Upgrade Assitance (£250)

[Sime]

Hey everyone. With the arrival of the Crysis demo in a few weeks time, now is the time to upgrade as I've got the cash as well. Before I get too ahead of myself this is my current system specs.

6300 @ Stock atm
GeIL 2GB (4x512MB) PC6400C4 800MHz
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (rev 1.0)
EVGA 8800GTS 320mb Superclocked
19" TFT Widescreen

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These are the things that im going to buy with the addition of the Upgrade :-

500GB Sata drive (havnent picked one yet) - £75
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - £65
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler £40

Total = £180

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So with all the information given what do you think would be the best upgrade with the things I will be getting and things I already have.

 

[Teaf]

Sorry got a bit confused, is the £180 included in the £250, or is that seperate and you still have £250 to spend on upgrades?

 

[hp7909]

{SNIP}GeIL 2GB (4x512MB) PC6400C4 800MHz{/SNIP}

Try sell that & get 4GB RAM (e.g. 4x1GB). Vista 64 will also appreciate

 

[Sime]

Sorry got a bit confused, is the £180 included in the £250, or is that seperate and you still have £250 to spend on upgrades?

Sorry I didnt make myself clear. Yes its seperate and have £250 to spend on the upgrade. so its £180 + £250

 

[Teaf]

500GB Sata drive (havnent picked one yet) - £75

AAKS WD 500gb drives are very nice.

For the upgrade, I'd personally want to get a new motherboard and RAM if I was in your position. It's actually kinda what I am doing myself. My current motherboard / cpu is in my specs and I'm replacing it shortly with an IP35 Pro and Q6600 which I feel is the best upgrade option for long term, however I already have 4GB and if I didn't I would have just went with a mobo and RAM. I would suggest similar for yourself, as your graphics card will play Crysis on high settings. You can't really get a Q6600 and a nice board in £250 however without going a bit over budget, ie. something like

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping - Retail
Abit IP35-E motherboard

That makes: £264.65 including delivery.

However if you skipped the quad core, and went with some more like a E6750 which is still a very nice chip, albeit dual, you can go for something more like:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe - Retail
Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R motherboard

That makes: £220.00 including delivery, which is £30 under budget!

That gives you a faster chip in dual core games and applications, but slower for 4 core stuff obviously. The board is better and comes with DDR2 and DDR3 ports so you can future proof a bit more there. If you wanted to look at a RAM upgrade, then you could opt for this choice:

2x OCZ PC2-6400 800Mhz DDR2 (2x 1GB) - 4GB Total
Abit IP35 Pro motherboard

Damage: £255.23 including delivery, fiver over but worth it.

The board is probably the best IP35 board on the market, great for overclocking, very stable with an excellent BIOS and packed with features. The RAM is superb RAM on "This Week Only" and it gets you to 4GB for Vista, and you can sell on your GeIL and get some cash back.

My personal choice would be option 3. The reason because is you get arguably the best IP35 board around at the moment, and a very nice boost to RAM for Vista 64. Your chip itself that you already have isn't that bad, and if need be due to your Noctua you can overclock it to 3Ghz and be very well set for applications and games over the next 6 months. At that time you might want to invest in something more faster at stock, and maybe a Quad.

 

[mp260767]

its only the demo, wait til the proper game is out, see how you're system performs then think about an upgrade if it feels it isnt doing the job.

 

[Sime]

Cheers flibby! Really apreciate the help

I took your advice on the HDD and made the first order of the Update

Samsung SH-S183ABEBN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA ReWriter
Noctua NF-S12 1200RPM 120mm Silent Case Fan
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775)

All for under £200, pretty good price. I think ill get Vista installed and set up. Ill see how the 6300 clocks with the new CPU cooler and decide weather I need the more any more speed. I may just sell up the current RAM and buy 4x1GB sticks of the OCZ PC2-6400 800Mhz DDR2 you recommended.

Sound ok?

 

[Teaf]

Sound ok?

Sounds great

Also nice price you paid for those bits and bobs you bought. Your 6300 should be good when overclocked, and the Tuniq should let you push it that little bit more due to it's superior cooling over stock.