Still living in AGP world >.<

Phal

Phal

Phal

Soldato
Joined
19 Jul 2004
Posts
4,087
Location
Shoreham by Sea
Im currently running with the following hardware


Athlon 64 X2 4800 ( 939 )

2gb Geil DDR 3200

BFG Geforce 7800 GS AGP

Asus A8V Deluxe




Im looking to upgrade from this but Im at the dead end of a few technologies there ( socket 939 and AGP )

Will have to upgrade everything at once probably but I dont have money to burn :P so does anyone have any good suggestions? Obviously I want something that will actually be better than what Ive got ( not just a sideways step into new technology ) and reasonably future proof!


Any ideas? :)
 
dude, that motherboard with a budget c2d CPU is the way to go, it'll double...that's right DOUBLE the performance of your current rig for £100

I went from a p4 3.0ghz to the rig in my sig, and i tell you...best £100 ever spent, EVER
 
Munky1080 said:
dude, that motherboard with a budget c2d CPU is the way to go, it'll double...that's right DOUBLE the performance of your current rig for £100

I went from a p4 3.0ghz to the rig in my sig, and i tell you...best £100 ever spent, EVER
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It isn't double the speed. A low end Core 2 Duo before overclocking will be a little slower than an x2 4800+. An e6420 would be about the same speed and an e6600 faster.

After overclocking it will have an advantage, but not with a £30-40 board as that will limit it.
 
I tell you what, you can make a system now a days for not a lot, that will allow for future expension/upgrade but most importantly, gets you on the 'new tech' hardware & a very noticable gain in performance.

My system upgrade, from 2005 budget built ATI 9800XT AGP - Celeron D - SDRAM dinosaurus, was sub £400!

Intel E6400 Core2Duo
ASRock ConRoe945G-DVI
1GB budget RAM
nVIDIA 7300GS (bargain!)
300GB MAXTOR 6L300S0

The E6400 is 2.13GHz out the box and runs all day long at 2.8GHz with a stock cooler.
The 7300 GS graphics card comes bundled with overclocking software for extra FPS.

That was 6motnhs ago. I'm a few quid up and have some nice ram and am ready to upgrade some parts again.
Dont get me wrong, its not a super gamer station, but it was the best £400 or so £ I spent in a long time. Also, you'll get a better/equal system for less from these guys too cos they have more know how then I did and will get you up and running going "OMG Flepping GOD!! CORE 2 DUO ROCKS!!!!" Its not twice as quick cos its got two cores, but it is QUICK by P4 standards, even stock going up against a P4 3.0GHz you'll be impressed, especially when it comes to things like multi tasking, RAR files virus scanning etc.

What I'm saying is, with a basic cheap system like that, you can add to it once you have some money spare, and until then, it'll keep you going. Its also Vista ready, yes, that cheap system is good for Vista Ultimate, but really wants 2GB ram cos Vista hogs 500 to 800mb :eek:
 
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I wouldn't get a Maxtor, 250GB Samsung would be preferable. 7300GS sucks too, big downgrade from his current 7800GS. You're right though about being able to get a good PC cheap though :)


Actually... this is what I just done to the only Maxtor I own:


hd5copygl5.jpg


:p
 
Hey maxtor is ok, it was cheap and big =) good at th etime, although yes, i have recently bought two samsung drives to take its place, thats another story.

you'd be supprised how good the 7300 is for £40, it does actually perform pretty damn well. anyway back on topic, getting the Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA with C2D and using his 7800GS is a good call, you can get good ram at good prices now and that board would let you use you old HDD too. man, for a couple of hundred quid youd be up and running with a very big :D , i'll leave the spec to some more educated gents then myself =)
 
KALIB'R said:
Hey maxtor is ok, it was cheap and big =) good at th etime, although yes, i have recently bought two samsung drives to take its place, thats another story.

you'd be supprised how good the 7300 is for £40, it does actually perform pretty damn well. anyway back on topic, getting the Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA with C2D and using his 7800GS is a good call, you can get good ram at good prices now and that board would let you use you old HDD too. man, for a couple of hundred quid youd be up and running with a very big :D , i'll leave the spec to some more educated gents then myself =)
Click to expand...

I disagree. Judging from his 7800GS hes is a gamer. Upgrading the CPU and mobo will give him very little performance increase in gaming as when he maxes the graphics settings out the g card will become the system bottleneck.

Also his 7800GS is AGP its not really worth buying another board he wont be able to use next upgrade.
 
You could probably do with buying a ATi X1950 pro512mb card, if your running a high res (say 1680x1050) then your system would deffo benefit from that card and its only around £120 now I think. Or you could go the nvidia route and get a 7950 GT 512mb for £171.32 but its a might high price tag.
 
