What do you think?

OliverTwist

OliverTwist

OliverTwist

Associate
Joined
22 Oct 2006
Posts
13
Well guys 'n' gals this is my first post on here and hello to everyone.

Anyway, I've got around £500 to spend on a new PC and below is the specifications I've settled on, note the graphic card is a low end one but still runs battlefield 2 in high resolution, however the main reason for not getting a more expensive card is because of the 'soon' to arrive DX10 / Shader 4 cards that are expected out near xmas (so some forums say).

AMD 64 3800+ (venice) CPU
DFI Lanparty UT CFX3200-DR (939) Crossfire
Crucial DDR PC3200 1GB, 2 x 512mb Dual channel
ATI X850XT PCI-E 256mb DDR III
2 x Sony 18x DVD-/+ Ram Dual Layer Writer
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 200GB SATA Hard drive
Thermaltake VA3000SNA Tsunami Dream SuperMidi Tower case
Hiper 580w Type-R Modular PSU
12 in 1 Card reader with built in Floppy drive.

My local Computer shop can do me this for £550 inc vat

I think this is a very good price, what do you lot think???

OliverTwist
 
Welcome to the forums, aside from the fact you don't have to build it yourself(which isn't much of a hassle at all) I don't think too much of that specification to be frank, sorry. You are locked into old technology and aside from the fact the case is a bit different and you have 2x DVDRW drives(why?) it isn't great. This system will be a whole lot faster and is cheaper currently. It allows a decent upgrade path and has potential for overclocking, if you want to go for the £550 budget then get a 7900gs which will squeeze into the total and still leave you a bit of change. :)

CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£97.99 £97.99
MB-004-AK Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-004-AK)
£45.99 £45.99
MY-030-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB5300DC) (MY-030-GL)
£79.99 £79.99
GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG)
£79.99 £79.99
HS-017-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) (HS-017-AR)
£12.99 £12.99
CA-035-AN Antec Performance TX1088AMG Metallic Grey Tower Case - 480w Truepower PSU (CA-035-AN)
£44.99 £44.99
HD-085-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 200GB ST3200820AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-085-SE)
£45.99 £45.99
CD-042-NE NEC AD5170 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-042-NE)
£18.99 £18.99
Subtotal £426.92
VAT £74.72
Total £501.64
 
Similar to semi-pro, but with your case and psu spec and better memory.

CA-013-TT Thermaltake VA3000SNA Tsunami Dream SuperMidi Aluminium Tower - Silver (CA-013-TT)
£60.99 £60.99
CA-005-HP Hiper HPU-4K580-MK Type R 580W Modular ATX2.2 PSU - Black UV (CA-005-HP)
£54.99 £54.99
MB-061-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI)
£91.99 £91.99
CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£97.99 £97.99
HS-003-TI Titan Tower TTC-NK34TZ Heatpipe Cooling Fan (Socket 775) (HS-003-TI)
£9.99 £9.99
MY-112-CS Corsair 1GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX (2x512MB) (MY-112-CS)
£87.99 £87.99
CD-044-NE NEC AD7170A 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-044-NE)
£19.99 £19.99
HD-085-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 200GB ST3200820AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-085-SE)
£45.99 £45.99
GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG)
£79.99 £79.99
Subtotal £549.91
VAT £96.24
Total £646.15
 
Interesting

Thanks for the input guys; I'm not really an Intel fan. Ok with the new processors that Intel have brought out they have levelled the playing field somewhat, but I find that for gaming I've had better performance from AMD, if I was into applications that require high levels of multi tasking however I’d opt for Intel.

In regards to ATI X850 XT versus 7600GT I’ve been researching a little since posting and looking at the reviews/benchmarking results I think the X850 just has the edge, remember I’m building a PC that can be fully upgraded and can last me a good few years without the need to change the motherboard, with that in mind I opted for the DFI as reviews suggest that they are outstanding in the performance and also the over clocking department.

However I think for a little extra I could get an X1900 series graphics card which would improve things somewhat.

Any suggestion on AMD CPU and Motherboards ?

OliverTwist
 
I'm not sure where you have been reading but Intel have more than levelled the playing field, AMD aren't poor by any means but they are simply not keeping up with Intel at the moment. If you want the best performance then Intel is currently the way to go regardless of what you do with your PC, now if you don't want Intel for 'moral' reasons or whatever that is fine but in terms of sheer speed they are the best.

The 7600gt is at least as good as the X850XT and arguably better, it is at least as fast and supports SM3. Both graphics cards are PCI-E so will offer exactly the same upgrde path. You can't really upgrade a PC based on socket 939 beyond FX60 level, the Conroe chips can already, easily, be overclocked beyond that, in fact a 6400 chip is about on a par with an X2 5000 without overclocking.

Even if you ignore the rest of the advice and you are determined to go down the socket 939 route then please at least get the San Diego 3700 or San Diego 4000 because they have 1mb L2 cache instead of the 512kb of the Venice chips. :)
 
The new Intel CPUs totally destroy AMD at the min man, you would be making a big mistake not to take one, in my opinion
 
I too second that, I'v been looking into my up-grading for a while and was set on an AMD mainly because thats what iv been used to using. went from getting an x24600 to hte conroe e6600, ordered yesterday and hopefully wont look back :D
 
OliverTwist said:
Thanks for the input guys; I'm not really an Intel fan.
Click to expand...

If you HAVE to go AMD then make sure you base it around an AM2 board.

AMD will surely have something up there sleeves in the coming months to rival the Core2.

You can get the AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ 2.00GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-166-AM) for £115.
 
Take the advice and get a conroe - I've been AMD only for the last eight years, but my next cpu is most definitely going to be Intel :D
 
Thanks..

Thanks all for the information and advice, I think I'm still going to stick with AMD :p but going to AM2 instead, I'm hoping like 'fozzy Bear' that AMD will bring something new out soon to rival Intel's high end CPU.

I did have a problem with Intel (microsoft) two years ago regarding software and them forcing me to pay twice for my original copy of XP, it flagged as a pirate version when I was doing a windows update (no I didn't copy it). They agreed (in the end) that I had the orignal but I had to pay for my key to be unblocked.

This is why I'm reluctant to buy anything Intel.

Thanks again guys

OliverTwist
 
Its up to you but i think you should listen to some good advice and go conroe. Plus i dont really understand why your problem with windows XP has an impact on a choice of cpu. That same mistake would have happened if you had an AMD chip.
 
tbh mate, even I was a fan of AMD, but atm its just plain silly NOT to go for conroe given all the rave reviews they have received, i know have a conroe and believe me its excellent.....plus I agree with arrond..... :rolleyes:
 
arrond said:
Its up to you but i think you should listen to some good advice and go conroe. Plus i dont really understand why your problem with windows XP has an impact on a choice of cpu. That same mistake would have happened if you had an AMD chip.
Click to expand...

True, it would have happened even if I had AMD, but I decided to boycot Intel (microsoft), even when XP was not longer supported I was going to use linux instead (and it's free).

Saying all that, I'm going to take the advice onboard and take a look at the benchmarks/reviews of the conroe CPU versus AMD, ok I may over look the rip off by Microsoft and put it down to lifes little problems :( .

Thanks all :D

OliverTwist
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom