Time for an upgrade, spec chec please

dougie

dougie

dougie

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Joined
4 Nov 2002
Posts
121
Hi,

Recently decided my old pc (2000xp, 9800se, 512) might be a little lacking nowadays (something not quite right about playing BFME2 in low graphics settings. With a limiting budget (student) I'm thinking an upgrade. Spent a couple of days trying to catch up and I was thinking this:

GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG)
£79.99 £79.99
CP-164-AM AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-164-AM)
£54.95 £54.95
MB-071-MS MSI K9N Neo-F nForce 550 (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-071-MS)
£46.99 £46.99
MY-030-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB5300DC) (MY-030-GL)
£64.99 £64.99
HD-046-WD Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD)
£45.99 £45.99
CA-027-TT Thermaltake VC2350BNSB Mambo SuperMidi Tower - Black (CA-027-TT)
£39.95 £39.95
CD-059-LO Liteon DRW-6S160P-05C 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-059-LO)
£18.25 £18.25
Subtotal £351.11
VAT £61.45
Total £412.56

Never really have time to clock anymore (unless it would really be a particularly easy, low risk clock), What do you guys think?

Thanks,

Dougie

P.s. Dont upgrade that often so it doesnt have to be too future proof, just looking for the biggest bang for my buck
 
It all looks fine, do you already have a decent PSU? The only changes I would suggest are the hard drive to a Seagate 7200.10 which costs a few £ more but is second only to the Raptors in terms of speed and I might also change the DVDRW to either an NEC or Pioneer model :)
 
Case comes with a PSU (350W) I believe, wasnt too sure on the graphics card as not sure which way to go (ATI or Nvidia), and also whether AM2 is the right way to go :confused: ???

Thanks,

Dougie
 
350w ought to do but it is probably a bit less than most people will recommend now.

A 7600gt is the best card in that sort of price range so I'd go for that.

Conroe is a better bet than AM2 in terms of speed but it will also cost you about double so if your budget is limited then what you have listed will provide a good jump.
 
Thanks for the advice...

Last few questions (hopefully)... I've stuck with AMD for a while, is it worth going for the intelDuo's? or the AMD dual cores? (i.e. really worth the extra?)

Thanks again for the advice,

Dougie
 
If you can afford it then the Core2Duos(Conroe) chips are significantly faster than the AMD offerings of an equivalent price plus they overclock beautifully however you are probably talking another £80 or so initial spend when you take into account the cheapest Conroe and compatible motherboard. To get an AM2 X2 would be another £40 or so which will be better than the single cored chip particularly when multitasking but it does depend on how tight your budget it.

Anything you get will be a huge jump from your current system so by going AM2 you leave yourself with an upgrade path or I suppose you could go for something like a Pentium D 805 for ~£75 and compatible motherboard which will offer an upgrade path to Conroe in the future as it has most of the features and uses the same socket. Something like the below option and then you could overclock it.

CP-116-IN Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) - Retail (CP-116-IN)
£61.99 £61.99
MB-004-AK Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-004-AK)
£45.99 £45.99
Subtotal £107.98
VAT £18.90
Total £126.88
 
Would the D805 be faster (how much?), probably shouldnt go much higher than my current system...

Use my computer for web developement, cinema, games (not hardcore, but like to enjoy a good multiplayer game ever so often), music, standard sort of stuff really, not sure if this is allowed (will edit if its not (please dont delete this thread!)) would like to try out OSx86.

Thanks again for your suggestions,

Price is the real key, every pound spent is a drink lost ;)
 
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