upgrade advice

Slap

Slap

Slap

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Joined
24 Nov 2003
Posts
925
Location
London
Looking to upgrdae from my trusty old AGP system to something that can keep me sweet in the gaming/adobe Photoshop department for a while...
My current system specs are:
Opty 146 @2.7 (1.4 Vcore/on air)
Thermalright SI-128 Cooler/Akasa Ultra Quiet 120mm Amber fan
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC4000 Dual Channel Platinum Series EB-DDR CAS3
Asus A8V Deluxe mobo (AGP)
OCZ PowerStream 520w Power Supply
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 250GB 6V250F0 SATA-II 16MB Cache
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 250GB SATA 16MB Cache
Radeon X1950 Pro (AGP)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro Sound card
Dell 24" LCD (1920x1200 native res)
Coolermaster ATC-110 Case
Windows XP Pro 32-bit

Looks like I will need new RAM, Cpu, Gpu and possibly PSU(?)

My budget is £500 and have been out of the of the loop for a while.

What say ye ?

Many thanks

S!ap
 
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yeah your optical drives, case, hard drive and power supply will be fine.

how about a setup like this...BANG ON.! lol

HIS ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail HIS ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £164.99
(£189.74)

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £124.99
(£143.74)

Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £91.99
(£105.79) £91.99
(£105.79)
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) £34.99
(£40.24)

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £17.99
(£20.69)

Sub Total : £434.95
Shipping : £8.49
VAT : £65.24

Total : £500.19
 
Many thanks Kenny! Jesus! 4 gig ram for 35 sovs! amazing...

I generally try and play at near my screen native res as possible(1920x1200), will the HD 4870 512MB cut the mustard in this regard (I know they do a 1 gig version) ?

That E8400 looks sweet, I'm prone to a bit of overclocking this should be up for it no?

I have a Thermalright SI-128 Cooler on my curent CPU along with a Akasa Ultra Quiet 120mm Amber fan, will this fit on the E8400?

Thanks for the advice, much apreciated.

S!ap
 
it seems daft to buy a new system and keep slow old hard disc drives. If I were you I'd get a samsung F1 320gb for your boot drive, at the very least.
 
Slap said:
I generally try and play at near my screen native res as possible(1920x1200), will the HD 4870 512MB cut the mustard in this regard (I know they do a 1 gig version) ?

That E8400 looks sweet, I'm prone to a bit of overclocking this should be up for it no?

I have a Thermalright SI-128 Cooler on my curent CPU along with a Akasa Ultra Quiet 120mm Amber fan, will this fit on the E8400?

Thanks for the advice, much apreciated.

S!ap
Click to expand...


yeah your cooler should work on an LGA775 socket if you still have the support bracket for it....

the 4870 512mb should be fine though if you could streach to the 1024mb version what would boost the performance at such a high res. :)

and with adequate cooling on that E8400 and some good case cooling you could easilly manage to hit 3.8-4.0GHz and beyond :p

great overclockble cpu
 
Ben M said:
it seems daft to buy a new system and keep slow old hard disc drives. If I were you I'd get a samsung F1 320gb for your boot drive, at the very least.
Click to expand...

slow old hard drive he has a

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 250GB 6V250F0 SATA-II 16MB Cache

and you say to get a

Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache

now im i missing something here or do they not have the same interface and buffer size.? :S

******SATA-II 16MB Cache******
 
Thanks Kenny, yea got the brackets in a box somewhere...
3.8+ from this little beauty? wow! That's the ticket :)

Thanks for advice Ben but I also fail to see why my Maxtor SATA II would be any worse than the Samsung one you recommend, the specs are the same. But in saying that perhaps you might have a point because I had to dumb down the SATA II drive to match the slower data transfer rate(jumper switch) of the other non-SATA II drive as my mobo would not allow them to work together . So in effect, on my current system, my SATA II HD is throttled back. I bought it knowing that I would eventually use it as a primary HD on a future upgrade. The question now is whether the Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 will support two different speeds of hard disks. If this is not possible or problematic, then for the sake of £30 quid it might be worth just getting another SATA II HD. I keep two drives on my system, one for OS/applications etc and the other for back up/peace of mind.
 
Forgot to ask, will this 4 gig of RAM work ok with Windows XP Pro (32-bit version)? I remember there being issues with the amount of ram certain versions of Windows could handle. SOrry I should have made that clear in my system Spec list.

Edit: Just read the note under the RAM at OCUK and I quote: "Installing 4GB onto PCs with 32-bit operating systems is not advised since 32-bit operating systems do not support 4GB of system memory"
 
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Kennysevenfold said:
now im i missing something here or do they not have the same interface and buffer size.? :S
Click to expand...
Internally, significant advances including Perpendicular recording (see here). Check out also the HD benchmark thread here.

4GB will work with 32-bit OS, just that you won't get the full amount. Something around 3.3GB :(
 
yeah the computer will work absolutly normal with 4gig of ram in a 32bit os, just wont utilise it fully.! around 3.25-3.5Gigs depends on your graphics cards etc :p

but at these prices your better off getting 4gig anyway mate :)
 
Kennysevenfold said:
here or do they not have the same interface and buffer size.? :S

******SATA-II 16MB Cache******
Click to expand...

an f1 will poo all over a maxtor from here to New Zealand and back. That is if the maxtor doesn't fail before it gets out of the country...
 
Cheers chaps. My girlfriend is from New Zealand and it looks like a great place to visit(New Zealand that is...). But don't worry, I am proud to say: "priority on PC components before all other forms of life!"

The geek in me is strong...Feel the geek... :D
 
Still been saving and waiting patiently...My budget has now gone up to £600. What do you dons advise? Can hang out a little longer if there's going to be some bargains around the corner...Cheers
 
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