Switch from AGP to PCI-Exp: Getting the same whack I already have.

peteruk

peteruk

peteruk

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Joined
27 Jan 2005
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Nr. Norwich, Norfolk
Hey all,

I know, I know, I am living in the stoneage, but my Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard has finally ground to almost a complete halt, after months of horrendously unreliable booting and I am clueless as to what is wearing it down to its near lifeless shell. :(

So, I figured it is high-time to switch to the new way of thinking, namely PCI-Express. However, I am currently doing a spot of volunteering and travelling, and will be off to university after that, so am not too keen to fork out a large sum of cash for this. So, I could use the advice of some pro's who've kept up with the market and know what is roughly equivalent to what I already have on the new system. :o

My current rig looks something like the below:

Asus A8V Deluxe Mobo
Opteron 144 socket 939 (run at 2.2Ghz)
2 x 1Gb of 2-3-2-5 PC3200 Ram.
Radeon X800 XT PE 256mb graphics card.
EDIT: Forgot to mention I currently have a 420W generic PSU, which may unfortunately need to be shifted come the upgrade.

So, please spec me a new setup that will give me roughly the same, if not slightly more power (but hopefully not any less) as what I have. If you could also suggest what sell in value my current gear has (my card might be able to cough up a few £'s) it would be grand.

Thanks to anyone who can help out, :)
Peter
 
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icey_haj said:
Budget?
Click to expand...

I'm really quite open, I'd just like to spend as much as it takes to get a system up to the same power, but not much more. Of course I'm concious of value, I'll happily pay for example £150 to get twice as much power as £100 or such (these figures are just plucked from the air, but you get my notion).

If you can, feel free to spec a number of options from equivalent power and one and two steps up pour favor.

:)
 
S.A.S said:
do you want a whole setup or just the case, or just a motherboard?
Click to expand...

As little upgraded as possible. I figure that will be the motherboard, ram (as a new mobo will only take faster ram), CPU (as I guess I'll have to change socket?) and graphics card (due to pci-exp switch, AGP 939 mobos seem near impossible to come by). Possibly the PSU too, but I'm not sure. I don't see why the HDDs, optical drives, screen, case, sound card etc. would need to go. :)
 
captureqg2.jpg


That will absolutely thrash your current setup. It will overclock nicely too.

EDIT: Actually swap the RAM with this and that should save you a tenner.
 
icey_haj said:
captureqg2.jpg


That will absolutely thrash your current setup. It will overclock nicely too.
Click to expand...

Looks great, thank you! :D

Is the PSU entirely neccesary?

Also, any areas I could cut back on (the mobo looks a tad pricey)?

Thanks again. :)
 
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yes keep the psu for the gfx card.

not really the motherboard is quite cheap for a p43 chipset

the 4gb of ram is quite expensive, you could look on the ocuk site for a cheaper set of ram. but thats good quality ram so i would keep it
 
Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3 Intel P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £74.99
(£86.24) £74.99
(£86.24)
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5300 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.60GHz (800FSB) - Retail £60.99
(£70.14) £60.99
(£70.14)
Gainward ATI Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail (471846200-9689) £58.99
(£67.84) £58.99
(£67.84)
Seasonic Silverpower 400W PSU £39.99
(£45.99) £39.99
(£45.99)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK) £28.99
(£33.34) £28.99
(£33.34)
Sub Total : £263.95
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DHL @ Home Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.99
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £40.94
Total : £313.88


i got that but its only a differnce of about £15
 
Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 Rev2
+
Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200

and you're sorted, it will take your agp card AND DDR ram. Although if budget allows I'd still recommend a new GFX and DDR2, even a mid range GFX nowadays will perform a lot better than the quite frankly ancient X800XT. I'd recommend a new PSU as well because with a generic brand you'll never know when it will give up and take out other components with it.
 
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S.A.S said:
Seasonic Silverpower 400W PSU £39.99
Click to expand...

But that PSU is less powerful than what I already have, surely I can do without that?

Also, can anyone give an idea of how much more powerful these new setups are in comparison? I'm really not looking to upgrade here, more to just switch over.

Thanks for the specs people, very much appreciated. :)
 
steve258 said:
Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 Rev2
+
Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200

and you're sorted, it will take your agp card AND DDR ram. Although if budget allows I'd still recommend a new GFX and DDR2 ram, even a mid range GFX nowadays will perform a lot better than the quite frankly ancient X800XT.
Click to expand...

That looks good for a minimum change, thanks! That comes to just over £100, yep?

The cheapest way I can see to the second upgrade would be something along the lines of:

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail (11138-00-20R) Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail (11138-00-20R) £56.99
(£65.54) £56.99
(£65.54)
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.50GHz (800FSB) - Retail Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.50GHz (800FSB) - Retail £53.99
(£62.09) £53.99
(£62.09)
Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 Rev2 (Socket 775) PCI-Express/AGP DDR2 Motherboard Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 Rev2 (Socket 775) PCI-Express/AGP DDR2 Motherboard £47.99
(£55.19) £47.99
(£55.19)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK) OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK) £28.99
(£33.34) £28.99
(£33.34)
Sub Total : £187.96
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DHL @ Home Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.49
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £29.47
Total : £225.92

But that comes to over £200, which is (as you can imagine) twice as much. It's a shame there's no half way point.
 
I'd only recommend the asrock board only if you're keeping the DDR ram and GFX, if you're doing a full upgrade I'd recommend something along the lines of what has been suggested here. I'd rather take something like the Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H for similar price, it has built in graphics as well which will tie you over until you get a better card later if budget is really limited.

I'd take the seasonic over any generic PSU anyday, as explained in my previous post. Generic PSUs don't always reach their claimed wattage output.
 
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peteruk said:
But that PSU is less powerful than what I already have, surely I can do without that?

Also, can anyone give an idea of how much more powerful these new setups are in comparison? I'm really not looking to upgrade here, more to just switch over.

Thanks for the specs people, very much appreciated. :)
Click to expand...


yes but yours is generic, as people have said
 
S.A.S said:
yes but yours is generic, as people have said
Click to expand...

Ahh thank you, duely noted.

I am tempted to take my chances with it, and upgrade it if I am not happy with its performance. It may take my time in the long run, but that £40 is worth saving I think.
 
I think you're a bit off the mark there mate. Generic PSUs are unreliable and bordering on dangerous. It's far better to spend the £40 now, and not regret it later.
 
reflux said:
I think you're a bit off the mark there mate. Generic PSUs are unreliable and bordering on dangerous. It's far better to spend the £40 now, and not regret it later.
Click to expand...

Well my experience with them is limited, so I'll happily take your more experienced word for it :).

For the record, I've just had a quick glance and it's an 'Enlight' PSU, so while it does have a make on the side, I kinda classed that as generic as I'd never heard of them before. Just checking we're on the same definition of 'generic'.
 
a quick google on that asrock board has revealed numerous incompatibility of its PCI-E port, especially with the latest gen of GFX so if you do decide to go PCI-E in the future there is a chance that it might not work with the mobo.

*EDIT* also its PCI-E only works at x4 instead of the full x16 speed so you won't make the most out of a modern GFX card.
 
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