Stuck In The Past With Socket 754! Help!

oHUTCHYo · 29 Oct 2006 at 18:47

Hi all, I have a dilemma and need a way out!

Heres my current Socket 754 setup;

Athlon 64 3400+ (Socket 754)
1.5GB Corsair 3200 C2 DDR
ATI Radeon X800 XT PE (AGP)

So heres the tricky bit, this PC is primarily a gaming machine, I have a budget of maybe £350 max. What are my best options for a gaming rig?

I was thinking of;

Athlon X2 4800+ Dual Core
Asrock 939 Dual-SATA2 (AGP + PCI-E)
Keep existing X800 XT PE and Corsair RAM
(Might keep me going until I get a DX10 PCI-E card)

I cant really go for the AM2 sockets because I would need to buy a new PCI-E gfx card and also DDR2 memory!

Anyone else got any ideas?

kmistry · 29 Oct 2006 at 18:53

If you could sell your current parts and make say £100 maybe more, then it would be worthwhile as you could probably go conroe but for the money you have that looks good.

EDIT: i was just thinking if you only use your computer for gaming, the applications will be single threaded, so maybe it would be wise to go for say a 3700+ and then you would have a lot more money left over and could maybe get a new gfx card

which will probably help you out, plus the 3700+ is a good clocker

Kiz

oHUTCHYo · 29 Oct 2006 at 19:07

Thanks your help Kiz, say I went for a single core 3700+, what graphics card would sit nice with it (i.e. not bottlenecked due to the CPU)

So these dual cores arent any good for games? I sort of worked that out already from reading other peoples threads, it might be worth just going single core then :confused:

EDIT: Just wondering, does AM2 require DDR2 memory or is it backward compatible with DDR?

oHUTCHYo · 29 Oct 2006 at 19:30

How about this guys?

OcUK MSI GeForce 7900 GTO SILENT 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-041-OK)
£180.94 Including VAT at 17.5%

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-121-AM)
£88.11 Including VAT at 17.5%

Motherboard please? Dont need any fancy extras, just sold gaming performance, cheap would be nice too lol

pastymuncher · 29 Oct 2006 at 19:53

3400+ 754 cpu's are going for a decent price at the mo on a certain auction site (one just went for £76) and there's quite a few there as well so you should be ok for selling your current kit.

I would say depending on your mobo you should get around £200-250 for your mobo, cpu, graphics card and ram. Put that with the £350 you already have and you have a nice little Core2Duo rig.

If you did just go over to a 939 single core setup then i would say anything above a 3700+ would not be much of a bottleneck for any graphics card. I was running Sli with a pair of BFG 7800gt's on a rig based around a socket 754 3700+ and an Epox 8NPA-Sli and did'nt notice any bottlenecks at all. I had the cpu clocked at 2.6ghz and it was a good powerful rig. I only changed to 939 (in my siggy) as i got the cpu and a DFI mobo (deceased due to Hiper blowing up) from a friend for a bargain. If you did this and kept your current ram then you would have to lose a stick, (i presume you have 3x512mb) as 1.5gb would not run in dual channel mode.

AM2 requires DDR2 memory and is not backwards compatiable with DDR although Asrock makes a board that does take DDR as well as DDR2, and somehow makes it work with AM2. May not be so good performance wise though and AM2 is no where as good as Intels C2D cpu's anyway.

pastymuncher · 29 Oct 2006 at 19:59

The 7900GTO is an excellent choice as is the SD 3700+ although i would go with the OEM version and get a FReezer64 Pro for £16.44 and get better, quieter cooling and save some money as well. It will also give you more headroom for clocking as well.

For a motherboard how about the DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) at £64.61 inc. This is a good overclocker and a good all round board and is very popular on here.