Upgrade help

Gadgetguy007 · 7 Dec 2006 at 18:51

Hi people,

Still running a Pentium 4 3.06 prescott with a Radeon x800Pro card and am looking to upgrade so will need a new board,processor,ram and graphics card.

Like the look of the new Geforce 8800 GTX but am stuck for what else to get to complete the setup as this will take up about half of my £1000 budget.

HELP...... :eek:

semi-pro waster · 7 Dec 2006 at 18:58

What sort of monitor and resolutions are you running to require a 8800GTX? Regardless you can do it within budget, I've thrown in a PSU as well since they are quite power hungry cards and your old one might not be up to scratch. There should be a fair bit of potential for overclocking with this system.

Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler £28.99
(£34.06) £28.99
(£34.06)
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS4 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £99.99
(£117.49) £99.99
(£117.49)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £164.99
(£193.86) £164.99
(£193.86)
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £384.99
(£452.36) £384.99
(£452.36)
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £93.99
(£110.44) £93.99
(£110.44)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £61.99
(£72.84) £61.99
(£72.84)
Sub Total : £834.94
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
Vat : £147.86
Total : £992.75

Gadgetguy007 · 7 Dec 2006 at 21:57

Cheers for the reply,running an LG Flatron L203WT @ 1680x1050 and have an Enermax 550 PSU. Do a lot of work with digital images as i am a part time sports photographer and also love gaming so was after the highest spec card i could get annd have also been intrested in some of the direct x 10 features that are supported by the card.Was not to sure about the AMD or Pentium route as have had both so far and have read a lot of pros and cons to both systems.Also liked the look of the Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming case as i have had an Antec case for the last two PCs now but was not to sure about the noise level of the fans as i am running 3 120mm at the mo and it can get a bit noisey when there running flat out.

Gadgetguy007 · 8 Dec 2006 at 17:36

Think i might be tempted to order this lot and just take out my DVD drive from my old pc then sell what i have left if the old P4s and x800 agp cards are worth anything? Would it be advisable to order a sound card or just run the onboard setup? Still have an Audigy 5.1 Platinum but should think this will be old hat by now along with the AMD 1800 XP its sitting on. Must find some use for all the old systems i have sitting around as everytime i upgrade they just get stuck in the corner to gather dust.

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £93.99
(£110.44) £93.99
(£110.44)
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler £28.99
(£34.06) £28.99
(£34.06)
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £384.99
(£452.36) £384.99
(£452.36)
Western Digital Raptor X 150GB WD1500AHFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM £129.99
(£152.74) £129.99
(£152.74)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £61.99
(£72.84) £61.99
(£72.84)
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming case £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £84.99
(£99.86) £84.99
(£99.86)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £155.99
(£183.29) £155.99
(£183.29)
Sub Total : £1,000.92
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.95
Vat : £177.43
Total : £1,191.30

Only other thing i was thinking about was a shuttle but can you get a shuttle that will run the 8800GTX and a similar spec to above.

semi-pro waster · 8 Dec 2006 at 18:12

I'm afraid I don't know enough about Shuttles to advise. The rest looks fine though, I personally think Raptors are rather expensive for the capacity they offer but maybe it is worth it for you.

Onboard sound is pretty good nowadays and it is easy to add a separate soundcard later if you feel the need.

Old P4s and the X800 are still worth something, the P4 depends on the model and the X800 might be worth £50 if you are lucky but it is better than nothing I suppose.

Gadgetguy007 · 8 Dec 2006 at 19:45

Cheers for your help,will let you know when its up and running.

Gadgetguy007 · 10 Dec 2006 at 16:02

Just noticed that the Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard does not have firewire on it which i really need.Would it be best to buy a seperate card or would a higher spec board be better.

Also have now decided just to build a complete new PC rather than use half my old stuff so now the budget has gone up to £1500 to build a complete system so if anybody else has any ideas on changing anything on the previous spec dont be shy

would like to make it as future proof as i can for now at the given budget.

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £93.99
(£110.44) £93.99
(£110.44)
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler £28.99
(£34.06) £28.99
(£34.06)
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £384.99
(£452.36) £384.99
(£452.36)
Western Digital Raptor X 150GB WD1500AHFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM £129.99
(£152.74) £129.99
(£152.74)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £61.99
(£72.84) £61.99
(£72.84)
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming case £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £84.99
(£99.86) £84.99
(£99.86)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £149.99
(£176.24) £149.99
(£176.24)
Mitsumi FA 404M 7in1 USB 2.0 Floppy & Media Drive - Black £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
Samsung SH-W183 18x18 DVD±RW Serial ATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £19.99
(£23.49) £19.99
(£23.49)
Logitech G15 Gaming-Grade Illuminated Keyboard - Retail (UK Layout) £44.99
(£52.86) £44.99
(£52.86)
Logitech Cordless G7 Gaming-Grade Laser Mouse - Retail £41.99
(£49.34) £41.99
(£49.34)
Belkin Firewire 800 3-Port PCI Card (F5U623) £46.95
(£55.17) £46.95
(£55.17)
Sub Total : £1,163.83
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.95
Vat : £206.29
Total : £1,385.07

semi-pro waster · 10 Dec 2006 at 16:32

If you change the motherboard to the DS4 then you have firewire inbuilt, the motherboard costs about £15 more but it means you can drop the £50 firewire card.

I'd change the CPU to a 6600 since you have a bit of spare cash to play with and I suppose you could also see if there is any room in the budget to get some Cellshock PC6400 Ram instead of the Geil but if not then it should matter little.