Upgrade Specification Comments (£350)

artaxerxes

artaxerxes

artaxerxes

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Multicore Challenge (£350)

My mate plays WoW, and is also looking forward to Crysis and Quake Wars ET.

He is currently working with an 1800XP, 9600XT, and 512Megs of DDR, ATA drives, no name PSU, and all the peripherals and a sad looking case. :eek: It does the job.

His specification is quite clear, he wants a system with an upgrade path for DX10 cards in the future, but he wants multicore now, for £350.

Given the' weakness' of the starting point I am considering AM2 X2 - the Core 2 Duo is just too pricey now. I will get a short term 7300 (tv out is a consideration), but he can drop a DX10 PCI-E card into later (or something from the members market).

So

Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ 2.00GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail
£76.99

Gigabyte GA_M55_S3G Plus (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
£49.99

Asus GeForce EN7300GS-HTD 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
£39.99

GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
£64.99

Enermax Liberty 400W ELT400AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU
£39.99

Maxtor DiamondMax 20 80GB STM380811AS SATA-II 8MB Cache – OEM
£24.99

With VAT ~350

(Maxtor and Gigabyte and the Asus chosen for price range comparison only – I have previous good experiences with them – but this is just a scratch outline to see the prices)

I could get an onboard Graphics solution but none of them are compelling enough unless you know different... I have seen a Sapphire mobo with X300 onboard and I was not utterly dismayed, just flaccid with rage. It even has TV out…

The alternative - is to wait. Buy some DDR ram for his current mobo and a top end Socket A chip (from somewhere!) and a shiny AGP card. This is very tempting for me as the path above is sub-optimal. However that is always true, and everyone loves the new shiny.

Thoughts? Can anyone wangle a Core 2 Duo into 350? The SATA hard drive and the graphics card could be dropped for a compelling onboard Intel solution.

Thanks for your time.
 
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That looks good, and we could always cut corners with the Graphics card till there is a proper DX10 solution that doesn't cost 350 itself, as long as it is not a downgrade from the 9600XT. We can easily skip the Tower.

Thanks for the input. The DS3 from Gigabyte is getting a lot of favourable interest. The Core 2 Duo is of course the proper shiny. However this will be an un-attended* PC and so overclocking has to be 110% otherwise muggins here gets call support at all hours ;-)

*Installed and left for my mate to destroy and fill with HappyFun Screensaver Malware.
 
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If we ditch the SATA HDD and then go for the cheapest graphics option (x1300 still beats his 9600XT by 25% and he never was bottlenecking that with the 1800XP) Any suggestions on a better graphics card? It must be at this price point though. At the very least the system will now be massively smooth and of course upgradeable.

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1300 256MB DDR2 AVIVO TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
£39.99
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
£69.99
Intel Core 2 DUO E4300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail
£95.99
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
£64.99
Enermax Liberty 400W ELT400AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU
£39.99

This comes out at 375 with VAT. We loose SATA however.
 
I want a similar price - less is better as long as it beats the 9600XT ;-) The 7300 listed above is apparently better - reading reviews right now.

Any links on the difference between the two gigabyte motherboards? 10 quid saved is half a bottle of whisky ;-)
 
It appears to be solid state capacitors and SATA RAID possibly - neither of which are of specific interest.

Swapping the DS3 for the S3 then and putting the Asus 7300 back in gives us £356 including VAT.

Outstanding.

Gigabyte GA_965P_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Intel Core 2 DUO E4300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
Enermax Liberty 400W ELT400AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU
Asus GeForce EN7300GS-HTD 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Even with swapping the 7300 for a 8800GT* the System is within -10% of the 400W budget.
 
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I have paid my dues with cheap whisky in the past - it is surprising I can still see.

Thanks for the links - it was why I asked - google is very silent on the issue, there is some random notions about capacitors.

I think these two specs will do for presenting to my mate. WoW has never looked so good.
 
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-341-2.htm

They have a run down on the differences between the S3 and the DS3 (sound is stereo as opposed to 8 channel, the northbridge is different et cetera).

I don't know if it remains true for the later revisions - Gigabyte support staff are on record as saying there is no difference except the capacitors.

I will update tomorrow when the bits arrive and then add it to the DS3/S3 thread in motherboards.

This is my first Intel build from the ground up since the Celly 300A. And it looks like it should be a scorcher!

I went with this in the end (387 - so over budget by 37, but actually under the real budget of 400). Remember the graphics card is a place holder. Thanks for your expert advice chaps.

Goods Shipped:
£95.99 x 1 - Intel Core 2 DUO E4300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail
£61.99 x 1 - Gigabyte GA_965P_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
£53.99 x 1 - GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB6400DC)
£24.99 x 1 - Maxtor DiamondMax 20 80GB STM380811AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM
£39.99 x 1 - Asus GeForce EN7300GS-HTD 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
£42.99 x 1 - Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU
 
Built

Booted

75% overclock out of the box on Retail Heatsink.

Where is the fun in that? :cool:

[S3 vs DS3 - no difference as far as i can tell except the capacitors.]
 
Will explore fully once I install windows and run Orthos et cetera. I have just been playing with the BIOS.

As the system will be run on conservative settings for a mate I do not want anything else cooler wise.

Now with some experience I can consider *my own* C2D ;-)
 
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