Upgrade time - but what to do?

lokkers · 27 Dec 2006 at 12:14

Well as title really, got some Xmas money so have decided to upgrade the machine for the year to come. As I'm getting married next December, I will only be able to upgrade once this year (now), and can really only stretch to about £300 after resale of old kit.

My current machine is a 3700 (@2.8ghz), 2GB GSkill (DDR3200), DFI Ultra and 7800GT, gaming on a 17" TFT @ 1280x1024.

The way I see it I have two main options:
1) Go down the CoreDuo route, so new mobo, RAM and CPU costing ~£450.
2) Get an 8800GT.

What would you chose, and why?

Lolcb · 27 Dec 2006 at 12:26

Go for the mobo ram and cpu. No point going for 8800 with your present system, bottlenecks.

And another point is you're on a tight budget, so wait till next year when mainstream dx10 cards comes out and go buy it.

semi-pro waster · 27 Dec 2006 at 12:40

You could do it with a sort of half-measure - the ASRock Dual-VSTA motherboard supports Conroe with DDR + DDR2 Ram and also PCI-E and AGP. That would allow you to upgrade the basis of your system for around £180ish, CPU is a 6300 at ~£110, motherboard for ~£40 and cooler (Tuniq Tower) for ~£30. The graphics card will easily be fine for the resolutions you play at and the Ram is decent enough.

lokkers · 28 Dec 2006 at 11:40

So despite the fact that I won be able to afford a new GFX until 2008, you would still recommend a CPU/mobo/RAM upgrade over gfx?

semi-pro waster · 28 Dec 2006 at 12:05

lokkers said:
So despite the fact that I won be able to afford a new GFX until 2008, you would still recommend a CPU/mobo/RAM upgrade over gfx?

Yes, in an ideal world you could upgrade both but since you can't the 7800gt is no slouch, an 8800gts would currently be wasted at 1280x1024 and probably would also be rather overpowering for an A64 3700 also which therefore leaves the CPU and motherboard as the best choice as an upgrade.

If you really, really feel the need to change the graphics card also then you could go with my proposed solution but buy a slightly cheaper heatsink (say an Arctic Freezer 7 for ~£15) and then buy an X1950pro 256mb for ~£125 and you have still spent about £300 total.

Lolcb · 28 Dec 2006 at 12:30

lokkers said:
So despite the fact that I won be able to afford a new GFX until 2008, you would still recommend a CPU/mobo/RAM upgrade over gfx?

2008

I would never wait that long to upgrade my rig tho. I would still recommend the cpu, mobo and ram change

lokkers · 28 Dec 2006 at 12:56

Lolcb said:
2008 I would never wait that long to upgrade my rig tho. I would still recommend the cpu, mobo and ram change

I'm getting married next December so got a lot of outgoings this year - normally I wouldn't wait but my priorities have changed somewhat!

I think you're right - the 3700 and a relatively low resolution will not stretch the 8800GTS, but as I only have one chance this year I wanna get the best upgrade for the outlay.

Would be looking at an E6600, ASUS P5W (or similar - needs some research, will also check out the Asrock board too) and relevant 2GB ram.

As for HSF I have a Scythe Ninja in my current machine - iirc that'll fit a 775.