Buying New/Selling Old Advice

[scorchio75]

Hello all,

Apologies in advance for girth, but I'm in a quandary that has left me tearing my hair out!

I've got a 3 1/2 year old system comprised thusly: S478 3.4Ghz P4, Intel D875PBZ, XP Pro 32-bit, 2 x 200GB Seagate SATA, Gainward Bliss 512Mb 7800GS+ (AGP), 2GB of Kingston Value Ram (4x 512MB, DDR PC3200), Creative Audigy 2 ZS (with drive bay), 2 x MSI optical drives (DVD+/-RW and a DVD/CD-RW combo), Belkin wireless a/b/g PCI card and a 460W Seasonic Super Silencer PSU.

It's a system that's only ever had the graphics upgraded (5950U to 6800 to 7800GS+) and still manages to play HL2Ep2 at 1920x1200 at (surprisingly) pretty good frame rates, I've not had any power related problems (given the relatively small PSU), but it's getting a little long in the tooth - and I'm pretty sure Crysis will just kill it, given that I couldn't get decent frame rates in Bioshock without turning practically all effects off.

Building a new system will involve buying a new motherboard, graphics, memory, PSU (?) and probably just fitting the components in the current case (a Chieftec Matrix), rather than buying a new one. I'm planning on keeping the optical and hard drives, wireless card and the soundcard/drive bay, but everything else will either be sold* or junked. However, lucky me, I've just been given a Blitz Extreme to start building a new system with...however, the Blitz is DDR3-based and I'm not sure that the sums stack up with DDR3 components - £200+ for 2GB of RAM?!

Given that I'm going for a 1333MHz FSB Core2Duo or Quad-core, and will probably go for a single card like the 8800GTX, with a view to keeping the 'new' machine going for another 3-4 years before upgrading again...apart from the graphics, of course!

So, to the questions:
1) Will the 460W PSU power a C2D/QC, 2 x SATA (poss with another 2 in the not so distant future), a GTX and the optical drives, sound card and bay?
2) Should I go for a DDR2 board and 'dispose' of the Blitz Extreme, even though I want the PC to be game-worthy for the next 2-3 years with just graphics upgrades?
3) If (2) means keeping the Blitz, should I buy 2GB DDR3 (and bank on DDR3 prices dropping in the future) or go for 4GB (£400+?!!) and to hell with the XP issues with more than 3GB until I jump to Vista - and will XP just ignore the extra 1GB, or will it cause problems?

I'm not concerned (yet) about what specific parts I'll be getting for the upgrade, but the PSU is one area that I am really thinking hard about...

Any help would be much appreciated - and would save my 'better half' from my constantly contradictory mutterings over what route I'm going to take!

Cheers,

s75

* Depending on the answers, I may be posting a long "For Sale" list!

[staffsMike]

My advice would be to sell that blitz. DDR3 isn't even worth looking at yet imo.

Its a good quality PSU so it should be fine for a new system..pushing it for a GTX but i'm sure it would do it. Personally I wouldn't bother with the GTX now. The new GT has just been released using the new nvidia core and although doesn't quite have GTX matching performance, it's close enough to not mean anything plus its essentially half the price as well as using very little power in comparison.

XP 32bit ignores about 0.7GB of 4gb but causes no problems.

You old system as i'm sure you can guess isn't worth a lot but the 7800gs should get you a decent price the RAM should fetch a bit to.

[scorchio75]

Thanks staffsMike,

I'm not going to be able to sell the Extreme as it's an ex-review sample that was given to me, but if I can get them to swap it for a Striker Extreme or P5N32-E SLI Plus then I'll get cracking with the upgrades. I guess that if I managed to secure an SLI board then I'd quite happily go down the 8800GT route and then upgrade to one (or two!) of the 9XXX NV boards (with a new PSU) in a year or two...when I can afford it!

Alternatively, I could just hold on to the Blitz and wait for DDR3 to drop before I make my move - I'm not that desperate to jump to Vista for DX10 gaming and I've got a 360 and the current PC to tide me over...

Cheers,

s75

[staffsMike]

I would say it depends on how much you are willing to pay for DDR3. That board could be obselete by the time it's worth buying.

[Pob255]

First thing, yet again I agree with Mike here (damb you mike and your sensible advice)
DDR3 still way to overpriced and by the time it's reasonable there will probably be a new cpu socket.

Your current system shouldn't be pushing that Seasonic PSU too hard at all, the main worry you have with upgradeing is that it's a little old, so it's only a single +12v rail at 25a, the overall wattage is fine just that more things use that +12v now.

If you went for a core2duo cpu then you'd be looking at an actual drop in power and a core2quad is about the same as your current cpu.
the main thing will be the graphics card, a 8800GTX is going to be pushing it but a 8800gt should be fine.

I think we can stick to what's becoming almost standard advice.
Q6600
p35 based motherboard (or a 680i if you want the later felexability of SLi and have the extra cash)
2gb DDR2 pc6400 (will allow a good OC on the q6600 without putting any strain on the memory at a price you don't have to rob banks for)
8800GT 512mb

Not sure how much the older bits will go for although you should be able to get a good price for the 7800GS 512mb AGP, as it was a top end AGP card, only real problem is that not many people want/will pay for high end agp cards. (they will be in the same situation as you and looking at a total upgrade)

If you are on a tight budget/want the extra CPU power now, then a socket775 board with AGP & quad core support might be an idea
The ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA can do both also DDR or DDR2 (only two sticks of one or the other) and can be got cheap 2nd hand for around £25
Not sure of other motherboards that support AGP and core2quad but there should be some out there.
Just an option as that 7800gs is a good card and should keep going a while longer, long enough for nvidia to get a decent amount of new card actually into the market and as a general low cost stepping stone to a better motherboard with pci-e

[scorchio75]

Thanks for the advice, guys -it's looking more and more likely that I'm going to fill the the old system with hard-drives and use it as a media server and build an SLI-capable Intel system based around DDR2, due to the relative affordability offered by uber-cheap memory at the moment.

I think I'll have to put together my shopping list and get your opinions/advice!

Cheers,

s75

[ackrite26]

You could always ebay the board??