need advice-£700 for a big upgrade

[Bobby B]

Hi guys, it's been nearly 2 years since I last upgraded my PC and i've been putting abit of money aside each month for a new upgrade as it looks like my motherboard is about to pack up.

Trouble is im not quite sure what to get with my money as im abit behind on technology these days.

I dont need a case, monitor,PSU(already have 500w) HDDs, Graphics card/soundcard or DVD/CD-ROMS as I think I will keep these from my old system and I also have 1 GIG of DDR400 Ram which I'd like to keep too.

With this in mind, im wondering where to go next? - Athlon 64 or Pentium4?

I'd like to buy for upgradeability in the future and use my machine for heavy 3d and games use.

Any suggestions to help me find the bst rig would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Rob

[Phayzon]

Athlon64.

[Bobby B]

Ok but what motherboard would you recommend? Im thinking of going the PCI-Express route too

[Tedski]

Bobby B said:
Ok but what motherboard would you recommend? Im thinking of going the PCI-Express route too



PCI-Express will almost certainly mean a new graphics card.
Athlon 64, preferably Socket 939, as opposed to 754. Not loads of choice for motherboards in the UK for those as yet. Main thing is your ram should be ok. Worth looking at the specs of the boards for that though as it might need to be 'paired'. If it's all the same stuff, that should be nps though.

[Phayzon]

Bobby B said:
Ok but what motherboard would you recommend? Im thinking of going the PCI-Express route too



My motherboard is an ASUS, but i dont think mine supports A64's. So i dont know what to recommend.

[DudeMiester]

Any one of the DFI Nforce 4 motherboards. They are the best, no question of that. However, there is a mobo coming out from Sapphire with the ATI Express 200 chipset, that could be a feirce competitor.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=55734

[Airtraffic]

For 700 pounds you should be able to get a good highend system IMO

Since i don't like Athlons (and i wont start that war http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif ) i just priced what i could get in Canada.

Asus P5AD2-E premium motherboard (very high end) $289.99
ATI X800 XT (pci express) $489.99
Seagate 120GB Barracuda 7200 SATA w/ 8MB Cache HD $109.99
Corsair 1GB PC2-4200 Dual Channel DDR2 Kit (2 x 512MB) $209.99
Samsung 997DF (Pure Flat CRT, 19in, Silver/Black) $249.00

This comes in at $1348.96 canadian...should be close to your budget.

[Evil Angel]

I'd definately go Athlon 64. Maybe a nice 3500+ (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=6505244070&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=79192) I'd also go with a PCI express mobo like Asus SLI PCI express (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=6505221341&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=82818) and sell your graphics card and buy a new one. Maybe a 6600GT (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=6505138007&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=80376). And something like a SATA Seagate 200GB (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=6505190633&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=74108) Not the absolute fastest drive but it is fast and has the benefit of being virtually silent.

Should be pretty quick and you have SLI so can always add another graphics card if you need to in future. The mobo is Nforce4 and will also likely take most future 939 processors. About £500 all in.

[Bobby B]

Thanks guys, great info!

[Jeff]

If you were to go socket 939, get a lower end CPU like the 3500+, because I hear dual core CPUs will be supported on that socket. All you'd need is a BIOS upgrade I believe. Then if you want later, you can get a dual core CPU when the time is right.

[Hudson]

I recommend getting a nice Athlon64 939 chip, and an Asus/nForce PCI-E board to go with it. Then pick up a 6600.

[FireFly]

If you can spend a little bit more I would pick up an X800 XL. Very good performance for the price.

[Jeff]

If you were to fit a hard drive in there, I'd consider a couple things. If you're going to be storing music files and what not, go for a 200-250 GB hard drive w/NCQ (I believe the socket 939 boards support this). If you want pure speed, you'll have to get 2x WD Raptors, but I'd go for the big hard drive to save money for something else. If you're going to be using this for games, then I'd want a faster graphics card over a hard drive which writes at 100 MB/s (my Seagate SATA only does 30 MB/s, but that's because SATA isn't using all the bandwidth it can). One Raptor will give you 50 MB/s or so, but two will give you 100 MB/s in RAID 0 w/16K stripe & 4K cluster sizes, because I own a Raptor RAID configuration. Still, I'd go for a big hard drive, versus a fast hard drive in your case.