Upgrade help please

Tangerine · 26 Aug 2008 at 20:50

Please help me as i am at a loss as to which components to buy.
I am upgrading my aging 3 year old 4000xp system and i have roughly £660 to spend and so i will need :-

PSU
Motherboard
CPU (Q6600 looks nice)
Memory (4gb)
2 x Video Cards

I am leaning towards getting 2 x Nvidia 260 cards but then i dont have a clue as to which motherboard i need. Would i be better going with ati and crossfire or is SLI the way to go? I am a mad gamer hence video power is a must.

This upgrade has to do me for the next 2-3 years so it needs to be good and fast if possible.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Ben M · 26 Aug 2008 at 20:57

what else do you use your PC for besides gaming?

if you just game, an E8*** (or any dual core) is a better idea

you're going to struggle to get two cards included in a £660 budget.

i'll do a spec for you now and see what I can come up with.

Ben M · 26 Aug 2008 at 21:03

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail (£112.79)
GeIL 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz Black Dragon DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GB24GB6400C5DC) (£49.34)
Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - X2 (£234.98)
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £74.99 (£88.11)
Asus P5E Intel X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (£135.11)
Tuniq Tower 120-LFB CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) (£46.99)

Total : £679.01

bit over, but that's spankingly good

edit: those cards will get hot on stock cooling without good airflow in your case... and by good I mean very good. I don't want to put aftermarket cooling in my spec because it'll take it even further over budget

semi-pro waster · 26 Aug 2008 at 21:10

Welcome to the forums, that looks like a good specification from Ben M there, you could perhaps choose a Scythe Mini Ninja CPU cooler when it comes back into stock to get it on the budget.

Tangerine · 26 Aug 2008 at 21:28

thanks for the replys.

I also do some video converting on the pc but thats about it.

I came up with this spec using the 260's which i could just manage.

Your opinions would be great.

Corsair TX 750W ATX2.2 SLI Compliant PSU (£76.36)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (£117.49)
Gainward GeForce GTX 260 896MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail x 2 (£328.98)
MSI P7N SLI Platinum nForce 750i (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (£91.64)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Platinum Series DDR2 (OCZ2P10664GK) (£64.61)

Comes in at £679.08 but i have no ideas about the mobo quality etc.

I dont need to overclock yet so running the cpu's with stock fans will be fine. I do have good cooling for the case.

Ben M · 26 Aug 2008 at 22:14

£328 for two GTX 260s or £352 for a 4870X2. I know which I'd buy.

nvidia mobos are horribleness.

PC8500 RAM is overkill with a Q6600 (or an E8*00)

Tangerine · 26 Aug 2008 at 22:42

ok i guess my spec is carp then.

Ben with your spec do i need the cooler or can i run the cpu with the retail fan?

And do i need the modular PSU or can i get away with the standard version?