Clingy Jnr's New Pc

Post by **Clingy** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:14 am

Hi;

My current PC is starting to fall apart and a few games are beginning to appear that just wont run. So I feel its time to upgrade.
I just started working, so I'll have ~Â£100 a month to spend (+ Overtime from this holiday), so I'm looking at Â£500-600.
I'm not worried about HDD / DVD Drive; I'll sort them out later on - its just the guts and case I need to change.

I'm currently running;

.AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (1.83 ghz)
.786MB or Ram (nothing special)
.ASRock K7VT4A Pro
.Club 3D 7600GS (AGP)
.a PSU that can't output enough for the GPU
.a Foxconn Diabolic Minotaur (With a few legs missing, and a sticky power button)

I've come to the conclusion (after ~2 weeks) I want;

.AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ (3.0ghz) - <a href="http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Qu ... &InMerch=1" target="_blank">http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Qu ... Merch=1</a> - Â£103.07

.Corsair C-TWIN2X2048-6400C4 (2x1GB) - <a href="http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Qu ... ,405050000" target="_blank">http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Qu ... 5050000</a> - Â£70.57

.Asus M2R32-MVP (SKT-AM2, Crossfire) - <a href="http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductI ... tID=467396" target="_blank">http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductI ... =467396</a> - Â£57.56

.Antec 900 Gaming Case - <a href="http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/118268/rb/0" target="_blank">http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/118268/rb/0</a> - Â£65.17

.Antec TruePower Trio 650W - <a href="http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/114933/rb/0" target="_blank">http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/114933/rb/0</a> - Â£85.35

.2 x 256MB Sapphire HD2600XT 128Bit 2200MHz GDDR4 GPU - <a href="http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductI ... tID=633077" target="_blank">http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductI ... =633077</a> - Â£168.47

Total: Â£550.19 + Deliverage

Anyone met any serious issues with any of the above?

And also; the GDDR4 memory on the Graffs; is there a problem with the motherboard being able to address it? Or will it be fine?

Ty; Deck.

Post by **Trig** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:46 am

I've got some bits you might be interested in chap..

AB9 Pro S775 Board
Intel E6420
1Gb PC2-5300 (2x512Mb's)

other than that not a bad rig altho not sure you've included the price of both of your gfx cards in your maths there, I wouldnt really bother with 2x cards, by the time you need the power of both of them your rig will be out dated.

AMD, unless theres any real reason for AMD, Intels the place to be atm.

PSU, 650's a bit ott, mines a 550 and thats plenty and a damned sight cheaper that a 650.

GDDR4, motherboard doesnt matter.

edit: Done the maths, you've only priced one gfx card, if you put both in and take into account your ordering from 3 different places your going to be knocking on the door of Â£750

Thu Aug 23, 2007 10:49 am

Personally I wouldn't recommend running the 2 GPU's, you'd be better off spending slightly more on one single card and either picking up a 2900XT or an 8800 GTS 640MB card.

Crossfire and SLI really don't give the same improvements as a more powerful main card as far as I've read and can lead to headaches with compatability and drivers both on ATI and Nvidia.

Another suggestion is to go jump onto Hexus forums and post a bit over there while you are looking around. Post in any of the sections and then get signed up for the free postage on orders over Â£20 ex VAT with scan. Will help save you some money

Im also not really sure if going with the AM2 socket chip is that wise. I personally think you'd be better off grabbing a Core 2 Duo, say something like the E6550 or pushing your budget and getting a E6750. As it has very easy 3GHz overclocking generally with no hassle at that speed and imo will also leave you with the option of adding a faster secondhand processor at a later date such as a quad core or jsut a faster duo.

The graphics and cpu will poss push you over budget.

I reacon you could make quite a big saving buying a second hand case off a forum. This case: <a href="http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=116495" target="_blank">http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=116495</a> although maybe not to your liking went for Â£55inc p&p

Oh and the GDDR4 would only be an issue if it knocks you up over 4Gb I believe from my reading. I which case you would need a 64 bit OS, but it is so easy to get Vista 64 installed without a purchase that it's no real biggie, it was easier to do that the old WGA workaround for XP.

Post by **Trig** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 11:11 am

What about the rest of the machine, no HDD in there, your going to be slowing your new machine down if your planning on using your old drive...

Guessing were keeping bits like monitor keyboard etc..

So, hows this..

Antec 900 Case - Â£56 (Your choice)
Antec 550w PSU - Â£51 (My choice)
OCZ 2Gb(2x1Gb) PC2-6400 - Â£55 (My choice, give you a bit of room to OC the chip)
XFX 512Mb 7959GT - Â£124 (Better choice than 2x2600's)
WD 250Gb HDD - Â£37 (if your having a new machine then you dont really wanna be running the lot off of an old HDD)

All from Ebuyer inc VAT and Delivery is Â£389, best to buy all from one place, what you save by ordering from multiple places you loose in delivery etc.)

Add to that my old board and chip and your away...

Failing that add one of the newer C2D CPU's and a new board.

Say the E6550 and the Asus P5K-E Wifi and that takes your total to Â£614 inc vat and del all from eBuyer..

Post by **Clingy** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 2:39 pm

The larger PSU was to accommodate the 2 GPUs, but if crossfire is that much trouble I'll stick to the 1 and smaller PSU; however - the 2600XT is dx10 compatible, and thats where I'm stuck...

I'm still on XP (for the time being), and i read about dx10.1 making dx10 obsolete - but how exactly are the new games like Crysis going to work? Can I still run them on dx9 and still have snazzy graphics, or do they have to have dx10 (or 10.1) compatible cards to run nicely?

