Time to upgrade, budget of £200 (approx) what to get

[Behemoth]

After having a quick look at my bank balance have found I can afford to spend some money on my PC, so decided to go for a new motherboard, CPU and DDR2 ram.


Although I say my budget is £200, I can go over a fraction, I'm currently looking at going down the Socket AM2 route, mainly because of the price, I know what RAM I want, the Geil 2 Gig stuff on here looks very good (PC 6400)

I don't need a new GFX card, my Radeon X1800 XT is coping just fine.

I'd like to go C2D if I could but not sure about that asI haven't had anything Intel for years.

So, its really a spec me some gear thread.

Going from a Dual Core Athlon X2 3800, 2 gig 3200 DDR, Gigabyte K8N Sli Pro motherboard.

 

[t31os]

If you can stretch to £250 this would be a decent kit...

Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C3 667MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT12864AA663) £67.99
(£79.89) £67.99
(£79.89)
Asus P5N-E SLi nForce 650 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Asus P5N-E SLi nForce 650 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £66.99
(£78.71) £66.99
(£78.71)
Sub Total : £204.97
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.25
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £37.31
Total : £250.53

Selling your old kit will gain some of the cost back.... and of course if you can increase the budget a little more then a new cooler would be ideal, unless you have something like a ninja that will be able to carry across to the new system.

 

[Behemoth]

How much is my current kit worth ??

 

[furnace]

Do a price check in the members market

But yeah, go C2D. No point getting anything other than C2D atm, in my opinion

 

[Behemoth]

£250 was a bit much, this is what I went with in the end

Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-5400C4 TwinX (2x1GB) £44.99
(£52.86) £44.99
(£52.86)
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £66.99
(£78.71) £66.99
(£78.71)
Total including VAT + Shipping £211.76

 

[Dark_Angel]

You could have even got a 2160, my friend got one and clocked it to 3GHZ... seems to be an OK chip for the money.

 

[HangTime]

I ordered something fairly similar just today:

Asus P5N-E SLI (£68)
C2D E4300 (£70)
2gig Corsair XMS2-5400C4 (£44)

Total £189 inc delivery.

Given we have got identical CPU/RAM it will be interesting to see how we fare. I'm hoping for 3ghz which would put the RAM at it's rated speed, although this may be a bit ambitious on stock cooling.

 

[Behemoth]

I ordered something fairly similar just today:

Asus P5N-E SLI (£68)
C2D E4300 (£70)
2gig Corsair XMS2-5400C4 (£44)

Total £189 inc delivery.

Given we have got identical CPU/RAM it will be interesting to see how we fare. I'm hoping for 3ghz which would put the RAM at it's rated speed, although this may be a bit ambitious on stock cooling.

Cool, will be interesting indeed. I was called a traitor by my Dad after I ordered this but for the £11 difference in price between what I was going to have originally, which was AM2 I thought ti was £11 well spent.

Am aiming for 2.7 ghz myself, not really done much over clocking, so I am stepping into new waters.

I went for the DS3 in the end because I felt it was the best value for money board and it seems quite popular here.

Can't wait for the city link van to arrive on Tuesday, got the day off work too

EDIT - Unrelated but just remebered I bought some stuff of you on MM 3 years ago.

 

[Munky1080]

the e2160 will clock just as well as the e4300, and its a bit cheaper as well

 

[Nicos Rex]

<snip>

Am aiming for 2.7 ghz myself, not really done much over clocking, so I am stepping into new waters.

2.7 GHz should be easily achievable with that kit on stock volts although you may find it will run a tad on the hot side.

If you find that your temperatures are high with the stock cooler then for a very reasonable price you can sort it out with one of these:

Arctic Cooling Freexer 7 Pro

 

[Behemoth]

2.7 GHz should be easily achievable with that kit on stock volts although you may find it will run a tad on the hot side.

If you find that your temperatures are high with the stock cooler then for a very reasonable price you can sort it out with one of these:

Arctic Cooling Freexer 7 Pro

D'oh, should have ordered one of those at the same time as the other kit, oh well not worry will see how I get on with the stock cooling. My PC7 is a pretty well ventilated case anyway.

 

[Behemoth]

All the parts arrived today, and I am now up and flying on 2.52 GHz with stock volts on the stock cooler.

Will probably push for more, but at the moment am in the process of getting my software installed etc, can't believe how quick this setup is