PC Upgrade Recommendations (£1000 budget)

[Gareth]

Basically my computer (P4) has finally given up, I think its the motherboard but its running an AGP card and a IDE HDD, so the whole lot is going to need to be changed. I'm basically after as good as I can get for the money with preferably a decent graphics card and 2GB memory, I need everything except the case, monitor and CD/CDRW drives.

So . . .

CPU + Fan
Memory (2GB)
Motherboard
HDD
Video Card

for a £1000

 

[seb]

try and speak to rasclart and roy munson, they know quite a bit about building computers.

 

[Adam]

when i upgraded my pc i went to SATA 2 HDD, the transfer rate is awesome and things get done alot eaiser.

I went for the Intel Core Duo 2 e6400 CPU and currently only got 1gb of DDR2 ram but i plan to upgrade to 2 or 3gb asap.

Also iam only running a shitty £50 graphics card at the mo as when i got my new motherboard AGP wasnt a feature so i am now down the PCI-E road

The pc is awesome and runs amazing, and now with a 22" widescreen monitor all is good

 

[BenWall]

you can build a good PC with 1k. If I has the money I would buy this (from ebuyer)

Gigabyte GA-M59SLI-S5 Socket AM2 NVNF590 onboard audio ATX

109.81

AMD Athlon FX-62 Socket AM2 Dual Core 2.8GHz Retail Boxed Processor

286.11 inc

OCZ 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2-667MHz/PC2-5400 CL 4-4-4-12 XTC Edition

119.98 inc

Maxtor STM3250820AS 250GB 7200RPM SATAII 8MB Cache - OEM

42.29

Zalman Heatpipe CPU cooler with quiet 110mm blue LED fan

34.00

XFX GeForce 8800GTX 768MB DVIx2 TVO PCI-E

388.01

TOTAL: £980.20

this will be a beefy system.

 

[Gareth]

cheers Conteo, that looks good, can you recommend a PSU as well? Probably worth changing mine as well thinking about it.

 

[BenWall]

this http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/115881

 

[BenWall]

I dont know whether you want to go intel or amd, but personnely I go AMD, im a loyal customer, even if there not as fast.

 

[172beast]

Why bother with AMD when C2D is very well priced and quicker? Even if your a loyal customer, surely there comes a point when you question spending x amount on a slower CPU lol

Everything else I highly recommend, I'm using a Gigabyte DS3 motherboard and its top notch, only got a Pentium D805 clocked to 3.9 but does the job for me.

 

[Gareth]

I've had AMD in the past, the one i've got now is a P4, but I'm tempted to go back to AMD.

 

[The Hoff]

Conteo...I have no idea why you're recommending to go for an AMD at this particular point in time. There's absolutely no benefit to doing so, not only are they slower, but they drink more power and they don't overclock anything like as well.

Gareth stick to a Intel Core2Duo (C2D), i'd suggest an E6300 or E6400, very little between them, and both with overclock to beyond E6600 speed (albeit smaller 2mb cache). For what they cost you really have no need to look at AMD until they bring out their next chip later this year, by which time Intel will have moved onto quad core too (no real benefit for home users as yet).

Partner that with an ATI 1950pro/xtx, and 2gb of DDR2-6400 ram (don't bother with high spec stuff, DDR2 isn't as CAS reliant as DDR1). Then make sure you get yourself a good Antec/Tagan/Enermax PSU. Motherboard wise, Asus or Abit are a good bet but bang for buck have a look at the Gigabyte DS3 or DS4.

 

[Mike_182]

when i upgraded my pc i went to SATA 2 HDD, the transfer rate is awesome and things get done alot eaiser.

You won't notice the blindest bit of difference until flash-backed drives hit the market. Hard disks still can't really push past ATA133 transfer speeds, and the fastest consumer disk is still the WD Raptor, 10kRPM and SATA 150 interface.

 

[Mike_182]

I dont know whether you want to go intel or amd, but personnely I go AMD, im a loyal customer, even if there not as fast.

They're more power hungry, hotter running, not particularly cheap and I still don't like them from the days of THG pulling the heatsink off and watching them burn themselves to a crisp.

 

[Mike_182]

Why bother with AMD when C2D is very well priced and quicker? Even if your a loyal customer, surely there comes a point when you question spending x amount on a slower CPU lol

Everything else I highly recommend, I'm using a Gigabyte DS3 motherboard and its top notch, only got a Pentium D805 clocked to 3.9 but does the job for me.

If you can keep a D cool then the 805 is the one to go for - get a decent liquid cooling solution on it and you can push past 4ghz.

 

[Gareth]

ok cheers guys. I think I can get the e6600 and DS4 motherboard.

 

[The Hoff]

No real point in getting the E6600 Gareth, just buy an E6300 and overclock it, childs play...

 

[Dave_W]

I brought the Asus A8v Deluxe.

An older board, but its not stepped out of line!

I have one for sale, boxed if anyone was interested?

 

[172beast]

Why bother with AMD when C2D is very well priced and quicker? Even if your a loyal customer, surely there comes a point when you question spending x amount on a slower CPU lol

Everything else I highly recommend, I'm using a Gigabyte DS3 motherboard and its top notch, only got a Pentium D805 clocked to 3.9 but does the job for me.

If you can keep a D cool then the 805 is the one to go for - get a decent liquid cooling solution on it and you can push past 4ghz.

Aye, mines just on a Artic Freezer Pro which I've got set to keep it below 50, on net, general tasks it sits around 40-45, gaming goes to 50 and fan ramps up. Gets to hot past 4 like you say on air cooling.

