Upgrade - Need Mobo/CPU/RAM/GFX - £700 - Can you help?

[Spon]

Hi Guys,

Its that time of life again. Hope you can pass on your usual good advice. My present rig you guys advised on has lasted overclocked to 3200 speeds for 2.5 years and the only upgrade was a stick of 512 ram to bring it to a gig for Warcraft, but she's running out of steam now...

AMD Athlon "Barton" XP2500+
Abit NF7-S v2.0 nForce2
Kingston HyperX 512MB (2x256MB) DDR PC3200 Dual Channel Kit
Leadtek WinFast A350TDH LX GeForce FX 5900 128MB DDR TV-Out/DVI
Antec Sonata Piano Black Quiet Case - 380W TruePower Silent PSU
Samsung SP1213N 120GB 8MB Cache - OEM
Coolermaster Aero 7 Lite
LiteOn LTC-48161H 48x/48x/24x/16x CD-RW/DVD

Case, Hard drive, CD-RW/DVD will remain so just need a good stable mobo with overclocking in CMOS and i'd imagine an Nforce 4 chipset? A good overclockable CPU preferably AMD and 64 bit if pos, 2 gig min RAM. Graphix wise I lean towards Nvidia cards though I'm interested in SLI options if for my budget 2 lower cards can be better than a largers single? (though who can ever bring themselves to buy a lower spec card *L*). Then its just cooling options. I prefer as silent as possible as im sure we all do and i guess air cooling for cheap price though i'm not adversed to trying out water/vapour cooling if they have come down in price.

My only concern is my present PSU is 380Watt. How does that stack up now-a-days?

Anyway budget is around £700! Can you help me out?

 

[Naffa]

CP-150-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-121-AM)
£124.95 £124.95
MB-101-AS Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-101-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£109.95 £109.95
GX-010-BG BFG GeForce 7800 GT OC 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-010-BG)
£189.95 £189.95
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£14.95 £14.95
CA-005-HP Hiper HPU-4K580-MK Type R 580W Modular ATX2.2 PSU - Black UV (CA-005-HP)
£54.95 £54.95
Subtotal £564.70
VAT £98.83
Total £663.53

sorted seeing as you have £700, maybe a new case is in order as well?

 

[Spon]

Some great suggestions there naffa thanks! What kind of overclocks are people geting from the 3700+ San Diego?

Im guessing listing a 580Watt PSU is telling me my old 380 watt is pased it *L* But 580W!? do systems really need that much these days? I believe you but its quite a hike *L*

Hmm new case is certainly possible however i do like my old Antec. Do newer cases provide any increased benifit worth investment? If so cool! if not, then i'm always in favour of saving cash

 

[BigDom]

OK went as high spec as I could. Geil Ram is pretty good and reasonably overclockable. The mobo I like and although extreme overclockers don't like it I'm happy with it as are overclockers who use it in ther rig. I think the issue is with the higher voltage older CPU's and the Venice's and X2's are fine. Went for the CPU I use in my Red Alert project. It's stable for me at 236FSB up from 200FSB default - 2.6ghz. Just realised I missed the cooler - the £20 Arctic cooler is fine - used in my project.
Graphics is the current best card out.. barring the XT-X. Added a PSU as yours may not be ATX 2.0 and is probably a bit light for a X1900XT. My PSU is the same and running a X2 3800+ and X1800XT just fine.

GX-112-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-112-SP)
£299.95 £299.95
CP-147-AM AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-147-AM)
£113.95 £113.95
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£109.95 £109.95
CA-007-TG Tagan TG430-U15 430W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-007-TG)
£46.95 £46.95
Subtotal £640.75
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £8.95
VAT £113.70
Total £763.40

I know you said Nvidia by preference but bang for buck ATI is currently best.

 

[Spon]

Thanks Bigdom! Big graphics there! On paper i do love ATI but everytime in the past that ive gone for one I'd have driver or compatibility probs and it put me off. That was a few years ago now so im open to looking into giving them ago however im not too comfortable spending £350 on a gfx card. I usuall only spend around £200 and putting more into CPU so i guess im looking at a 7800 or an X1800XL. On the CPU topic I see a lot about "dual core" CPU are they worth going for?

Thanks for the PSU info I can see the need now for a new PSU

 

[Naffa]

snip

you may as well go for the 3700+ SD as it overclocks much better than the 3500 (which i own). 2.6Ghz should easily be achievable which would make it an FX-55 essentially. and it costs what? £3 more?

back to you spon, the 7800GT gives better performance @ stock, but the X1800XL will overclock much better and with next to no effort at all you have a better performing card. and you get more features with the X1800XL such as AVIVO. i personally would go with nvidia as i have always used them, but i do have to say that on this occasion the X1800XL is the better buy.

the only cases that would be counted as an investment are the cases that support ATX & BTX like for example, the Coolermaster Stacker. they also support dual psus which can also be considered an investment for the future

 

[Spon]

Thanks Naffa I have had a look at the 1800 and can see its advantages
Hows about this then......

HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1800 XL 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - £189.95
Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard £69.95
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 £109.95
Tagan TG430-U15 430W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU £46.95
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail £137.95
VAT £97.09
Total £651.84

Could rise up to an AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego 90nm @ £204.95 making a final total £750 if i include a £20 cooler? Any idea what the 4000+ SD is like overclocking?

 

[BigDom]

No need for a SLI mobo with a ATI card ..

Either go for the non-SLI NF4 or the Asus I use.

If your looking at more on the CPU front I'd go for a 3800+. Good clockers and dual core which is the way things are going. Either :-

CP-134-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£184.95 £184.95
GX-042-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1800 XL 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-042-HT)
£189.95 £189.95
CA-007-TG Tagan TG430-U15 430W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-007-TG)
£46.95 £46.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£109.95 £109.95
MB-088-AS Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS)
£61.95 £61.95
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£14.95 £14.95
Subtotal £608.70
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £8.95
VAT £108.09
Total £725.74

Or (My preference but as it's almost the same as my rig - no surprise )

CP-134-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£184.95 £184.95
GX-042-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1800 XL 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-042-HT)
£189.95 £189.95
CA-007-TG Tagan TG430-U15 430W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-007-TG)
£46.95 £46.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£109.95 £109.95
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£14.95 £14.95
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
Subtotal £616.70
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £8.95
VAT £109.49
Total £735.14

 

[Spon]

Excellent BigDom thanks dual core with ATI it is !. Nice setups. Thank you both for your guidence! Time to play!....

 

[Naffa]

Excellent BigDom thanks dual core with ATI it is !. Nice setups. Thank you both for your guidence! Time to play!....

Happy gaming