Which System upgrade should I go for...?

InvisibleG · 27 Apr 2007 at 00:22

Ok, so I'm in a bit of a sticky situation here...

My current system consists of:

MOBO: Asus P4P800 Deluxe mobo
MEMORY: 2GB Corsair TWIN-X PC3500LLPRO (2.3.2.6 T1)
CPU: Pentium4 3.0c OC'd to 3.4gig
PSU: 450w
2x320gig IDE/ATA Samsung Spinpoint Hard Drives
A Pretty old Radeon 7500 AGP graphics card.

Now I'm not a gamer, its more of an Audio Workstation so the old AGP graphics card is ok, the Corsair memory is top line DDR and both hard drives are IDE which leaves me with a bit of a problem...

Unfortunately to go Core Duo it looks like I may as well do a complete new build from scratch which would mean spending loadsamoney due to having to upgrade virtually everything including the memory, PSU, drives and graphics card etc... However, I badly want to move on to a Core Duo CPU to get the excellent performance boost I need...

I'm thinking that if, for the time being, I went for a cheap ASROCK Conroe865PE board with an E6700 I could keep all my existing components and leave the complete new build for several months down the line. I'm thinking E6700 because I guess the Asrock board is not gonna overclock too well, so for the sake of the extra 50 quid it's worth it... otherwise I might have gone for an E6600.

What do you think? So here's my questions...

Is the ASrock board gonna be stable and reliable?

Am I really gonna see a great performance boost by doing this seemingly simple upgrade?

Apart from the lack of overclockability how will it perform differently to an entirely new system with a DS3 or P5B?

- or should I just say what the hell, put myself in debt for several months and build a completely new badass PC? (I'm already dangerously tempted with that Idea - if so, then does anyone wanna buy 2GB of quality Corsair PC3500LLPRO DDR? )

Whaddyoureckon? What would you do?

tsj · 27 Apr 2007 at 00:32

The ASRock will do the job... but it sucks

Sell your old parts and upgrade to a decent spec setup that will suit your needs

tsj · 27 Apr 2007 at 00:34

tsj said:
The ASRock will do the job... but it sucks

Sell your old parts and upgrade to a decent spec setup that will suit your needs

Although you could use the ASrock until you can afford a proper motherboard/ram etc.

You can pick up a decent spec Conroe setup (minus graphics) for around £200-250 including cpu/ram/mobo

The only other upgrade you would need is a PCI-e graphics card, and im guessing your current PSU should handle this spec?

InvisibleG · 27 Apr 2007 at 00:57

tsj said:
im guessing your current PSU should handle this spec?

I'm on a good quality 450w PSU at the moment - although from what I have read it seems like I might be better off with 520w or above for a Core Duo - especially as knowing me I'll wanna start OCing it and of course when those Quads come down to below £150 I'll find them hard to resist too... if I'm gonna splash out on a completely new setup up I'll probably want to get pretty much hi-end parts all round... Either i'm gonna go all the way and be skint for a while - or maybe just wait a bit... (unlikely!)

I had a feeling the Asrock would suck... sounds like a good idea in theory, but deep down I knew it would present too many limitations... It's just so painfull having to get rid of that decent corsair DDR.... Fcuk it, i guess it's just time to spend some money...

What 2GB kit of DDR2 would you recommend as a high quality replacement for my existing Corsair...?

I had heard rumours that on the whole the difference between DDR2 and DDR1 and different timings is often negligable in a Core-Duo system - would that be right?

InvisibleG · 27 Apr 2007 at 01:05

I've also noticed you can get small adaptors that apparently allow you to run IDE drives on sata connections...

Does anyone have any experience of these...? - or is it more reliable to just upgrade to sata drives instead? ('cause I know my 2 optical drives will be taking up the single IDE slot on whatever new mobo I choose, unless I upgrade those!)

t31os · 27 Apr 2007 at 01:15

Why do you need to upgrade?.... what does the current one struggle with?

InvisibleG · 27 Apr 2007 at 01:21

t31os said:
Why do you need to upgrade?.... what does the current one struggle with?

There's a limit on the amount of VST instruments/FX that can be used at any one time in a project... I always find myself with cpu overload... not to mention the P4 3.0c CPU that i'm using suffers from a nasty case of P4 denormalization with lots of plugins - so I'll be happy to get rid of it for that reason alone!

looking at sandra's benchmarks on the new CPUs compared to mine it really seems the upgrade would certainly make quite a big difference!

Would I be right?

t31os · 27 Apr 2007 at 01:23

TBH i think you'd get away with simply buying a new CPU, RAM and MOBO.

Set a budget and plenty of people here will be happy to spec some for you.

InvisibleG · 27 Apr 2007 at 02:52

Thanks for all the quick replys guys!

Well, assuming I've got enough juice in the current PSU, this is what I had in mind...

E6600 CPU
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz
..and a new graphic card would be a sensible move really as mine is very out of date, so an
MSI NVIDIA Fanless 8600GT 256MB DDR3 PCI-E
- to help keep things nice and quiet..

