What to do regarding upgrade?

mad_weegie · 18 Sep 2006 at 13:10

Guys as xmas closing in and treat myself etc to upgrades. My current spec is in my sig and i would say £500 budget for future upgrade would be the budget! i aint got a clue to go to (64 x2 ) or (conroe) but i do like my motherboard etc and i do enjoy AMD lol its mainly a gaming machine to be honest.

Any ideas on what would be good road to take?

Thanks guys.

semi-pro waster · 18 Sep 2006 at 13:17

It depends on exactly what you think needs upgraded but I'd probably go for something like this and use your existing graphics card until you can save up enough to buy a new one. You should be able to get a lot of overclocking from a specification like this.

CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£107.99 £107.99
MB-061-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI)
£91.99 £91.99
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£169.99 £169.99
Subtotal £369.97
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £8.25
VAT £66.19
Total £444.41

Trusty · 18 Sep 2006 at 13:23

semi-pro waster said:
It depends on exactly what you think needs upgraded but I'd probably go for something like this and use your existing graphics card until you can save up enough to buy a new one. You should be able to get a lot of overclocking from a specification like this.

CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£107.99 £107.99
MB-061-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI)
£91.99 £91.99
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£169.99 £169.99
Subtotal £369.97
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £8.25
VAT £66.19
Total £444.41

i agree! and a nice x-fi card in there i think!! AMAZING SOUND!!

then sell your other parts on ebay!, should get maybe £150

mad_weegie · 18 Sep 2006 at 13:26

Very nice that but i aint really interested in the overclocking side of things. and dont like idea of losing my 2 gig of 3200 ram either! could i not just add to that... make it 4 gig?

Is it not worth going to the (64 x2) or the (FX)...? was kinda wanting to keep the motherboard etc etc but if its not worth it then i respect your views on this.

Rab · 18 Sep 2006 at 13:44

new athlon x4600 & Ati 1900 g card b a nice upgrade if u dont wanna go conroe, nice quiet cooler, all this would come 2 about £360

semi-pro waster · 18 Sep 2006 at 14:08

Well the 6400 Conroe(2nd lowest in the range and even the lowest the 6300 isn't far behind if at all) is roughly on a par with an X2 5000 before overclocking so upgrading to an X2 based system doesn't make a huge amount of sense unless you have a specific reason and/or can get an X2 cheaper. Quick review of the comparative performance of a few CPUs at anandtech if you want to have a look.

Socket 939 is to be phased out but that does mean you can sometimes get some bargains particularly secondhand so I wouldn't say exclude it but if I was about to purchase I'd be giving serious thought to a Conroe based system.