Upgrade - x2 4200, 7900gt

Baplad

Baplad

Baplad

Soldato
Joined
19 Dec 2003
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Belfast, N. Ireland
Hi everyone, I'm currently looking at upgrading my PC within the next month or so but need to ask a few questions first.

I'm looking at the am2 x2 4200, is this the best way to go, i want the dual core for multi tasking as i tend to do this a lot but also will be gaming a lot,, this may sound stupid but will i see much of a speed increase over my current cpu (athlon xp 3000+) in things like video encoding? Also how much hotter will this chip run over my current cpu and what are the stock coolers like?

The graphics card I'm looking at is a 7900gt, not sure which company to go for but they are within my price range anyway, is this the right way to go or should i stick with ATI and get something from ati instead?, i currently have a 9800 pro.

What board will i get to run these if this is the right way to go, i want to stay with asus as i have used them for the past year and a half with my current setup and i have had no problems at all, i was looking at the m2n-e board which seems to have everything i need.

What ram will i get to go with this, thinking of getting just either crucial value or the corsair value stuff both exact same price but havent had any expierence with these, also will pc2-5300 work fine with this chip, or do i need faster ram for it, i will getting 2 x 512mb for a total of 1gb.

Will my current power supply be up to the job for running this, i have an Antec true blue 480watt atx 2, it will be ran with 2 120mm case fans, a dvd-rw and dvd rom, a raptor and a 250gb ide drive (Although this will prob have to go external due to lack of ide controlers on new motherboard)

Cheers for any info.

BTW, i wont be overclocking as i want my system to be silent and dont want to generate more heat.
 
Well i would get a Conroe instead of an X2 as they are superior in every way and a lot faster!

Graphics i would recommend the Connect 3D X1800XT as it is very fast and a great price.
The best option though is to get say a 7900GT from EVGA as they have a 90 day step up program which allows you to in say 89 days ring EVGA and they will let you swap your 7900GT for any of the new cards and all you have to do is pay the difference from the original price! So getting a 7900GT you could in 89 days just pay say £10 for the newer Geforce 8 series when they are released.

As for memory i would go with something like G skill 2 x 1 gig Dual channel DDR2.
 
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Only problem is that the nVidia cards have inferior image quality compared to the ATI's and also can't run AA & HDR at the same time like the ATI cards can.

ATM I would reccommend Conroe, DS3 mobo, Corsair 6400 ram and X18 or 1900 cards.
 
CP-126-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN)
£129.95 £129.95
GX-006-EA EVGA GeForce 7900 GT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-006-EA)
£169.95 £169.95
MY-012-GS G.Skill 2GB DDR2 LA PC2-5400 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-5400PHU2-2GBLA) (MY-012-GS)
£91.95 £91.95

Subtotal £391.85
VAT £68.58
Total £460.43

Something like this would keep you future proof because you can use your EVGA step up to get Direct X 10 Cards when they are released saving a lot of money in the process.

Im not sure which motherboards would be best for the Conroe but someone will. :)

Edit: Also monstermunch is right about the X1800XT being a faster card at stock but the stepup program makes this the better option.
 
Look at something like this for a complete rig and just edit out parts if you don't need them:

CP-128-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN) 1
£214.95 £214.95
MB-061-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI) 1
£94.95 £94.95
MY-092-CS Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX (2x1GB) (MY-092-CS) 1
£124.95 £124.95
GX-047-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (3056) (GX-047-CO) 1
£214.95 £214.95
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE) 1
£62.95 £62.95
CD-033-NE NEC ND4571 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-033-NE) 1
£22.95 £22.95
CA-054-LL Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Black Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-054-LL) 1
£48.95 £48.95
CA-025-EN Enermax Liberty 500W ELT500AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-025-EN) 1
£59.95 £59.95
Subtotal £844.60
VAT £147.81
Total £992.41
 
jamie2497 said:
Im not sure which motherboards would be best for the Conroe but someone will. :)
Click to expand...

The Gigabyte DS3 is probably the best around for the money atm.... Has the new bios instructions and out of the box compatability for Conroe
 
Monstermunch said:
The Gigabyte DS3 is probably the best around for the money atm.... Has the new bios instructions and out of the box compatability for Conroe
Click to expand...

Excellent. That spec is top draw only thing i would change is the X1900XT, its the best card around but won't be in a few months.
Also i believe even the slowest conroe will be equal or not better than the fastest AMD out at the moment. :)
 
jamie2497 said:
Something like this would keep you future proof because you can use your EVGA step up to get Direct X 10 Cards when they are released saving a lot of money in the process.
Click to expand...

I agree that the stepping option from nVidia is a good idea and could save money, however please consider that Windows Vista will require DX10 cards for fast gaming but has already been put back twice and personally I will not even consider getting Vista until Microsoft release their first service pack for it. Taking all this into account I wouldn't gamble on having a fully working version of Vista until Autumn 2007, by that time geForce 9 series will probably be out anyway. :rolleyes:

Just a thought.
 
jamie2497 said:
Excellent. That spec is top draw only thing i would change is the X1900XT, its the best card around but won't be in a few months.
Also i believe even the slowest conroe will be equal or not better than the fastest AMD out at the moment. :)
Click to expand...

Yes, but new gfx cards are always relative..... The X1900xt is only £250inc at the mo, whereas the new cards when released will be £400+ and the X1900 series of cards will still cope with games for at least another 9-12months without any problems whatsoever!

As far as the Conroe issue goes, I agree that in general they will be 15-20% faster than the equivalently priced AMD chips, however the E6600 has double the amount of L2 cache that the lesser priced chips have!
 
Just out of curiosity, are you planning on overclocking your Conroe?

If you are I would reccommend PC6400 ram and not PC5300, and the Gigabyte DS3 is supposed to be great for clocking!
 
Supose i should have set a price limit, dont really want to go over the £500 mark although can stretch a bit, i was looking at conroe but they seemed a bit pricier also the same with the ati cards, i dont really think ill need 2gb ram and it puts the price up aswell, might speak to my boss and see if i can order with the company card and get the vat back save myself some money.

So which is better for the money, x2 or conroe and ati or nvidia, wont be overclocking so dont think i will need faster ram than the 5300 stuff, or will I?

Cheers for the input so far.
 
Bubba said:
So which is better for the money, x2 or conroe and ati or nvidia, wont be overclocking so dont think i will need faster ram than the 5300 stuff, or will I?
Click to expand...

5300 hill be fine if not overclocking....

Conroe and ATI are better valu for money... You might just about be able to build a conroe system for £500, mmmm. I'll see what I can come up with. Will you need a new case, PSU, HDD's, DVD???
 
Here you go, I think this is about as cheap as you could go with a conroe system, will be much the same for AM2:

CP-126-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN)
£129.95 £129.95
MB-011-IN Intel DP965LT 965 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-011-IN)
£74.95 £74.95
MY-097-CS Corsair 2GB DDR2 Value Select PC5300 Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) (VS2GBKIT667D2) (MY-097-CS)
£112.95 £112.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£139.95 £139.95
HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA)
£34.95 £34.95
CD-033-NE NEC ND4571 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-033-NE)
£22.95 £22.95
CA-048-AN Antec SLK3800BUK Black Quiet Midi Tower Case - 400W SmartPower PSU (CA-048-AN)
£54.95 £54.95
Subtotal £570.65
VAT £99.87
Total £670.52
 
I know you said you wanted to upgrade in the next few weeks, but would it not be worth waiting longer until you have some more money before buying a conroe rig?

If it was a simple CPU/RAM upgrade then go for it... but a whole new system I would hang on for until I know I can get the best.

Just my thoughts. :)

SiriusB
 
Nah i dont need a dvd drive hdd or anything got all that, just need board ram an d gfx, thats if my psu will handle it ok if not then i supose ill have to get a new psu.

That system sounds good, might have to go for it with 1gb of ram instead though, although wont be a month before im ordering anyway so hopefully prices come down a bit, cheers for the help.

I dont really need the best system, just something a bit better than this, currently running an athlon xp 3000+ 1gb of twin mos ram 9800 pro with a 36gb raptor and 250gb hdd for storage with a dvd-rw and slot loading dvd drive on an antec true blue 480watt atx2 psu in an antec super lanboy, to be perfectly honest my current system does what i need and at an ok speed, id just like things to get done a bit faster, like loading things up, re encoding stuff to dvd, gaming a bit faster and with better quality would be great though.
 
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Bubba said:
Nah i dont need a dvd drive hdd or anything got all that, just need board ram an d gfx, thats if my psu will handle it ok if not then i supose ill have to get a new psu.

That system sounds good, might have to go for it with 1gb of ram instead though, although wont be a month before im ordering anyway so hopefully prices come down a bit, cheers for the help.

I dont really need the best system, just something a bit better than this, currently running an athlon xp 3000+ 1gb of twin mos ram 9800 pro with a 36gb raptor and 250gb hdd for storage with a dvd-rw and slot loading dvd drive on an antec true blue 480watt atx2 psu in an antec super lanboy, to be perfectly honest my current system does what i need and at an ok speed, id just like things to get done a bit faster, like loading things up, re encoding stuff to dvd, gaming a bit faster and with better quality would be great though.
Click to expand...

Try this then:
CP-126-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN)
£129.95 £129.95
MB-011-IN Intel DP965LT 965 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-011-IN)
£74.95 £74.95
MY-097-CS Corsair 2GB DDR2 Value Select PC5300 Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) (VS2GBKIT667D2) (MY-097-CS)
£112.95 £112.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£139.95 £139.95
Subtotal £457.80
VAT £80.12
Total £537.92
 
Monstermunch said:
Try this then:
CP-126-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN)
£129.95 £129.95
MB-011-IN Intel DP965LT 965 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-011-IN)
£74.95 £74.95
MY-097-CS Corsair 2GB DDR2 Value Select PC5300 Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) (VS2GBKIT667D2) (MY-097-CS)
£112.95 £112.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£139.95 £139.95
Subtotal £457.80
VAT £80.12
Total £537.92
Click to expand...


Spot on :), Will save this and keep it for when i go to order, seems like a very good system, although about the connect3d card, how are they, is the cooler on them silent? One major thing im after is a silent pc, my pc currently is pretty silent, are these intel chips cooler to run and how are the stock coolers on them? And also what are the intel boards like, do they perform good?

Cheers for the input, glad i posted here rather than just going ahead with x2, read some reviews on conroe just now and im amazed at the performance increase they have over the amd and they are cheaper aswell (some anyway)

Just noticed, the onboard sound on that doesnt have a coaxial digital output, would really like one of these to connect to my amp, its what i currently use and would be great if i could keep this feature when upgrading. Any alternative boards i could use in a similar price range that have a coaxial digital output?
 
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ATi coolers can be a little noisey. I have never had an X1800 though so I don't know how they compare to my X1900 jet turbine :p

You can buy the Zalman VF900-CU Quiet Copper VGA Cooler (SY-008-ZA) cooler which is probably the quietest you can get at the moment and is the bees whatsits for cooling.

SiriusB
 
Cool, might get it after i get the upgrade, just to see what the stock is like, then can add it later, usuing an artic cooler silencer on my 9800 pro currently and find it to be great .

As for a motherboard, how is this one Asus P5LD2-SE?
 
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