Upgrade Help

akirru

akirru

akirru

Permabanned
Joined
10 Jun 2006
Posts
320
Location
Scotland, Edinburgh
Right, so I get paid next week and I can only do one upgrade path .. here are my 2 options;

1: A cheap c2d / decent mobo & ram and overclock the ass out of it ... then again im not sure if i can afford a new psu in my budget.

2: get a new gfx card .. either a 2900Pro or 8800 GTS 320

current pc:

3500x64 OC 2.55GHz
ASROCK dual sata 2
2 gig of OCZ 3200
x1800xt 512
450W CoolMaster Real Power

Cheers
Andy
 
£170 - £200 ... Do you think I'll get much of an overclock with that PSU though?

Cheers
Andy
 
It'd be fine for your current graphics card, but it wouldn't work with a 2900 Pro / 8800 GTS therefore if you got a new card you'd have to get a new power supply, meaning I would think option 1 is the only option. 8800 GTS 320MB require 28 amps on the 12v rails, 2900 Pro probably needs around the same but I've not seen the recommended requirements for that card and a PSU.

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How might I best maximise that budget?

Do you think that card will last me a bit yet? I dont mind using Dx9 .. its just I want to run games smoothly.

Cheers
Andy
 
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Well I know Crysis lists the 256MB version of you card as "Recommended" under their requirements, and I've seen that card pull very respectable performance in BioShock, so I think you'll be okay. I doubt you can max everything and enable AA although AA is more a bonus I find.

This is I think a great spec for your budget, and one that will last a while. If you're into your overclocking then the E2160 is a great cpu, if you aren't then it's still great but of course works better with some overclocking love. The board has DDR2 and DDR3 and also nicities like the southbridge is a ICH9R so you have raid. The RAM is very good ram, and for it's price it can't be beaten.

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Yeah that seems like a nice spec dude :D

I can't wait to get dual core actually .. then maybe I might give Vista a try. I don't really care about Dx10 atm .. and I can always upgrade to an 8800 or 2900 later on in the year.

Is the stock cooler ok for overclocking? I'm using the stock cooler with the AMD and its not bad.

Cheers
Andy
 
akirru said:
Is the stock cooler ok for overclocking? I'm using the stock cooler with the AMD and its not bad.
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Kinda mixed bag on that really, and ultimately depends on how hot your room normally is and how good the air flow in your system is. I've seen people get good overclocks with the stock coolers, but I've seen other people not being able to even add 100Mhz because they are already running hot.
 
akirru said:
How much is a custom cooler for overclocking going to set me back?
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Decent one? £30 - £35.

If you are considering one I would DEFINETLY check out the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme which is on "This Week Only" offer at the moment and gets about £10 off. But note that the TR120 doesn't come with a fan, and you'd need to buy another seperate which'll ramp the costs up. If you want to look at other ones, then I'd check out:

  • Tuniq Tower 120
  • Scythe Ninja Rev. B
  • Thermaltake BigTyp 120 VX
  • Thermalright Ultima-90i
If you really wanted something cheaper, then you can always pick up the Arctic Freezer 7 Pro, which is the best sub £20 cooler available at the moment. Just remember to get some MX-2 paste as well so you don't have to use the stuff that come with the coolers (except the Arctic Freezer 7 Pro, which comes with MX-1 pre-applied).
 
Yeah I think I should invest in a decenct cooler (I like the tuniq as a friend had some great results with it) .. I'd like to get about 3 to 3.4 Ghz out of the chip and hopefully I can actually play Unreal 3 based games ... sigh

Cheers
Andy
 
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