Upgrade Spec Check

[joblanski]

Hi,

Just going to spend out on an upgrade and was considering the following kit, mainly to be used for gaming & graphics work.


EVGA GeForce GTX 275 896MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £247.24

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.66GHz 4MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor - Retail + World In Conflict PC Game £136.99

Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3 Intel P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £67.99

Corsair XMS2 DHX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX Dual Channel (TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX) £37.98

£500 is absolute maximum I'm going to spend and it will be housed in my current Antec Sonata case with 500w PSU.

Any obvious problems that anyone can see with this set up ?

All constructive critisism welcome as I've been out of the system building loop for quite a few years.

Cheers

Jo B

 

[ro55o]

EVGA GeForce GTX 275 896MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £247.24

I wouldn't bother spending the extra £71.26 on practically the same card

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-116-OK&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1410

or save even more money by going for the Ati 4890

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-124-XF

What PSU is in the antec sonata?

 

[joblanski]

Hi,

Thx for the very quick reply, perhaps you could suggest a better GFX card in the £250 price range ?

The PSU is the standard EarthWatts 500w that comes with the case.

Cheers

Jo B.

 

[ro55o]

Thx for the very quick reply, perhaps you could suggest a better GFX card in the £250 price range ?

I'd personally save the money and get the 4890, the only card in that price range that would beat it would be the GTX285, but only by a slight margin and not worth the extra £90. You could get a 4870X2, but your PSU wouldn't be up to the task.

What resolution are you playing at? The 4890 will easily handle gaming at 1920*1200.

How about this

Overclock the CPU and you've got yourself an awesome machine there

 

[joblanski]

Hi,

Thx again, it's given me a lot of interesting alternatives, I particularly like the ASUS mobo with the 5 second LINUX boot-up facility.

Do the retail CPU's still come with a cooler & fan ?, they always used to.

Cheers

Jo B.

 

[ro55o]

Do the retail CPU's still come with a cooler & fan ?, they always used to.

Yeah they come with an intel heatsink and fan, but for overclocking you're better with one like the fenrir. Obviously if you don't plan on overclocking then you can save a bit of money and use the one intel provide.