 

[Mike_182]

If you can keep a D cool then the 805 is the one to go for - get a decent liquid cooling solution on it and you can push past 4ghz.

Aye, mines just on a Artic Freezer Pro which I've got set to keep it below 50, on net, general tasks it sits around 40-45, gaming goes to 50 and fan ramps up. Gets to hot past 4 like you say on air cooling.

Wasn't there some sad European dude that got just over 5gig stable using phase cooling on an 805?

 

[Adam]

when i upgraded my pc i went to SATA 2 HDD, the transfer rate is awesome and things get done alot eaiser.

You won't notice the blindest bit of difference until flash-backed drives hit the market. Hard disks still can't really push past ATA133 transfer speeds, and the fastest consumer disk is still the WD Raptor, 10kRPM and SATA 150 interface.

wooopi di doooo.

The fact is I do notice the difference so there :rasp:

 

[Mike_182]

You won't notice the blindest bit of difference until flash-backed drives hit the market. Hard disks still can't really push past ATA133 transfer speeds, and the fastest consumer disk is still the WD Raptor, 10kRPM and SATA 150 interface.

wooopi di doooo.

The fact is I do notice the difference so there :rasp:

Placebo. If you want any evidence, my Raptor scores higher than my 7200rpm SATA2 disk in all disk benchmarks.

 

[spirez]

I like it when geeks argue

 

[Adam]

wooopi di doooo.

The fact is I do notice the difference so there :rasp:

Placebo. If you want any evidence, my Raptor scores higher than my 7200rpm SATA2 disk in all disk benchmarks.

face botherd, face botherd

 

[Tim-Grove]

my mate just got this lot from overclockers. it flys, he's overclocked it to 3.2ghz

ive got a core2duo E6600 overclocked to 3.4 a gigabyte DS4, 2gb of geil ram and a 640MB 8800GTS. which does me fine

 

[Gareth]

how do you overclock them then?

 

[Mike_182]

All that processing and speed... and you've got a Spinpoint in there.

 

[Tim-Grove]

All that processing and speed... and you've got a Spinpoint in there.

Good reliable drives spinpoints are. Not quite as quick as Seagate 7200.10 or a raptor but a dam sight quieter. I’ve got 3 of them in my rig. 1 320gb for storage and 2 120GB in raid0.

 

[Tim-Grove]

how do you overclock them then?

read here. it'd take ages to explain

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17612922

 

[RSi Dave]

Sli?

 

[KDF]

All your talk of HDD sata speeds etc.. bah.. scsi raid is where its at

 

[Darren S]

I love threads like this. People get more defensive about their choice of PC bits than they even do with their cars.

A £1k budget is a good amount. You should easily be able to get a decent setup with that. If you've got some cash left, I'd definitely recommend investing in a new case. I did, back in July when I updated my PC and it was well, well worth it.

D.

 

[Gareth]

I've got a limited edition (Blue) Coolermaster Wavemaster (about £100), its awesome. So I don't need one, I've also got 2 x 17" TFTs and a wireless MS keyb and mouse and decent speakers. So its a £1000 for components really.

 

[BatFastard]

Just make sure you go for a Core 2 Duo (hopefully you haver the budget for an e6600 which has 4mb cache) they blow any AMD chips out of the water, including their FX range which costs twice as much

 

[Gareth]

yeah, I'm pretty much decided on Core 2 Duo E6600 and Gigabyte DS4 mb. I just need to decide which of the following to get :

2GB RAM (800MHz)
SATA 250GB/320GB drive
Graphics Card (but quite like this one) : http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=545087
PSU (my current one is 550W, but might be dodgy)

I will be buying it all at the end of this month.

 

[Gareth]

got this so far :

need

PSU
2GB 800MHz RAM
HDD

 

[Darren S]

I've got the PSU listed below, m8 - works fine for me.

http://www.antec.com/uk/productDetails.php?ProdID=05551

Hanging off that, I have:-

Asus M2N32-SLi Deluxe mobo
AMD AM2 4800+ CPU
2GB OCZ Spec-Ops 800mhz memory
2x 320GB Seagate SATA2 drives
2x Asus EN7900GTX graphics cards, running in SLi
SoundBlaster X-Fi Fatal1ty sound card

No power spikes, outages, etc to report at all, yet. Of course, it's powering all the chassis fans in the Antec P180B too.

D.

 

[The Hoff]

Get a modular PSU, much tidier than having 23 unused molex connections hanging loosely in your PC.

Oh and don't be overly concerned ahout the power ratings, a good 300W PSU is infinitely better than a crappy Qtec 3,000,000,000W PSU.

400W is plenty, but go for a 500W if you intend to use multiple drives, and the 8800. Can't go wrong with an Antec/Tagan or Enermax.

 

[Gareth]

would love a modular, they are quite pricey though, anyone got any recommendations for the HDD? I've no idea which to go for.

 

[Darren S]

Seagate's have always been good for me - Western Didge are ok too. Had loads, loads, LOADS of problems with Maxtors. If you take into account the 200 PCs we have here, you can bet that a drive will fail when powered by Maxtor.

Crap things.

D.

 

[Gareth]

ok, so far I've got :

£818.02

Pretty happy with that, just got one query though, the mb as far as I can see is SLI'able, so is the PSU, is it worth me going down the SLI route? Do I need to buy SLI'able cards? or do they all have the ability? Are two SLI cards effectively twice the power/capability? Or should I just buy a better single card.

 

[Mike_182]

The motherboard isn't SLI compatible AFAIK. I don't think Intel have an SLI-capable chipset as yet? Tbh, if you can push your budget a little more look for an nForce680 based board, I prefer them!