Upgrade advice please

Jon20 · 3 Apr 2008 at 13:29

Hi,

I'm looking to upgrade my mobo, cpu, and ram hopefully sometime this month. I'm also looking to upgrade to Vista and also to get a new hard drive. I use the computer for the usual internet browsing, msn, word processing and also to play FS9 and probably FSX with the new hardware.

What I already have/intend to keep:

Coolermaster Elite 330 case
Corsair VX450W PSU
Samsung DVD RW
Monitor
Keyboard and mouse
HIS ATI HD3650 graphics card

What I'm looking to upgrade:

Motherboard
CPU - One of the new 45nm CPU's would be nice if possible
CPU cooler? Don't like the 'buzziness' of the Intel stock HSF
RAM -4GB?
HDD
Vista - 64bit?

I will probably have a budget upto £400 and I'm not planning on overclocking. So can someone spec me up please.

Thanks.

Jon20 · 3 Apr 2008 at 17:00

How does that spec look? I'm sure it can probably be improved. I've also noticed that I've forgotten an aftermarket cooler so if that can be included as well. Would something like an AC7 Pro be ok?

semi-pro waster · 3 Apr 2008 at 17:27

That looks basically fine and the Arctic Freezer 7 Pro is a good choice to fit within the budget. I'd stick with Vista 64bit since you are going for 4gb Ram. For an extra £5 you could get a Q6600 though if you wanted.

Jon20 · 3 Apr 2008 at 22:37

Anybody else able to offer any suggestions/improvements to the spec that I've listed? I'm looking for it to be as quiet and reliable as possible. I also don't plan on upgrading often so if it can be as "future-proof" as possible that would be great.

Thanks in advance for any further suggestions.

Jon20 · 6 Apr 2008 at 13:09

Glaucus · 6 Apr 2008 at 13:22

Slightly over, it's also a big cpu cooler, so need to check if it fits in case.