Question about AMD's (Upgrade thread)

[Michael172]

Hey Guys.

Basically ive been asked to "update" a good friend of my mum's PC. To give you a brief insight, its an AMD Athlon (No not an XP) 1.3GHz with 384MB of DDR Ram (No not DDR2), Geforce 2 MX 400 64mb.

So yer it had Windows 2000 on it, ive formatted it and put XP SP3 on it, all the latest crap etc. Obviously its s**t slow, they asked me to see if it needed anymore memory putting on it (Theyre retired and not mega computer literate if you get me) as they were complaining about the speed of the thing. I need to give them some options as to upgrading it but i dont want to send them to PC worst as it will need to be as cheap as possible and reliable lol.



So AMD Athlon 64 X2's are pretty damm cheap, and the specs are good aside from the L2 cache being 512kb per processor. I was wondering if they were any good. This Pc will be used to internet use and Other general useage, so no gaming. It needs to be relativly fast and at the same time not cost too much money. Heres what im looking at.



AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ 2.7GHz 2x 512 Cache - £57.49

Asus M3A78 AMD 780G (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - £66.69

Akasa Ultra Quiet 400W Paxpower Active PFC ATX2.2 PSU - £40.24

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3450 Silence 512MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - £32.19

Samsung SpinPoint S 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - £24.14

OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 - £22.99

£243.73



Anything i can move down a notch ? I could skimp on the ram but id like to keep the 800Mhz and the Gpu doesnt need to be good.

 

[Darren S]

Well, for my 10p worth - you could got for a 4800+ if that saves you much? My dad has that CPU running Vista Home Premium with 4GB onboard. He uses his PC for internet, email and doing a fair amount of picture capture/printing - and that CPU manages no worries.

Also, on the mobo - how's about the M2N-SLI? It's only £55 inc.VAT at Microdirect...

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(14050)Asus-motherboard-M2NSLI-Deluxe-AM2-Skt940.aspx

I have the M2N32-SLI and the only real difference in the lack of true 16x on both PCI-E interfaces and therefore can only do 1x 16x and 1x 8x in SLi mode. But from the sounds of it, they wouldn't be using it for that!

s**t - just noticed that its sold out.

D.

 

[Michael172]

Thanks, would rarther it all came from overclockers to save postage tho.

Will be using Xp on it too as im not a fan of vista in the slightest (even tho im using it).

Cheers for the help. Might get a different Cpu on that note.

 

[Darren S]

The M3A78 mobo appears to use the SB700 chipset. On a previous mobo, I had a few stability issues on an older SB600 based mobo when running XP. Ironically, it ran perfectly when Vista was installed!

D.

 

[Gumby]

scan is usually cheaper than overclockers, as is ebuyer

 

[ViolentJ]

Are you a OCUK forum user? If you are and fall into the loyal category them you get free next day delivery on your order, you just have to link your forum account to your OCUK account.

I've saved a small fortune with their free shipping

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sh...&posted=1&utm_source=forums&utm_medium=banner

I've been using an X2 4600+ for almost 2 years now and it's done me well. Just waiting on the Phenom II's to be released before deciding on whether to plump for one or to just get a Phenom I

 

[Mike_182]

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/p...cs=ukbsdt1&id=desktop-vostro-220st&l=en&s=bsd

Oooo, look. One with a warranty.