BAMBI said:
I disagree. Judging from his 7800GS hes is a gamer. Upgrading the CPU and mobo will give him very little performance increase in gaming as when he maxes the graphics settings out the g card will become the system bottleneck.

Also his 7800GS is AGP its not really worth buying another board he wont be able to use next upgrade.
Click to expand...

Correct but its a PCIE & AGP board. Sounds like hes budgeting so in terms of a progressive upgrade the first thing to do is get into current technology - mobo, ram, cpu and gfx... With graphics card being the most expensive buy of the majority of rigs and given that his is actually an ok card, maybe the route to go is a new mobo cpu and ram as the Asus board allows for both PCI-E & AGP he can upgrade his graphics card at a later date. Maybe this:

CPU: E6420 £123.36
MOBO: Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA £46.99
RAM: Crucial 2GB DDR2 PC2-5300C5 £50.51 OR Crucial Ballistix 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2 PC2-5300C3 667MHz £42.29
all inc VAT.
Which is a system for less then £250

Then when hes ready he can upgrade his graphics card to a nice nVIDIA PCI-E and then will probably want to get a mobo sometime after that (maybe?).

Finally some figures for the fella to crunch over!
Feel free to tell me thats a rubbish plan of action.
 
KALIB'R said:
Correct but its a PCIE & AGP board. Sounds like hes budgeting so in terms of a progressive upgrade the first thing to do is get into current technology - mobo, ram, cpu and gfx... With graphics card being the most expensive buy of the majority of rigs and given that his is actually an ok card, maybe the route to go is a new mobo cpu and ram as the Asus board allows for both PCI-E & AGP he can upgrade his graphics card at a later date. Maybe this:

CPU: E6420 £123.36
MOBO: Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA £46.99
RAM: Crucial 2GB DDR2 PC2-5300C5 £50.51 OR Crucial Ballistix 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2 PC2-5300C3 667MHz £42.29
all inc VAT.
Which is a system for less then £250

Then when hes ready he can upgrade his graphics card to a nice nVIDIA PCI-E and then will probably want to get a mobo sometime after that (maybe?).

Finally some figures for the fella to crunch over!
Feel free to tell me thats a rubbish plan of action.
Click to expand...
I think it's a great idea :)
 
KALIB'R said:
Correct but its a PCIE & AGP board. Sounds like hes budgeting so in terms of a progressive upgrade the first thing to do is get into current technology - mobo, ram, cpu and gfx... With graphics card being the most expensive buy of the majority of rigs and given that his is actually an ok card, maybe the route to go is a new mobo cpu and ram as the Asus board allows for both PCI-E & AGP he can upgrade his graphics card at a later date. Maybe this:

CPU: E6420 £123.36
MOBO: Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA £46.99
RAM: Crucial 2GB DDR2 PC2-5300C5 £50.51 OR Crucial Ballistix 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2 PC2-5300C3 667MHz £42.29
all inc VAT.
Which is a system for less then £250

Then when hes ready he can upgrade his graphics card to a nice nVIDIA PCI-E and then will probably want to get a mobo sometime after that (maybe?).

Finally some figures for the fella to crunch over!
Feel free to tell me thats a rubbish plan of action.
Click to expand...

It is one way to go but i cant really see any performance increase in the meantime. Maybe its just best to wait until he goes for a full out upgrade inc graphics card?
 
Always an option, but to start with its not ment as a noticable performance upgrade, but as a 1st step on the ladder to getting better performance, as you say the other option is sit on the cash (tempting to spend it on beer though ;) ) and save up a few hundred quid and do it all in one big blow out, then you can always plonk your old system on eBay and make a few quid back.

Horses for courses really, its hard as the guy hasnt said if hes keen to update or what his budget is..
 
Sorry Ive been a bit quiet :) havent checked the forums since Friday when I was finishing work :)



Thanks for all the input.




Ive never been the best at saving so £250 to get me on a new technology ladder is probably the best path for me I think. Once I get that sorted then I can start looking for a decent GFX card to upgrade to. Ill probably be looking for a slightly better mobo at that stage although Im not too sure it would be worth it?

I am a gamer but Im not into overclocking stuff or anything so sometimes I do wonder whether its worth getting an uber mobo from a premium name like ASUS or whatever if I dont make use of its extra power.

I dont use the onboard sound either since Ive got a good sound card already.

I guess the only thing I really use is all the extra IDE and SATA ports since ive got 5-6 hard disks in my PC.

I might also think about getting 4gb instead of 2gb of RAM since it is pretty dirt cheap at the moment and Vista seems to like using memory :)
 
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