Upgrade advice needed...

[oli collett]

Hi all,

I'm looking to upgrade my current rig to give it a bit of a boost. I'll also be upgrading to vista so in some ways i'm a bit concerned about which motherboard i get so that i have some amount of futureproofing without the worry of problems with vista OEM being tied to my motherboard.

I've currently got:
e6600
P5N32e-PLUS (680i/650i wierd hybrid thing)
2gig PC6400 G.Skill ram
7600GT (here's the main problem!)


I'm looking at:
8800GTS 512mb
E8200
4gig PC8500 DDR2
Vista home premium OEM

But i've got no idea about motherboards! I was thinking about an intel p35, x38 or x48 but i'm not sure whether they will offer me much over my current board.

It seems its not the best time right now to buy a new motherboard and i'm wondering whether to skip upgrading it and stick with it. On the other hand, i'm worried that if i want to upgrade it at a later date i'll be stuck because of the issues with Vista OEM..

Budget is approx £500 for memory/cpu/mobo/ram/gfx but i can go higher if you can pursuade me if it's a good idea!

 

[jak731]

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Gigabyte GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GV-NX88S512H-B) £129.99
(£152.74) £129.99
(£152.74)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.66GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £99.99
(£117.49) £99.99
(£117.49)
Abit IP35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-8000C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ) £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Sub Total : £364.96
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £65.43
Total : £439.34
left some cash for memory, if you were referring to a hdd.

 

[pastymuncher]

To be honest it's a good rig that you have. If you must get Vista (yuck) i would just get a motherboard (P35/X38/X48) and a 8800GT/GTS and clock the E6600. Should easily hit 3.4-3.6Ghz and will just about be on a par with a Wolfdale. The OCUK 8800GT is a steal at £117.

Personally i would'nt upgrade anything but the graphics card. Nehalem will be out at the end of the year with a new socket. That's when i would upgrade.

 

[bayo000]

To be honest it's a good rig that you have. If you must get Vista (yuck) i would just get a motherboard (P35/X38/X48) and a 8800GT/GTS and clock the E6600. Should easily hit 3.4-3.6Ghz and will just about be on a par with a Wolfdale. The OCUK 8800GT is a steal at £117.

Personally i would'nt upgrade anything but the graphics card. Nehalem will be out at the end of the year with a new socket. That's when i would upgrade.

+1

 

[oli collett]

To be honest it's a good rig that you have. If you must get Vista (yuck) i would just get a motherboard (P35/X38/X48) and a 8800GT/GTS and clock the E6600. Should easily hit 3.4-3.6Ghz and will just about be on a par with a Wolfdale. The OCUK 8800GT is a steal at £117.

Personally i would'nt upgrade anything but the graphics card. Nehalem will be out at the end of the year with a new socket. That's when i would upgrade.

Fair enough, i'll stick with it. I've got far too much stuff at the moment that needs ebaying so it'd suit me well not to have another thing to add on to the list!

 

[InkZ]

Nothing wrong with that rig at all. The 8800 GTs are stupidly cheap atm, that would be a lovely upgrade.