Upgrade Question

Jon33

Jon33

Jon33

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Joined
18 Feb 2007
Posts
1,426
Hi I currently using a 3yearsish old PC and looking for a minor upgrade (Limited funds) to get me through til I have more money. I want something that will be able to run AoC when it comes out fairly well (Not to bothered about high settings just low-medium) as what I'm using now makes the beta unplayable.

I'm running a Asus A8N-SLi nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard with 1GB ram, 256mb 6800GT and AMD Athlon 64 3500 Retail. I'm only looking to spend £150 (I know it isnt much) not to bothered about second hand stuff and I have a 620 corsair PSU so power shouldnt be an issue.

So my question is what should I be looking for to get a PC that will give me a performance increase? I could go for a second hand graphics card (x1900xtx?) and maybe a 2GB ram or would that be cutting the processor short and be useless? My mates been checking the members market and some stuff keeps popping up that I culd probably use for around my price range.

Anyhow I have no idea what to look for/what will work so all suggestions welcome. Cheers!
 
If your looking for second hand with around £150 then you could get a X2 3800+ for about £40-45, a gig of RAM for about £20-30 leaving you £85-90 for a GPU which you could certainly get a 1950XT for ;)

That would give your rig a healthy boost and you should be able to play games on medium settings with
 
think hammer has it near enough spot on, might vary slightly on the components but what hes put up is a decent guide.
 
The socket 939 version will, yes. Just a bit of info for you. I recently won an auction on the bay for a Club 3D ATI Radeon X1900XT with a Thermalright HR03 cooler fitted to it. It came with the original box and all accessories which were all unwrapped. The price? £27!!!!! It went in my second pc and replaced a ATI Radeon X1600XT which is about the same performance as the 6800GT and it gave a massive boost in performance. It was probably my best ever buy on the bay. The cooler alone is worth that. Just goes to show that there are bargains to be had. ;)
 
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DDR costs as much for 1 gig as DDR2 does for 4 gig (just bought 2 gig for this lappy for £30). Doubling your ram would make a big difference but that would be £70, i would advise that you just wait and with another £100 added to your budget (£250)you could get a C2D system that would be far more cost effective.
 
150 is pretty much my limit although if I can pick up some cheap second hand stuff it would be cheaper to just get a new mobo and DDR2 I'm thinking.
 
pegasus1 said:
DDR costs as much for 1 gig as DDR2 does for 4 gig (just bought 2 gig for this lappy for £30). Doubling your ram would make a big difference but that would be £70, i would advise that you just wait and with another £100 added to your budget (£250)you could get a C2D system that would be far more cost effective.
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Far from it... looking at 2nd hand on 'that site' i have seen corsair xms 2x512's go for around the twenty mark, they are not commanding as much now as they were a few months ago.

Jon33: you would be best off getting a c2d system, but that means new mobo obviously so it makes sense to upgrade what you have currently, otherwise you would have to compromise on graphics completely.
 
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you could get a new C2D/DDR2/Intel Mobo combo for £150 and a healthy graphics card for £100.

Id definately go for the "wait and increase your budget" option!

EDIT: My Vote... buy something like this:

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(that CPU will clock to 3Ghz easy under that cooler)

And then sell your other bits for a few bob and put towards a graphics card. the 3850's start at about £80 I think.
 
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While i agree with you skeeter, that also leads to the point where he will possibly need a new power supply ( he doesn't say in OP what PSU he has) in which case where does it end? lol Dont we all end up in this quandry? :p
 
Foehammer2003 said:
While i agree with you skeeter, that also leads to the point where he will possibly need a new power supply ( he doesn't say in OP what PSU he has) in which case where does it end? lol Dont we all end up in this quandry? :p
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400w should easily power that and a half decent graphics card.
 
What a card 'recomends' and what it actually needs are completely different.

Im running 4 gigs of RAM, an OCed CPU, an 8800GT and 4 HDDs off a 580w. Online calculators recon I need about 390ish max!
 
Yeah i get that, but we dont know what PSU he has, he might have a generic OEM 500W PSU that wont supply even 300Watts reliably.

EDIT: that and you dont ever want to run a PSU too close to its capacity imo

EDIT AGAIN :o: Factor in his PC is about three years old too, i mean if he can go C2D then great, but he needs to consider everything involved before he decides his upgrade path, just trying to see him right
 
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Foehammer2003 said:
While i agree with you skeeter, that also leads to the point where he will possibly need a new power supply ( he doesn't say in OP what PSU he has) in which case where does it end? lol Dont we all end up in this quandry? :p
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mentioned in his first post hes got a corsair 620w so the psu is fine.
 
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