And on the GPU; The 512mb 7950GT on ebuyer is AGP, you're board is PCI-E no? - in which case is the XFX 8600GT 256MB DDR3 XXX edition (http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/127345) any good?

Your old board looks great Trig; but I think I'd prefer a faster chip, like the E6600 (Â£130)

So;

E6600 - Â£130
Antec 900 Case - Â£56
Antec 550w PSU - Â£51
OCZ 2Gb(2x1Gb) PC2-6400 - Â£55
XFX 8600GT - Â£89

Â£381
+ Your Old Board
+ HDD

And another question (I'm full of these...) on the HDD - WD Raptors... are they worth it? Is the extra heat/noise worth the faster spindle speed, does having a faster spindle speed increase performance that much, or is a Â£32 WD 160GB (I don't use that much space) better "bang for buck"?

Post by **madman045** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 2:55 pm

Just done a quick list just using scans site

Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Retail
2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800) 4-4-4-12
320 Gb Western Digital WD3200AAKS
640MB XFX 8800GTS PCI-E
Gigabyte GA P35C-DS3R
500w Seasonic M12-500 SLi Modular PSU
Coolermaster Centurion 534

Â£663.80 + P&P

Thu Aug 23, 2007 3:14 pm

With what mad has posted and if you sign up on hexus and post you'll get free postage

Post by **Clingy** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 3:40 pm

Clingy here.

Thanks guys, I'm totally out of touch with all this at the mo so this is great help. A couple of questions and points....

1) Firstly I think his Â£5-600 was a tad optimistic and Mad's Â£660+ is deffo out. It really has to be closer to Â£500 in truth.
2) AMD was on the list because they are so cheap. Looks like the 6000 is comparable with the E6550 on performance and a similar price. Which is the best clocker?
3) Decky originally speced two cheaper GFX cards rather than a more expensive single. Is PCI-E all a con then? Or is it all priced to compete. I guess it gets into it's own at the top end with two top end cards? If he can save Â£35 on the PSU (Antecs still ok?) as a result of only having one card then it all helps to get a better setup.
4) If Intel are winning the CPU stakes who is winning the GFX battle? Still nip and tuck, or is there a bang for buck winner around Â£150?

Doing the sums again looks like we need some compromises.

E6550 Retail - Â£107
P35C-DS3R - Â£72
Case&550W - Â£106
HDD - Â£32
OCZ 2Gb(2x1Gb) PC2-6400 - Â£55

= Â£372 leaving about Â£130-Â£150 for GFX. So a 8600GTS? Is there a better ATI?

...or he goes E6600 and trigs old board but that might be more.

Post by **mcmav** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 4:12 pm

Wouldnt get a 8600

get a x1950pro for around 80 quid atm and its still a good card.

I'd go for the e6600 over the e6550 as the e6600 will clock far better. Mate Lowe has had his at 3.15 Ghz on stock volts with a artic freezer cooler.

Post by **Trig** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 4:36 pm

Yeah I might have picked the wrong card there

The x1950's a good card, got one meself and for they can be had for less than Â£100...

For what your looking at upgrading from anything you buy be it mine or something new is going to be loads quicker that what you have currently.

If your on a budget then I'm sure we could come to some arrangement for my old kit..

I've actually got the following "spare" bits.

Abit AB9 Pro
E6420
2x512Mb PC2-5300

Abit AX8
AMD64 3200
2x512Mb PC3200

Add to that a WD 250Gb drive...

Post by **madman045** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:09 pm

As mentioned, if your not going vista and dont need dx10 (which isnt really atm) then the x1950 is a great card, also if your not too bothered, you can get a x1900xt for about Â£90 second hand or if your lucky, you might even find a x1900xtx 512mb for about the same.

Clocking wise intel seems to be a favourite and regards to PCI-E its the current slot for graphics, also remember a good psu due to the power requirements for the graphics cards are getting higher. I have a 700w psu i got 2nd hand to get my current system running.

Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:11 pm

AMD is basically a NO GO Clingy, their socket is on the last of it's line before they move to a new one and it's only comparable to the mid/low end Intel atm

In a years time you could prob buy a second hand chip for Â£50 - 100 and get a very tidy boost.

E6550 will clock the same as E6600 as it's newer silicon and runs faster stock than the E6600.

But if your on such a tight budget the second hand bits from trig will do lovely. And these things generally either work or don't

Your not talking about PCI-E Clingy, what Deck specked relies on crossfire (SLI but for ATI) PCI-E is the socket and very much better than AGP.

I'm thinking of flogging my E6600 atm and picking up a quad

Post by **Trig** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:12 pm

Hehe, my C2D kit listed up there works fine with an old 300watt macron with an x1550 gfx card as its all sat in an Antec case next to me installing 2003SBS so I can start tarting about with Exchange...

Post by **madman045** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:43 pm

Trig wrote: Hehe, my C2D kit listed up there works fine with an old 300watt macron with an x1550 gfx card as its all sat in an Antec case next to me installing 2003SBS so I can start tarting about with Exchange...

If ya gonna start "tarting" about with exchange, from a learning point, you want full exchange and not SBS

As for a Macron PSU

is all i can say to that lol

The kit Trig has listed is more than capable of running stuff and its then down to the graphics card

Regards to raptors, if you look at the comparison on toms hardware, the WD AAKS drives are near match in performance but a lot cheaper...

Post by **Trig** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 7:01 pm

If this kit goes it doesnt matter what I do as I wont have a spare machine to do it with lol...