Upgrade advice !

bigsafej · 21 May 2007 at 21:00

I currently have an AMD 64 3800+ socket 939 system which i'm looking to upgrade to something a little faster, so far i've purchased the following...

Antec P180 case
Tagan 580w easycon psu
Samsung 500gb spinpoint HD
Pioneer 112D optical drive
Vista 32bit

I'm now at the point where i need to decide on the important stuff i.e. CPU, mobo, ram and CPU cooling, this is what i'm looking for advice on, i dont have a budget as such but at the same time i'm not looking to pay £500+ for a CPU !

Any advice/suggestions much appreciated

blakka · 21 May 2007 at 21:03

For now C2D cpu's are the way forward. What is your pc used for? Do you game?

stinka · 21 May 2007 at 21:07

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3P (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C3 667MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT12864AA663) £61.99
(£72.84) £61.99
(£72.84)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6320 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £94.99
(£111.61) £94.99
(£111.61) Sub Total : £243.96 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.25 VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £44.14 Total : £296.35

TBH

whats it for gaming?

graphics card?

masslac · 21 May 2007 at 21:09

Yeah, you might want to specify what the machine is to be used for, so that a suitable graphics card may also be decided upon.

Edit - I disagree almost entirely with the parts listed above.

stinka · 21 May 2007 at 21:13

masslac said:
I disagree almost entirely with the parts listed above.

care to elaborate

masslac · 21 May 2007 at 21:24

stinka said:
care to elaborate

The Asus P5N-E is a superior board for the price. Plus, he did not specify that he would be overclocking, in which case, 2GB GeiL PC6400 would be a better choice of memory, the money saved perhaps going towards a faster CPU or DX10 graphics card if needed.

*Chris · 21 May 2007 at 21:30

I would go for DDR2 6400 ballistix with an E6600, basing the rest on what he's using it for.

stinka · 21 May 2007 at 21:31

i speced those components with a smallish budget single gpu overclocking, gaming set up in mind hence the memory choice

i know the p5n-e is the better gaming board but iirc the ds3p is the better clocker and if the E6320 is owt like the E6300 it will love loads of fsb

also my acf7p has let my e6300 do 3.2ghz so for the money i think its a bargain

but that was off the top of my head without knowing specific requirements of the OP

*Chris · 21 May 2007 at 21:40

Ye, it doesn't help not knowing what it'd be used for

But it's a good start.

bigsafej · 21 May 2007 at 21:45

Heh thanks for the swift replies, the PC is mostly used for gaming and encoding/burning DVDs, it also does a little book keeping in it's spare time

I already have an XFX 7800 GTX in my current PC which will likely be moving into my new one until the price of an 8800 GTX gets a little more reasonable.

As i said in my first post the budget isn't really an issue, i just want to build something that will last me another couple of years before i need to upgrade it again, i've read a lot of positive stuff about the core 2 duos but i've also just read that the prices of Intel chips are likely to tumble at the end of July, this makes me wonder if it might be worth holding off until then :confused:

I dont overclock anything anymore due to an unfortunate (and expensive) incident a few years back

I've always been a fan of Asus motherboards in the past and i'll probably buy another one this time, the only problem is there seems to be loads of them for the same socket, it's very difficult trying to figure out which will be best for my needs, i dont want to pay a small fortune for a board thats expensive due to it's overclockability !

Thanks again for the help.

Tigjaw · 21 May 2007 at 21:55

If you're not planning on overclocking I'd suggest:
CPU: E6600 Conroe 2.4Ghz - £140.99
RAM: 2GB GeIL PC6400C4 RAM

As you can see the RAM is quite cheap and it is already good quality and yes, while the CPU may be a good overclocker that's not while I chose it, it's an amazing CPU at stock speeds.

bigsafej · 21 May 2007 at 22:39

Do you think it would be worth spending £200 on the E6700 or is there just not enough difference between it and the E6600 to justify the extra £60 ?

I'm looking at the following...

Asus P5B Deluxe (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - £118
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator DHX PC2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB) - £120
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.67GHz (1066FSB) - £206
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) - £20

Total = £464

The rams always a tough one for me to decide on, i'm always wary of cheap stuff and i've never had any problems with the corsair stuff in my last few home builds but having said that i'm open to suggestions/advice on all these components

masslac · 22 May 2007 at 08:53

Drop back to the 6600, get the 650i Asus board, and buy the GeiL RAM instead of wasting your money.

The cooler is good.

Sharki · 22 May 2007 at 09:07

Tigjaw said:
If you're not planning on overclocking I'd suggest:
CPU: E6600 Conroe 2.4Ghz - £140.99
RAM: 2GB GeIL PC6400C4 RAM

As you can see the RAM is quite cheap and it is already good quality and yes, while the CPU may be a good overclocker that's not while I chose it, it's an amazing CPU at stock speeds.

agreed, i have the geil + E6600 n they run great

bigsafej · 22 May 2007 at 10:11

Ok took your advice and went for the following....

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2
Asus P5N-E SLi nForce 650 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775)

Got that lot for just over £300, thanks for the advice folks o//