And for the motherboard I'm still undecided... but stability is of prime importance, preferably Intel chipsets (certainly no via due to soundcard compatibility) and somthing that is well spec'd to perform well with the Quad core CPUs as this will most certainly be an upgrade for the not too distant future ...and of course if theres any remote possibility that it might end up being compatible with Penryn too that that would be amazing (but I'm well aware nothing can be garanteed on that front yet...).

I'm thinking it would have to be either Asus, Intel or possibly Gigabyte - would somthing with native 1333FSB support be worthwhile to help futureproof it a bit? Also I like the idea of a mobo that can keep itself cool without too much noise - which is why I'm quite drawn to the more expensive boards with heat pipes and/or back of board cooling like some of Asus models... - although if these Core-Duo's are as good as everyone says, then that might not be too much of a problem... but even on a DAW I still can't resist a bit of overclocking...

I'll probably just buy a new SATA DVDR drive for around £30 and use my existing hard drives on the IDE port for the time being, or attempt to use those IDE to SATA converters (£2 each from Hong Kong on the bay)so that needn't be a problem.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

With regard to the budget... well TBH it's slowly going out the window for the time being... I'll think about it after...

Sudden_SD · 27 Apr 2007 at 03:19

I would go with that as the main part of your system and then add any soundcards, aftermarket hsf, case, sata hdd etc if you need them.

InvisibleG · 27 Apr 2007 at 03:48

Cheers Sudden,

That looks a good plan - one problem tho... the graphic card has a fan (too much noise for a music pc) - is there a fanless version of that card? How does it compare to the MSI NVIDIA Fanless 8600GT 256MB DDR3 PCI-E DIRECTX 10...?

I must admit, I've not done a great deal of reasearch into graphic cards as it's probably the least important part, so long as it does it's job and doesn't eat power from the main CPU then it's all good... but it seems there's only a very limited range of fanless ones the market - and it seems overclockers don't stock the fanless MSI range.

Any other suggestions...?

hp7909 · 27 Apr 2007 at 06:01

For the specified use & since 'I'm not a gamer' why not go on-board GFX?

Something like this...

Mobo's also got 2 x IDE connectors. More info here.

& CPU with a small OC, will perform (see here)

InvisibleG · 27 Apr 2007 at 15:19

hp7909 said:
For the specified use & since 'I'm not a gamer' why not go on-board GFX?

Something like this...

Mobo's also got 2 x IDE connectors. More info here.

& CPU with a small OC, will perform (see here)

In theory that looks interesting... and infact I could still use my decent Corsair too... certainly a v nice price... and those benchmarks look good... it almost makes it pointless spending cash on the higher end CPUs - but I still find it hard to trust all the reviews, just because they possibly get sent the highest performing samples, and especially as intel now make 2 different versions of each cpu... I just know I'd be really dissapointed if I got a duff... and with max 533 fsb I'd be limiting myself for future upgrades... on the good side it does look like it could use my existing DDR, but still, with limited expansion slots extra memory upgrades might be awkward too...

The other big no no (as with the similar mixed memory ASRock) is the VIA chipset - they have often been noted to cause issues with hi-end soundcards... nforce are not recommended for audio use either, especially in quad core systems apparently.

...and I forgot to mention above that I'd be needing two dvi-d outputs for my current dual screen setup, one of which is a Dell 2405 FPW - 24inch widescreen, so what ever card I go for it's gotta be capable of smoothly running 2 fairly large monitors

I never realised you could use Micro ATX in a standard ATX case tho!

I know i'm certainly narrowing my options down quite a lot here towards the higher priced stuff...

Does any1 have experience of those sata to ide adaptors tho?

mp260767 · 27 Apr 2007 at 15:44

i'd go for the asrock mobo, previous one i had was for 939 and clocked near enough as well as my current dfi mobo.

restriction is on the 300mhz ish limit on the clock but i don't think its enough of an issue not to go for the mobo and save a chunk of money in the process.

processor wise 6320/6420 would do the job and give you a little overhead if you get a new mobo to raise the overclock again.

hp7909 · 28 Apr 2007 at 11:28

Is this more convincing?

InvisibleG said:
The other big no no (as with the similar mixed memory ASRock) is the VIA chipset - they have often been noted to cause issues with hi-end soundcards... nforce are not recommended for audio use either, especially in quad core systems apparently

Could that have been an issue with older chipsets or even maybe something that has been resolved with an update? Recommend you do some research before discrediting that particular chipset version. I've owned lots of VIA boards & can't fault them especially their stability.

InvisibleG said:
...and I forgot to mention above that I'd be needing two dvi-d outputs for my current dual screen setup, one of which is a Dell 2405 FPW - 24inch widescreen, so what ever card I go for it's gotta be capable of smoothly running 2 fairly large monitors

For that you'll need a GFX with dual-DVI. But it doesn't have to be a high-end card. Current GFX cards can output 2048x1536 on each port!

InvisibleG said:
I never realised you could use Micro ATX in a standard ATX case tho!

Its the other way round which doesn't work

tsj · 28 Apr 2007 at 11:32

The crucial ram is the way to go right now as its on offer at a great price