What would you upgrade

Spammeh

Spammeh

Spammeh

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My 21st is a matter of a month or two away, and I think I wanna upgrade my pc.

I will have a limit of about £500 max, and really unsure what to upgrade. I do play a lot of games, I do multitask a lot, I do download a lot, I listen to a lot of music, watch a lot of movies and I am a sucker for pretty cases, etc. Here is my current spec:

MSI Neo2 Platinum
AMD x2 3800+
1gb Corsair XMS TwinX 3200
Radeon x800pro (non-vivo)
1x 30GB IDE
1x 60GB IDE
1x 160GB SATA
Dual Layer Sony DVD-RW
Soundblaster Live 5.1 Digital
Antec Sonata
LG L1915S 19" TFT

Any recommendation would be great guys, thanks
 
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HD-015-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD)

HD-046-WD Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD)

GX-048-PC PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-PC)

MY-007-GS G.Skill 2GB DDR ZX PC3200 (2x1GB) CAS2 Dual Channel Kit (F1-3200PHU2-2GBZX) (MY-007-GS)

Subtotal £514.80 + VAT £90.09
Total £604.89


OK its a little over 500 but you could sell your old, HD's, ram and gfx card!

Went for a raptor, for your os and games, and a 250gb hd for all you videos/music.
A good Gfx card that will run all of todays games on max
and 2gb ram that is a must these days.
 
I think your spec looks pretty good really. It would be nice if you could have PCI-E graphics card but that would mean changing your mobo and chip which will get a bit expensive. But this means you can not get the top of the line Gcards. Dilemma.
I would (personally) either wait and get AM2 or go socket 939 sell what you have/dont need and put that towards it too.
 
Go to PCI-E mate, you wont have to change your chip, just your mobo and graphics (And a compatible PSU if yours is old). SO for £500 you could get yourself a decent 7800gt/1800xl/xt and a new mobo (And that new PSU could squeeze in too). This'd give you better overclocks on that 3800x2, obviously better games performance but crucially you'd have made the move to PCI-E.
 
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sorry forgot that was 939 mobo. As Zefan said get a new mobo (Nfoce 4) and a good Gcard (ATI 1900XT-X) and away you go.
 
gary996 said:
sorry forgot that was 939 mobo. As Zefan said get a new mobo (Nfoce 4) and a good Gcard (ATI 1900XT-X) and away you go.
Click to expand...
Thats the way to go (or one of the the X1800XT cards which are at a very good price)
 
Any recommendations on PCI-E boards? I would love to make the upgrade, but obviously it would mean switching everything to SATA I guess too?

I 2gb of Gskill ram good, or am i best sticking with corsair nowadays?
 
Gskill is ace. You wont have to change to SATA, you can keep your IDE drives. PCI-E board wise any DFI :D
 
Here's what I would get. PCI-E upgrade with more disk space to replace the two IDE disks. The Geil Ram is very good ram, even overclockable to an extent. Regarding G.Skill - isn't it G.Skill that's been having some issues of late with Ram that is misbehaving?

GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£199.95 £199.95
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA)
£48.95 £48.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£109.95 £109.95
Subtotal £428.80
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £8.95
VAT £76.61
Total £514.36
 
just to suggest something a bit different, how about:-

HD-046-WD Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD)
£60.95 £243.80
CC-002-HP Highpoint Rocket RAID 454 IDE RAID 5 Host Adapter (CC-002-HP)
£69.95 £69.95
Subtotal £313.75
VAT £54.91
Total £368.66

and Raid 0+1 them.

you'd have 500Gb of striped storage, nice and quick.
all totally duplicated on the other two drives in case of a drive failure.
and if the worst happens, hot swappable drive replacement.
 
Don't ALL modern boards have RAID 0+1 support now, with hot swapping and all the bells and whistles? I know mine does.
 
BigDom said:
Here's what I would get. PCI-E upgrade with more disk space to replace the two IDE disks. The Geil Ram is very good ram, even overclockable to an extent. Regarding G.Skill - isn't it G.Skill that's been having some issues of late with Ram that is misbehaving?

GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£199.95 £199.95
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA)
£48.95 £48.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£109.95 £109.95
Subtotal £428.80
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £8.95
VAT £76.61
Total £514.36
Click to expand...

GO FOR THIS :)
 
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