What to get?- big long list

ojrules

ojrules

ojrules

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18 Nov 2007
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I'm very indecisive, and have changed my mind so much over the past few weeks.. got a birthday coming up, so i'm going to get something for the pc:

My pc specs are:
e2180@ 2.9
4850 512mb
p5q pro
4gb 5300 memory
2x ide harddrives , 400gb total
19" monitor @ 1280x1024..

I mostly play shooters, and im quite likeing arma 2 atm, though a few weeks ago i was quite getting into racing games..

I have a max budget of about £150, i may only get one thing, or a number


Heres the list of things i could get:
Wheel
Soundcard
extra 4850/sell existing one and get a 4890
new processor
new memory
new hard drive
bluray drive - though monitor CR will not take advantage of it
new monitor



.. thankyou for any suggestions...
 
TBH with the 5800's,dx 11,i5,sata 3 all probably around 3 months away i'd put it away for new i5 cpu.motherboard, memory, hard drive as there probably going to be the biggest limiting factor from your spec.

But if you want to jump in now would probably get a

Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.80GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £88.99

Samsung SpinPoint F1 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502IJ) £44.99

Sub Total : £116.50
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.00
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £18.83
Total : £144.33
 
have you used a wheel in the past if not try and get a shot of one as they are not very good better with a controller if you cant use the keyboard.
 
I'd personally go with new CPU/RAM, they will provide the biggest performance increases. If you can stretch it another £10 I'd go with this:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.33GHz 4MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor - Retail + World In Conflict PC Game £119.99
(£104.34) £119.99
(£104.34)
OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel (OCZ2RPR10664GK) OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel (OCZ2RPR10664GK) £41.99
(£36.51) £41.99
(£36.51)
Sub Total : £140.85
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : FREE
VAT is being charged at 15.00% VAT : £21.13
Total : £161.98
 
i deffinately dont have the money for a new system ..however the new cards coming out does kinda rule out getting another 4850.. everytime i used to upgrade i used ot tell my dad that it was the last upgrade, i dont tell him that anymore because he knows im lyeing :P .. that ram processor combo looks interesting.... what kind of performance boost am i likely to see from a quad core?...


do you recon i could sell my e2180 and 4gb 5300 ram for around £60?...
 
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hmm.. unless im going to see a drastic improvement with a quad core, im very tempted to just get some better ram and see what i can do with this e2180
 
ojrules said:
hmm.. unless im going to see a drastic improvement with a quad core, im very tempted to just get some better ram and see what i can do with this e2180
Click to expand...

Wouldnt bother with the Q8200 to be honest, it was a 'gimped' processor. It doesn't contain all of the protocalls, is a rubbish clock speed and a small cache. A decent dual core would be much better for gaming, and since you already have one...
 
shadowake said:
Wouldnt bother with the Q8200 to be honest, it was a 'gimped' processor. It doesn't contain all of the protocalls, is a rubbish clock speed and a small cache. A decent dual core would be much better for gaming, and since you already have one...
Click to expand...
Didn't know it was gimped, hadn't looked into it that closely to be honest. Would be better off going for the E8400 in that case. Pushes more over budget but with any luck you should be able to get near 4ghz or possibly more out of an 8400. Sell some random possessions to get that extra £20 :p
 
thats encouraging ...nah i wont get another dual core... I'l get me some more ram, as i dont think mine can cope with clocking the e2180 any higher...

so thats ram at £40 ... (will sell the existing stuff for £20ish)

advise anything else?.. new hard drives?...

how much of a boost do we recon another 4850 would give me?
 
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I'm thinking, for the moment, get a new hard drive and ram , and install windows xp on it .. I'm still waiting to see any devlopers use dx10 properly , or at least for fps , and with arma 2 , a graphically brilliant game, being dx9 i can see why... dx11 is yound the corner, i presume windows 7 exclusive, so for the moment i think i'l go back to xp...
 
ojrules said:
thats encouraging ...nah i wont get another dual core... I'l get me some more ram, as i dont think mine can cope with clocking the e2180 any higher...

so thats ram at £40 ... (will sell the existing stuff for £20ish)

advise anything else?.. new hard drives?...

how much of a boost do we recon another 4850 would give me?
Click to expand...
At 1280x1024 another 4850 won't give much of a boost at all. You're most likely being CPU limited at that res.

Get something like a Samsung F1 and reinstall everything to that, use the others as storage. Should give you a nice boost in load times and such.
 
hmm its either the samsung f1 or theres a 500gb seagate barracuda for a fiver more...

i'm mighty tempted to go to xp tbh... while i admit vista is far more stable, xp just has it in performance.. and i think developers are going to ignore dx10 , and therefore just have dx9 and dx11 ... i personally dont have the money to upgrade to a dx11 card, so unless anyone thinks otherwise i'd say that i might aswell go xp..
 
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Just go Windows 7, it's better than both Vista and XP and on top of that it's free until October.
 
ive got a copy of windows xp, and the RC code for windows 7 runs out around march time next year... just before my exams, which means im just setting myself up for a terrible disaster....

edit- arghhh im so tempted to get the g25 wheel... or the driving force gt...
 
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Ojrules,

What if you were to consider a dual boot set up for Windows XP and Windows 7? Setting up your computer this way will allow you to use and test Windows 7 but still have a workable OS for your exams next year. For assistance in how to do this, Microsoft does have an official Windows 7 RC Support Forum located here http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/w7itpro/ . It is supported by product specialists as well as engineers and support teams.

Jessica
Microsoft Windows Client Team
 
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