Upgrade or Buy New? Need advice please

OldDevlin

OldDevlin

OldDevlin

Associate
Joined
18 Apr 2007
Posts
98
I'm currently using this system...

Motherboard: ASUS A8V Deluxe
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3500+
Graphics: GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB AGP
Memory: 1 Gig DDR-SDRAM PC3200
Hard Drive: 150 Gig Maxtor 6 Y160M0
PSU: 450 Watt


...which is struggling to get by and since I'm a part time games reviewer, I'm in need of something with a bit more power.

I can probably stretch to around £500, but I have absolutely no technical knowledge, and I havent even so much as installed a graphics card or a block of RAM myself. So, upgrading is a little bit risky for me. I shiver at the sight of a motherboard and go into cold sweats at the thought of dealing with BIOS (which I have absolutely no understanding of).

I'm looking at a system along the lines of...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-041-OK

So what do you think I should do?

I'm keen on the Core 2 DUO E6600 and the 8800 GTS 640MB, but I wouldnt know what motherboard to go with (as futureproof as possible) and would I be able to install these components myself?

What about RAM? PSU? Cooling? (something else I have no knowlege of). Should I just scrape the odd penny from my pitiful wage for the next 5 years and buy a new system when they come with hover-boosters and time travel processors?


I know I'm just one step short of asking you to wipe my backside, but i need advice on what hardware to go for, where to buy it from, how to install it (or a good place to learn how), or whether to bite the bullet.

Thanks in advance...I hope...
 
Welcome to the forums, the budget is a bit tight but I think this would be just about suitable. You have an 8800GTS, good case and PSU combo, decent overclockable motherboard, 2gb Ram and a good CPU for overclocking. You will have to re-use your existing hard drive and CD drive, whatever it may be. I know you aren't convinced about overclocking but there is no way to get the performance for the budget unless you do, there are plenty of guides under the CPU, Overclocking and Motherboard sub-forums - if you check for the DS3 overclocking guide that will take you step by step through as this is basically the same motherboard. :)

Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Antec NSK6500 Super Midi Tower Case - 430W PSU £51.99
(£61.09) £51.99
(£61.09)
OcUK 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Gigabyte GA_965P_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS SuperClocked 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £179.99
(£211.49) £179.99
(£211.49)
Sub Total : £426.95
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 : £76.46
Total : £513.36
 
Gigabyte DS3P Motherboard

C2D E6600 CPU

EVGA 8800 GTS 640mb

Geil 2GB PC6400C4 RAM

£615~ with postage and VAT.

That system will run anything. If you want to overclock the 6600 past 3Ghz~ you'll really need a third party cooler for it. If you need a new PSU then you'll have to throw on another £50~ onto that price tag.

What make is your PSU? Can you read what amps it has on the 12V rails?

EDIT: Didn't see semis post. His spec is good for your budget but if you can squeeze out an extra £1-200 you'll really see a difference in performance. The 640mb GTS will last a good while longer especially with games like Crysis coming up that will demand 512mb VRAM for the higher settings. The 6600 is also worth the difference. If you think you can't quite afford that then I'd go with the 6300. The only good thing about the 4300 is it's higher multiplier. It won't clock as high nor perform as well clock for clock as the true Conroe cores.

Can you resuse your old case or are you looking for a new one?
 
Last edited:
You'd do well to follow Semi-Pro's spec. He's the top spec-man around here :cool: .

And just take the build step by step, you'll be fine. It is pretty much a case of each part only fits in one place anyway :D And we're here if you get stuck :)
 
Thanks for the replies :)

Those builds look pretty damn good for the money. I'm also tempted by this though...

Case: Colors-it 8013 in Black and Silver
Power Supply: 720 watt (the only other choice is 400 watt for £40 less)
Processor: Core 2 Duo E6600 Dual Core
Motherboard: ASUS P5N32-SLI-PREMIUM
Memory: 2GB DDR2 800
Hard Drive: 320 GB
Graphics Card: nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit

...£941 delivered

At only £300 more than Darg's advice, I'd be getting a whole new machine, far better components, a HD twice the size as the one ive got, and Vista.
Do you think it's worth scraping together the extra for it?

Again, thanks for all your help guys :
 
You can do about the same from here although you would have to build it yourself as below, the main thing I'm not sure about that system pre-built is what is the quality of the PSU like. If If the PSU isn't a named brand then I tend to get a bit suspicious, it might be fine but I don't like taking chances with what is probably the most important single component in a PC. I could drop the price of this one a bit further but I'm not sure if it is worth it. :)

OcUK 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £47.99
(£56.39) £47.99
(£56.39)
Asus GeForce 8800 GTX HTDP 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £324.99
(£381.86) £324.99
(£381.86)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Akasa AK-ZEN-01-BK Zen Black Case - No PSU £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £129.99
(£152.74) £129.99
(£152.74)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £63.99
(£75.19) £63.99
(£75.19)
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3P (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Sub Total : £796.92
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
Vat : £141.38
Total : £949.25
 
Id go with "build it yourself" over prebuilt any day but if you prefer having it built for you then go for that.

Semis spec is the best you can get for that price. If you have a little extra cash then two areas I'd improve would be the RAM from OCUK to OCZ or Geil equivelent for £15~ and the Asus GTX to an EVGA or BFG brand.
 
Wow you're fast!

That does look like a better deal to be fair. The only downside is the fact that I'd have to build it myself, and having never even fitted a graphics card before, the idea of building a PC from scratch scares the living daylights out of me.

Also I've got to admit, I wasn't aware that the PSU's brand was so important...just shows how little I know.
 
A good brand name 500W can beat a crap brand name 800W. Basically the wattage shown is the maximum peak wattage. Whether or not it can hold that rate for extended periods of time without dipping low enough to cause a power outtage is the question. A decent brand might dip 5% at times. A poor brand might dip right down to half the wattage of the PSU. That kind of fluctuation can seriously damage components.

Building your own computer isn't as hard as it would seem. Everything has it's proper place and generally only fits in that place. As long as you read the manual for the motherboard that generally explains where everything should go. And if you get frightened by all the cables just keep in mind that there are only two types. Data and Power. Power being the simplest to set up. Basically anything that's not on the motherboard needs its own power. The graphics card generally needs to be plugged in too.
 
Ah ok I see.

How does...
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-041-OK
...compare to Semi-Pro's build?

I noticed that the graphics card on the pre-build isn't as good, but the machine costs nearly £200 more. Is that because other components in it are better than Semi's suggested build, or are you paying so much more because it's been built for you?

I'm nearly done with these seemingly endless questions, honestly! :)
 
That £500 budget has disappeared well and truly over the horizon hasn't it. :) Ok making the changes needed for an almost guaranteed overclock to at least the same speed as that system it comes to almost exactly the same price except with a slightly cheaper case (not necessarily worse though) but with a much more expensive graphics card and better cooler. The OcUK pre-built isn't a bad deal at all because it does come pre-overclocked and has an 800w PSU plus they don't have to make such a profit margin on each individual component so that is how it doesn't seem like they charge you anything much to build it. It is up to yourself if you want to try and build of course, if you want a custom fit in almost anything then you will almost invariably pay a bit of a premium.

Samsung SH-183LBEBN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
(£21.14) £17.99
(£21.14)
Noctua NH-U12F (Socket LGA775/754/939/940/AM2) Heatsink £30.99
(£36.41) £30.99
(£36.41)
CellShock 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel Kit £139.99
(£164.49) £139.99
(£164.49)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £67.99
(£79.89) £67.99
(£79.89)
Asus GeForce 8800 GTX HTDP 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £324.99
(£381.86) £324.99
(£381.86)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Akasa AK-ZEN-01-BK Zen Black Case - No PSU £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £129.99
(£152.74) £129.99
(£152.74)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £63.99
(£75.19) £63.99
(£75.19)
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3P (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Sub Total : £935.90
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
Vat : £165.70
Total : £1,112.55
 
id deffo go with semis spec, and build it yourself

i was in your position (op) 6 months ago with no pc building knowledge, and now with the help of these forums, ive completely rebuilt my aging athlon rig to a super stable overclocked C2D monster scoring over 12k in 3dmark 06

its not as hard as you think, and you'll save loads of money :D

stinka
 
Well thanks everyone for your input (especially you semi-pro), but a BANG coming from my car's engine appears to be £1000 worth of BANG, so....no pc for me (it took me ages to convince my girflriend that we had the money to spare for Semi's build).

So, now, all im getting is a new graphics card and an extra gig of RAM.

Whats the best AGP graphics card around and is it worth the cash?

Thanks again, and sorry for wasting your time with the earlier specs (sure I'll get the cash together at some point!)
 
Sounds like Sod's law gave you a good kick there but at least you hadn't already spent the money. :)

For the Ram, I'm assuming you have two slots left free on the motherboard, in which case just pick the cheapest out of the PC3200 Ram as the tighter timings of the more expensive stuff won't make as much difference as the overall boost of 2gb I reckon.

The best AGP graphics card is probably the X1950XT but OcUK don't sell it and it would probably come in at ~£150, if you hunt around you should be able to find an X1950pro for ~£100 or maybe a little more which would be a significant upgrade over the 6600GT you currently have. If that is still too much then a secondhand X800series card or 6800series card is still a good jump in performance and shouldn't cost much more than £40-60 depending on how desperate the seller is. :)
 
For £140 it isn't a bad deal although it partly depends on what you can get an X1950pro for, if the price difference is more than £30 then I'd get the X1950pro otherwise I'd go with that one and be happy that you've got the fastest AGP card.

OcUK value Ram is fine, it is just plain ordinary generic Ram so nothing special but it will work without an issue. :)
 
Remember though that running 4 x 512MB ram on a 939 setup generally it needs to be the same CAS latency and preferrably the same SPD settings. In otherwords 4 matching memory sticks will work but also will need to enable 2T (or maybe the bios will auto set 2T it for you). Mismatched sticks can work too but it also just might not even boot up.
 
str said:
Remember though that running 4 x 512MB ram on a 939 setup generally it needs to be the same CAS latency and preferrably the same SPD settings. In otherwords 4 matching memory sticks will work but also will need to enable 2T (or maybe the bios will auto set 2T it for you). Mismatched sticks can work too but it also just might not even boot up.
Click to expand...

Hmmmm ok I didnt realise that. I have no idea what 2T is, or how to find out my RAM's latency or what the settings are, so it'll just have to be pot luck.
 
Download CPU-Z from www.cpuid.com and look at the Memory and SPD tabs. The memory tab shows you the current memory settings and the SPD tab will show the rated timings and the brand of the memory for each memory stick installed.

CPU-Z when run takes about 10 seconds to appear so don't worry if it doesn't seem to be working - it'll eventually appear. :)
 
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