Spec me a (sub) £300 upgrade (CPU, Mobo, RAM, GFX)

[Whiternoise]

I have around 300 quid to spend on a possible upgrade - i'll not be changing my hard drive, but i'm looking to make the leap to C2D and PCIe graphics. I was looking at a CPU around £100, an 8600GT and probably a gig of RAM so i can expand later.

CPU - £100 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=572215
RAM - £35 - Corsair XMS 1GB http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=239017
GFX - £83 - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=645524
MOBO - £70 - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=529752

Coming to a rough total of £285 - so there's room for a bit of jiggling.

Assuming i sell my current components on here (should make at least £30-50) i'll probably get 2GB of ram or get another graphics card and go SLi (if i can wangle it, both). That said, i'll probably fork out the money for Vista instead

Thoughts?

[staffsMike]

you would do better with this and then overclock it a little

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=577091

i'd save up for a better graphics card tbh..

2GB of pc5300 ram is only about £50 so you could get that

this is probably a better mobo as well.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=605521

[Whiternoise]

Yeah, i probably would go with that CPU actually, i don't really see the need to pay for double cache

GFX was the one i wondered about, just that the jump from 8600 to 8800 is pretty big pricewise and whether i could live with integrated for a few months.

[Ilandor]

An X1950 XT would probably serve you better than an 8600, the 8600s get beaten in most benchmarks by the X1950s. The 8600 wont do too well in DX10 at higher resolutions, whereas the X1950 will be great for DX9 and it's still a powerful card.

It seems though, that everyone is selling the X1950 Pro, which is a somewhat less powerful version. The cheapest in-stock X1950 XT is £150 on scan, but there's a few on eBay for a buy it now of £120, and a few auctions for the X1950 XTX (which have 512MB instead of 256MB and seem to get about 8-12% higher FPS in games than the XTs).

Either go for the X1950 XT/XTX, or save up £250 for a 640MB 8800 GTS, which would be well worth the wait.

[staffsMike]

You need around £170 for the 320mb GTS which is the best way to go.

The nvidia 8900 or 9800 or whatever they want to call them are coming in november apparently so it may be worth waiting to see what that brings in terms of budget options.

[Whiternoise]

Righto, i'm fine with integrated for the time being, but i'd like to have at least the option of DX10. I think i'll go with the wait until the 8900's/price cuts

But otherwise, is the mobo/proc/ram choice ok?

2GB DDR2
Abit IP-35E
E4400 2.0GHz (see what i can crank it up to - though i might get a new HSF to go with it)

[staffsMike]

Look good yeah.

[master811]

there are cheaper x1950xt's around, ebuyer have one for just under £120 and same with scan, albeit I think they are slightly slower clocked but I'm sure OCing them won;t be a problem. Although as said may be better to wait for the new NVs around nov and see what they bring (apparently replacing the current 8800 GTS) so you'll still be looking at least £200 for one.