upgrade advice

zytok · 31 Jan 2007 at 10:55

Current spec as in sig. Looking to upgrade to improve gaming at TFT res. £500 budget.
Would like to go Conroe but would have to change damn near everything in my system which would go way over £500.
Could just stick a 8800 GTS in my current rig but concerned that my CPU and RAM would bottleneck it.
Guess I could try to get £300 or so from MM for my exisiting mobo/cpu/ram/gfx?
Any advice????

melbourne720 · 31 Jan 2007 at 11:05

OC your current CPU with something like a tuniq tower (if not done already) and buy an 8800 GTS. Most games are GPU dependant a lot more than they are CPU dependant, so the performance will be good. You'll also get a good price for your x1800 XT, before the R600 comes out.

You could always upgrade your CPU/mobo/RAM to an e4300/DS3/2GB DDR2 at a later date if you want, and your 8800 wil work fine with that too.

zytok · 31 Jan 2007 at 11:14

never been too sure about oc'ing the Athlons, always sounds complicated. Anyone got a link or summat to an easy to follow guide?

The Arctic Cooling T1 case I currently have is pretty small and I'm not convinced a GTS is gonna fit. Does anyone know if the cut down 8800's (8600?) with less memory are gonna be any shorter than the 88's?

melbourne720 · 31 Jan 2007 at 11:36

The 8800 GTS is no longer than a ATX motherboard width. Search in the Graphics card forum for '8800 GTS size' and you'll get it's actual length.

I'd use the OC guide in the Overclocking and Cooling section, worked well for me.