Upgrade for under £500

JayCee

JayCee

JayCee

Associate
Joined
16 May 2003
Posts
166
Location
Greenhithe, Kent
Hi all,

I am in the market for a partial upgrade. My current kit is 3+ years old and is starting to take strain.

My PC is currently being used for video editing and processing as well as burning to disk. I do a lot of photoshop work on the PC as well. I use Adobe products which apparently are not designed on AMD hardware and are therefore known to crash or not run optimally. I have never had a crash with an Adobe product but would obviously like the products to function at their optimum capability.

I occasionally play games on my current setup but I only probably play occasionally because its not spec'd up enough to play current games. I would like to play UT3 and COD4 as well as some of the games which will be coming out soon such as the new COD game etc.

I have a budget of £500 although obviously I wouldn't mind getting it cheaper if possible. I don't intend on overclocking unless this will give me benefits with regards to video processing, I don't expect it will give me too many benefits with regards to current games...although I could be wrong.

I have a requirement for the following hardware:
  1. CPU (Intel - what are my options with regards to Dual or Quad core and performance?)
  2. System Board (I've always been an Abit buyer but am happy to take the lead from you guys.)
  3. Graphics Card (I've always bought nVidia but I did once own an ATi 9800XT Pro, I am happy with either brand)
  4. Memory (I'm not fussed which brand, bang for buck is what I am after but again have always bought Corsair memory)
  5. DVD burner (I have always purchased Pioneer drives in the past, are they still leading the pack?)
I have upgraded my disks over the years and my Lian-Li case is still going strong. MY PSU is around the 650W mark but I need to confirm this when I get home, this may also need to be upgraded but will do this separately if needed.

Thanks in advance.

Jason
 
9749_Untitled.jpg


I've included 2 optical drives as you say you are burning and encoding, so you might need 2?

if your doing graphical work then deff go quad.
Allthough depending how many HDD you have, you may want to go ide optical drives rather than sata.
 
Should I not be looking at one of the x38 boards so that I can possibly Crossfire two 4850 once the prices come down?

Is that memory not a bit slow, is there not faster RAM which I could be using?

Will the Quad be very hot if overclocked compared to say the E8400 at stock settings? And will the extra 6MB of L2 cache not make the Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz a better option?

Is the stock heatsink and fan with the processor not an option, should I always be looking to install an aftermarket cooler?

I have heard that the ATi cards run really hot, should I be looking to buy an aftermarket cooler for the GPU as well?

When and what dictates the price cuts which are being talked about. If the price cuts come in, will I not then be looking at a different spec for £500? Essentially, kit that is out of my budget now will be in budget once the prices come down?
 
most people will say get a quad for mainly video and photoshop use ect.. , and a fast dual if you are mainly gaming. i got the E8400 and i am very impressed with the overall performance in all applications at stock speed never mind overclocked!! . (i upgraded from a p4 3.2)


an x38 board would definately be a good idea
 
Is there a vast performance difference between a Q9300 and a Q6600? And does it warrant the extra expense?
 
Right...I think I have decided on the kit for my proposed upgrade.

One question - should I be going for the 4870 or settling for the 4850 and getting a "Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.50GHz 6MB-cache" with the money saved?

esgaming.jpg
 
So you definitely think that the Q6600 is better value than the Q9300 which will be cooler, has 6MB of cache and the SSE4 technology?

Do you see any bottlenecks with the system as it stands or I decide to go with the Q6600 in the end?
 
I don't think the q9300 is worth the extra £60, it's also not meant to clock as well as the q6600, although it does have more cache.
But it all depends how much you want to spend.


If you are maxing out the cpu 100% like if you are encoding, then quad core is the only way to go.
 
I have yet to see a Q6600 not hit 3.2ghz on a P35 based board and should easily do 3.2ghz on the board you have selected... ACF7 is not so good on Quad's would spend the extra and get a Tuniq Tower should see you comfortably to 3.5ghz...
 
The only thing I am not comfortable with is that the TT has a bracket on the underside of the mobo. I used to have an old Thermaltake SLK in the day and really didn't like the fact that I had this heavy piece of copper pulling on my board. I guess its safe, I just don't like the thought of it.

I am sure that the processor will overclock above 3Ghz but is raw power all that I should be thinking about. Surely adding 6MB of cache adds to the overall performance of the processor?

esgaming2.jpg
 
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In fact if you arent a gamer better to spend less on the graphics card and more on getting that Q6600 going... 4850 will run most games really nicely unless you want some monsterous res... I would look at something like this:

Baskey.jpg
 
well Ultra-120 been hanging off my motherboard for months with some really big fans on so shouldnt worry no damage to the board, just check before you buy it will fit in your case...

The Q6600 has 8mb of L2 cache for the money you wont get better value.. and like I say with the 120 you should get 3.4ghz easy, probably around 3.6
 
I am a gamer, not been able to play of late due to the spec of my machine but I do intend on playing some games. I will probably be running the games at the native resolution of my monitor which is 1680x1050. I'm happy to go for the 4850, just thought I would "future proof" my gaming for a while but I don't want to be silly about it. The fact that the 4870 is under £200 was just too tempting. :)
 
could look at an X48 motherboard would give you the option of buying another 4850 / 4870 in the future and running Xfire with two cards.. but these are more expensive than the P45's (although you can run two cards in Xfire on a p45 just at slower PCI-E speeds)
 
Many thanks for your replies.

Regarding the size of the heatsink and attached fan, I have attached to images of my current case. The components have long since been upgraded but the case remains the same.

jaycee1.jpg


jaycee3.jpg
 
Thanks Pneumonic - the X38 boards are cheaper...should I not be looking at one of these instead of the X48? I'm guessing there are differences, I just can't spot them.
 
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