Upgrade help please

beezay · 26 Oct 2008 at 17:27

Hi,

I'm looking to carry out an upgrade on my PC in order to increase the overall system performance and to achieve higher and more consistent fps in the games I usually play - counterstrike: source, COD4 etc.

Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
AMD Athlon 64 4600+
Geforce 7800GTX
2GB DDR1 PC3200
Soundblaster Audigy 2
Maxtor 320GB SATA HDD (I think)

I'm looking to upgrade just the motherboard, processor and memory for some where around £300. I've been suggested the following three:

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

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX (2x1GB)

Firstly, will my motherboard be compatible with old components that Im intending on keeping for the time being? (Graphics card, sound card etc.)

secondly, I'm looking to OC the processor, any particularly good cpu fans or something of that nature I will need?

and finally, will these new components fit in my case - it's a prebuild case from mesh that I bought about 2 years ago.

Thanks a lot in advance,

Rich

jak731 · 26 Oct 2008 at 20:36

asus P5Q range for MB

do you know if your case is ATX?

the graphics will work if your graphics card is a PCI-E card

beezay · 26 Oct 2008 at 21:27

yeah think my case is ATX, cheers jak

beezay · 27 Oct 2008 at 15:05

I'm not too sure about memory timing, will the dominator ram be compatible with that mobo? I wasn't too sure about what memory to select, anyone got any ideas on the memory or anything else for that matter?

Guardsmon · 27 Oct 2008 at 15:11

Yeh the memory will be compatiable with your mobo, might be a little overkill though, depends how high you overclocking. Only other think I would look at is what is the PSU that mesh used if you are still using that. (The power consumption of the 2 rigs probably won't be loads different, but you don't want some old cheap PSU to blow up your new rig)

I'd just check it out

beezay · 27 Oct 2008 at 15:22

Ok I'll look into some different RAM possibly as I was only intending on OC'ing the processor, will it be safe to OC the processor with the stock fans and if so how high? If not then any decent reasonably priced fans etc?

AlexTrickle · 27 Oct 2008 at 15:36

I know you were thinking of keeping your gfx card but I'd recommend the following (and this will last a good while):

Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400 Black Dragon RAM
Gainward ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 Intel P35

Total inc VAT+delivery: £331.

Just think your gfx card will bottleneck the an overclocked E8400 whereas the system above will breeze modern games (with the standard exception of crysis - which would still be playable).

Guardsmon · 27 Oct 2008 at 16:58

Alex it really depends on what games he's playing the 7800GTX is still a good card... If you're not playing that often then it shouldn't be too much of an issue. I guess if he is wanting to play COD4 on high settings then the HD4850 would be a good idea, but otherwise i'd stick.

Beezay - if you are planning on overclocking that lovely CPU I'd definately look at some 3rd party cooling solution for your cpu. Something like the Artic Freezer 7 would do you, but if you got money left and want a slightly better one look at something like the Noctua NH-U12P or TRUE120.