Upgrade ideas

sanofi · 13 Mar 2008 at 16:57

So I posted here before christmas asking for a mobo/cpu/ram upgrade combo for around the £200 mark. In the end I didn't go through with it, mainly due to time constraints.

So now if you would be so kind, could anyone suggest an upgrade route for me in the £200 mark, my current specs are:

X2 4400
Crucial Ballistix 1GB DDR RAM
Some abit motherboards
8800 GTS 320Mb.

I'm thinking of just upgrading the cpu (and thus requiring a new mobo and ram). Any suggestions would be appreciated or advice if its not a good time. I'm not a huge PC gamer but I do occasionally but my main reason for this is the shoddy state of my motherboard atm which I fear may pack in soon.

Thanks

mp260767 · 13 Mar 2008 at 17:10

could always have a look around for a replacement mobo and memory tbh, processor and gfx card are still pretty decent.

if not you should be ok with this, could always save a bit more downgrading the mobo to a cheaper p35 one without too much difference:

Intel Core 2 Duo E2200 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.20GHz (800FSB) - Retail £46.99 (£55.21)

Abit IP35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99 (£82.24)

G.Skill 2GB DDR2 NR PC2-6400C5 (2x1GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-6400 £24.99 (£29.36)

Sub Total : £141.97
Shipping : £8.25
VAT : £26.29
Total : £176.51

steve258 · 13 Mar 2008 at 17:30

Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L Intel P31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
£44.99 (£52.86)

Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.66GHz (1333FSB) - Retail
£99.99 (£117.49)

OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2
£23.99 (£28.19)

Sub Total : £168.97
Shipping : £8.25
VAT : £31.01
Total : £208.23

Or just go for a E2180/2200 as per above.

sanofi · 13 Mar 2008 at 17:49

mp260767 said:
could always have a look around for a replacement mobo and memory tbh, processor and gfx card are still pretty decent.

I'm thinking to upgrade these 3 components so that a few more months down the line, i can just upgrade the gpu and maintain a good level of performance.

sanofi · 14 Mar 2008 at 15:40

I have a Hiper 580W PSU atm, will that be sufficient?

mp260767 · 14 Mar 2008 at 16:37

sanofi said:
I have a Hiper 580W PSU atm, will that be sufficient?

there have been issues with hipers being a bit on the dodgy side tbh, if you're lucky you've got one from the decent batches.

have a look round the forums, might be serial/batch numbers etc that might be a better guide.

steve258 · 14 Mar 2008 at 22:56

That was quite a while ago though since then I have not heard of anyone with a blown Hiper. Other than that it's more than capable of handling the upgrades.

mp260767 · 15 Mar 2008 at 11:40

steve258 said:
That was quite a while ago though since then I have not heard of anyone with a blown Hiper.

just depends which hiper he has/how old it is etc, just wanted to warn him it might be an issue.

Glaucus · 15 Mar 2008 at 11:47

I would go for a slightly slower cpu and get 4gb of ram.

sanofi · 15 Mar 2008 at 17:20

mp260767 said:
just depends which hiper he has/how old it is etc, just wanted to warn him it might be an issue.

It's a Type R which I bought about 2 years ago with my original build. It has actually blown once before and it was replaced, the one I am using atm is the replacement.

mp260767 · 15 Mar 2008 at 18:41

sanofi said:
It's a Type R which I bought about 2 years ago with my original build. It has actually blown once before and it was replaced, the one I am using atm is the replacement.

hopefully it was a corrected version and should be ok, as its been replaced.

i'd go with steve's spec then if it was me.

sanofi · 16 Mar 2008 at 22:52

mp260767 said:
hopefully it was a corrected version and should be ok, as its been replaced.

i'd go with steve's spec then if it was me.

Is the wolfsdale cpu worth almost the double the price of the conroe?

mp260767 · 17 Mar 2008 at 00:01

sanofi said:
Is the wolfsdale cpu worth almost the double the price of the conroe?

if you don't game heavily/new games or use intensive software i would say not.

sanofi · 17 Mar 2008 at 13:09

Aside from the clock speed, is there much of a difference?

steve258 · 17 Mar 2008 at 13:14

E8200 has 6Mb L2 cache compare to 1Mb on E2180/E2200, it's also based on a smaller manufacturing process (45nm) so it runs cooler and overclocks a lot further, has about 5-10% better performance against the old conroe (65nm) and that's comparing against the 4mb E6000 series.

sanofi · 17 Mar 2008 at 15:28

Oh I forgot to mention that I needed a cpu cooler as well, I had my eye on one of the arctic cooling freezer series.

OLDPHART · 17 Mar 2008 at 15:38

Core 2 Duo,s cant go wrong with a Arctic cooling freezer 7.

sanofi · 17 Mar 2008 at 19:41

I have ordered the build from Steve's post, decided to go with the faster processor as I do Matlab work in the PC.

Going from an AMD processor, is there anything i need to do or remember when changing over components?

Morrey360 · 17 Mar 2008 at 19:43

i would go with acidhell2 spec

steve258 · 17 Mar 2008 at 19:59

You almost certainly will need a windows reinstall but try and uninstall all chipset drivers before you change the components. It might allow you to boot into windows and install new drivers without having to reinstall windows. Again this is not guaranteed so make sure you back up all your files first.