OcUK GeForce 7300 GT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-040-OK)
£49.99 £49.99
Subtotal £373.42
VAT £65.35
Total £438.77
 
well saying no intel or nvidia is quite limiting, the nvidia 7600gt is an excellent mid range graphics card, and the core 2 duo allendale are bargains and the best bang for buck CPU at the moment

anyhow with these restrictions in place here is my answer to your questions:

1) yes single cards work fine in SLI motherboards

2) if your only mid level gaming, are you ever going to go for SLI?? especially it is pointless as you dont want nvidia :p leading onto 3;

3) if you only want radeon, and are thinking about crossfire (their version of SLI) id recommend a crossfire motherboard instead

4) semprons suck big time

5) your 350w (im guessing generic branding) PSU probably wont cut it

6) x1600pro is okkkkkkk....... but for gaming and even slight future proofing i'd go for atleast an x1800GT (you can always re-sell it on a trading site) or get a complete budget x1300 instead of going for x1600 which is neither here nor there

7) for your needs you wont need crossfire TBH

for ~ £450 id recommend this system:

MSI K9A Platinum Crossfire (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £74.99
Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) £111.99
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz (Socket AM2) £55.99
Corsair 1GB DDR2 Value Select PC5300 Dual Channel Kit (2x512MB) £72.99
Seasonic S12 500W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-001-SS) £67.99

Subtotal £383.95
VAT £67.20
Total £451.15

1) the mobo will be fine and has crossfire support

2) the graphics card is very decent for its price it is a cracker, it will not need to be updated for quite a while, and you can add a second 1950 pro in crossfire in the future if you want

3) ok 3500 is nothing special but it will kill a sempron, its dirt cheap, and you can overclock it veeeeery nicely if you want to
(if you do want to overclock it id add this after market cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler - £16.44 more inc VAT)
later on upgrade it to a dual core

4) cheap 1gig set of memory, will do you for now, will want upgrading at some point though

5) decent PSU, will be powerful enough to add a second 1950 pro in SLI
 
mikeymike said:
for ~ £450 id recommend this system:

MSI K9A Platinum Crossfire (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £74.99
Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) £111.99
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz (Socket AM2) £55.99
Corsair 1GB DDR2 Value Select PC5300 Dual Channel Kit (2x512MB) £72.99
Seasonic S12 500W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-001-SS) £67.99

Subtotal £383.95
VAT £67.20
Total £451.15

1) the mobo will be fine and has crossfire support

2) the graphics card is very decent for its price it is a cracker, it will not need to be updated for quite a while, and you can add a second 1950 pro in crossfire in the future if you want

3) ok 3500 is nothing special but it will kill a sempron, its dirt cheap, and you can overclock it veeeeery nicely if you want to
(if you do want to overclock it id add this after market cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler - £16.44 more inc VAT)
later on upgrade it to a dual core

4) cheap 1gig set of memory, will do you for now, will want upgrading at some point though

5) decent PSU, will be powerful enough to add a second 1950 pro in SLI
Click to expand...


If you really want amd & ati (still recommend intel and nvidia) , i (almost) totally agree with these specs...
Only thing worth changing is from a 1950pro to a 1900xt, 1950 just not worth the extra money i think(1900 series better value), but aside that, for amd that is the way to go.
 
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Which Mobo then

Which Mobo's would you then suggest - at the end of the day if the Conroe/GT is the way to go then thats what ill do!

Thanks BTW
 
x1950 pro is all i could afford on budget though, the x1900xt would put him 40 over budget, and theres nowhere else i can see to squeeze an extra 40 quid out
i personally would also buy an x1900xt over a 1950 pro, but for mid level gaming the difference wouldnt be much and i always like to stick to people budgets, speccing them a £500 system when they only have £450 to spend is a bit pointless IMO, else they would have said £500 in the first place
 
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Got a CPU

Decided to go down the AMD route (old habits etc)

Have followed you guys advice and ditched the Sempron 3400(Brand new and boxed if anyone is interested!)

and gone for:-
Athlon 64 3800 box 2.4GHz AM2 940 pin

(do these clock well:) ?, and i guess this would be more than sufficient for a mid level system?

GPU i would like the very best one i can afford - The level that the VFM bang for buck used to run down the scale was £150 - is that still the case?

And if so what can i get for that?

(Bugger the budget!)
 
whats your new budget, AM2 is different to s939 so a diff mobo will be needed to power that, 170 is about the current sweet point for graphics cards, although with DX10 cards just released, you may want to wait a month for all the old DX9 cards to drop a bit more
sell sempron on trading site, or return it to wherever you bought it from?
 
Ok got the following - already bought the Hans G(?) 19" TFT and the AMD 64 3800 and the case:-

All prices are exc Vat

Item: Asus Nvidia 7600GT 256MB DDR3 TV out DVI PCI-E
Qty: 1Cost: 87.57

Item: Asus M2N-E Socket AM2 NF570ULTRA Audio Lan USB2 2000FSB SATA ATX
Qty: 1Cost: 55.84

Item: Kingston Hyper X 533MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL3 (3-3-3-10) DIMM
Qty: 2Cost: 34.89

Item: Western Digital WD1200JS Caviar SE 120GB 7200RPM SATA2/300 8MB Cache - OEM
Qty: 1Cost: 31.09

Item: Belkin Anti-Static Wrist Band
Qty: 1Cost: 2.76

Item: Zippy Multimedia Black/Silver Multimedia Keyboard with 4-Way directional pad - USB/PS2
Qty: 2Cost: 6.77

Item: Belkin Network Adapter / Wireless Usb 2.0 802.11g
Qty: 1Cost: 14.37

Item: McAfee Internet Security Suite 2007 OEM
Qty: 1Cost: 6.59

Item: Microsoft OEM Windows XP Home SP2B (Includes Vista Upgrade Coupon) - 1pk
Qty: 1Cost: 49.99

Item: *UK Exclusive* Coolermaster eXtreme Power 650W PSU - ATX 12V V2.01 120mm Fan 20+4pin
Qty: 1Cost: 51.05

Item: Sony AW-G170AB2 18xDVD±RW/RAM Dual Layer Writer Black - Bare Drive
Qty: 1Cost: 17.01

Ok You think?
 
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