Thinking about upgrading, Idea's?

[GSDog]

Hi all,

I would like to upgrade my rig, It's starting to struggle with games like BF2.
My budget is around £400-600, this is for CPU, motherboard, RAM and GFX.

I would like an AMD64 CPU and 2GB of RAM. GFX is important, at the moment I have a 6800GT, so hopeing for something better.

Any Idea's?

P.S) I don't need/want SLI if you go with nVidia.

 

[Admiral Huddy]

I've just posted some thing simular in another thread..

i know you said socket 939 but the the Pentium 4 805 and 830 are a steal at £93 and £117 respectively. Both capable of heavy encoding and a both great overclockers..

Looking at some a little more expensive, the Operons are a good buy too.

as for motherboards, look at either the ASUS PSWD2 (£117) or the ABIT AW8 which is on special offer this week for £76..

so a dual core Intel CPU and PCI-E motherboard for under £200

I don't think you can go wrong with that ! gives you £200 - £400 to spend on some memory and a graphics card..

P.S) I don't need/want SLI if you go with nVidia.

There isn't much of a price difference between non SLi and SLi motherboards, if any. Your best of buying an SLi motherboard and running a single Nvidia or ATI card for the time being. This extends your upgrade choices later. However, you'll be stuck if you want a second ATI card.

 

[semi-pro waster]

It would take it slightly over budget to go dual core here with an AMD system but if you went with a 256mb X1800XT then it is still quite do-able. Also you may need to consider if your PSU is up to it. If memory serves you have an X-Pro 460w which should cope but you will need adapters for it.

GX-048-PC PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-PC)
£199.95 £199.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£101.95 £101.95
MB-088-AS Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS)
£59.95 £59.95
CP-121-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3700BNBOX) (CP-121-AM)
£124.95 £124.95
Subtotal £486.80
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £8.25
VAT £86.64
Total £581.69

 

[GSDog]

Thanks guys,

Yes, spw your memory is good! I will try and get an adaptor for the X-Pro. What you spec'd was pretty much what I was looking at.

I doubt I will be overlocking this rig, maybe when it's really old and struggling.
Is the 1800X better than the 7800GT? Sorry, I haven't been on the hardware seen for a while...
Keep the suggestions coming!

 

[xirokx]

doubt I will be overlocking this rig, maybe when it's really old and struggling.

In that case go for an msi or dfi mobo so when you do come around to it you wont be limited...

Why not wait to get an extra £100 and go dual core with the x2 3800+???

Otherwise you will only do it later on.....

Also what res will you be gaming at? IF its 1280 x 1024 or below 256 will be fine if its anything higher you will need a 512mb to make the most of it...you may not need a 512mb gfx card so could spend the extra cash on the dual core

 

[Admiral Huddy]

It would take it slightly over budget to go dual core here with an AMD system but if you went with a 256mb X1800XT then it is still quite do-able. Also you may need to consider if your PSU is up to it. If memory serves you have an X-Pro 460w which should cope but you will need adapters for it.

GX-048-PC PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-PC)
£199.95 £199.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£101.95 £101.95
MB-088-AS Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS)
£59.95 £59.95
CP-121-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3700BNBOX) (CP-121-AM)
£124.95 £124.95
Subtotal £486.80
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £8.25
VAT £86.64
Total £581.69

semi.. the single core 3700+ here is £124 whereas an the intel 805 dual core is under £100.. what do you reckon?

 

[semi-pro waster]

semi.. the single core 3700+ here is £124 whereas an the intel 805 dual core is under £100.. what do you reckon?

I know more about AMDs, that is partly the reason that I would immediately suggest them but still given how little I know about Intels at the moment in comparison to the rest of the dual core Intel chips that one seems rather cut down. It has half the L2 cache(although still 1mb per core) and a slower FSB speed than any of the other chips, it is also 2.6ghz per core natively although that doesn't necessarily mean much in relative terms. The A64 should be a lot faster in single cored applications however it does cost about half as much again and I don't know how well the Intel will overclock.

Basically I don't know enough about the Intel to make an entirely fair comparison beyond saying that I don't yet think there is always a benefit in going dual core just yet and I do still think until Conroe at least AMD still has the better chips overall

//edit someone posted a handy CPU comparison in another thread and the San Diego appears to be significantly faster in pretty much everything from a quick check but it does cost a fair bit more. Comparison is here and you can select loads of different CPUs

 

[GSDog]

In that case go for an msi or dfi mobo so when you do come around to it you wont be limited...

Why not wait to get an extra £100 and go dual core with the x2 3800+???

Otherwise you will only do it later on.....

Also what res will you be gaming at? IF its 1280 x 1024 or below 256 will be fine if its anything higher you will need a 512mb to make the most of it...you may not need a 512mb gfx card so could spend the extra cash on the dual core

I was thinking about maybe going dual core, but I doubt I will use it enough. I just usualy surf the web, use photoshop sometimes and play games. I would consider it for my next upgrade in a year or two when most programs use it - but untill then I think I would rather spend my money on single core. Although for £100 more it isn't much.... hmmm!