£200 to spend

[sswats]

I have:
Asrock 4coredual VSTA 775
E4300 @ 2.7Ghz.
1gb PC3200 (taking up all 2 of the DDR slots)
ATi 9800 Pro
Tagan 480W


So the main parts I need are the Graphics card and ram.

But should i JUST get a very good graphics card, or get an average graphics card and 2gb of DDR2 ram.
Any combo recommendations?

The PC is used as a media centre, and for games.

[staffsMike]

something like this

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=521951

or save £15 or £20 on a 256mb version

If you prefer nvidia you can get a 7900gs

and then something like this

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=291363

you can save £10 if you do it with 4 sticks of 512mb

[MadduckUK]

its worth the £10 not to have 4x512 sticks really, and his choice of mobo only has 2 slots apparemntly.

however definetly go for 2gigs.

staffsmikes card suggestions are good, theres also: http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/119682 a 7950GT for £115.45 there. which is a bit of a bargain

[shaithis]

But should i JUST get a very good graphics card, or get an average graphics card and 2gb of DDR2 ram.

Only you can answer that.....

Is the RAM holding you back? What do you play? Does the HDD churn when playing, causing slow-down?

If not, then you will benefit more from the gfx card.

[DecomposingStar]

Well, you need RAM and a new card...

If you like gaming, wait and get a DX10 card. There will be some budget ones out in not-too-long. There is already a couple sub £200 8800's, and its a flagship card, so it's going to have some cut-down versions out soon. I'd personally wait to see what ATI have to offer, and if nothing else it will cause a price battle.

You can get some decent 2gb sets for around £130 these days. My OCZ PC2-6400 Platinum Revision was only £120, it was on special but they aren't a huge deal more than that anyway.

Can you save up enough money for RAM and a GFX card within, say, 2 months time?

[staffsMike]

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/119682 a 7950GT for £115.45 there. which is a bit of a bargain

not heard of that manafacturer but thats deffinatly a bargain.

[sswats]

when you say "not too long" how long are we talking?
I don't want to be stuck constantly waiting for the next new thing.
And initial benchmarks and previews of the 8600's seem to be quite poor.


How much of a price battle are we talking here? Obviously a wild guess, but stuff like the 7950's and 1950XT's have barely dropped in price even though the 8800 thrash them. I suppose I could find used bargains, but from the trend I don't think there'll be too many massive price drops.

Thanks for the help guys, that 7950GT is under consideration.

[staffsMike]

i dont think budget 8600's will meet this budget. Dont be fooled by speculative prices..we dont pay what the americans do.

The 8600's (gts/ultra) from what i've seen do benchmark quite well but theirs no official release date afaik so i would get that 7950 and some ram.

[Biscuit]

isnt the motherboard is question a dual pci-e/agp + ddr/ddr2 board? i thought that the pci-e was far less than full speed on these boards. In which case i would stick with what u have for now and then in a few months upgrade graphics memory and motherboard

[DecomposingStar]

when you say "not too long" how long are we talking?
I don't want to be stuck constantly waiting for the next new thing.
And initial benchmarks and previews of the 8600's seem to be quite poor.


How much of a price battle are we talking here? Obviously a wild guess, but stuff like the 7950's and 1950XT's have barely dropped in price even though the 8800 thrash them. I suppose I could find used bargains, but from the trend I don't think there'll be too many massive price drops.

Thanks for the help guys, that 7950GT is under consideration.

May should show the new ATI cards in.

They will have a bit of a drop, or at least manufacturers will be making more cut-down versions of them. Either way, DX10 cards that use Stream Processing are MUCH more efficient than DX9 cards. You'll get less bottleneck in most areas by using a SP card.

[sswats]

I think I'll just get the EVGA 8800 GTS 320mb graphics card.

And if there are new set of updated nvidia cards I'll use the step up.

I'll upgrade the ram a bit down the line.

[DecomposingStar]

I think I'll just get the EVGA 8800 GTS 320mb graphics card.

And if there are new set of updated nvidia cards I'll use the step up.

I'll upgrade the ram a bit down the line.

Not a bad idea.

[sswats]

Ok done £200 spent on the EVGA 8800 GTS 320mb.

[Biscuit]

isnt the motherboard is question a dual pci-e/agp + ddr/ddr2 board? i thought that the pci-e was far less than full speed on these boards. In which case i would stick with what u have for now and then in a few months upgrade graphics memory and motherboard

Is this wrong then?

[sswats]

no you're right. And a motherboard upgrade is on the cards.

But from my research, PCI-E 4x is about a 5% drop in 3d performance from a 16x mobo.

so whilst it is an issue, its not a priority at the moment. Whilst actually having a decent graphics card was getting quite urgent.

[Sprite]

no you're right. And a motherboard upgrade is on the cards.

But from my research, PCI-E 4x is about a 5% drop in 3d performance from a 16x mobo.

so whilst it is an issue, its not a priority at the moment. Whilst actually having a decent graphics card was getting quite urgent.

You sure ?

Check the article THG did on PCI-E speeds a few days ago

LINK