Upgrade

[Biscuit]

A mate wants to upgrade his system, he is beggining to have problems with some of the componants and thinks its about time to upgrade anyway.

Money doesnt come in for around a month or so, MAX budget is 450 if its justified well, however i think as much under 400 as possible is preferred.

He is mainly a gamer and he deffo wants to move quadcore ready for the future. We went through a few options and the solution he/we found most appealing was

(2x1GB) Corsair TwinX DDR2 XMS2 Dominator, PC2-8500

Asus P5K-E/WIFI-AP

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450

Will be running Vista SP1. Case PSU GPU and dvd drives will be transferred and are easily good enough to handle this.

Seemed reasonable balanced to me although could always go 4Gig DDR2 800 for the same price. Graphics card & psu will be updates in a few months once the Nvidia 9800 or (8800x2 whatever its gunna be called) is released. Some overclocking may be done in the future, if it does then a better cooler will also be bought at the time.

Comments plz guys

[Hicks12]

Ok heres my advice:

If money is an issue(if you have a budget which he does) then drop the ram, buy this ram: Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK thats £35, if speed is an issue for him then you can easily overclock this ram to 930Mhz, i done it and its stable for me atm (970 was stable but then randomly failed on second boot), best of all, warranty covers overclocking as long as you dont up the voltage over its rated, the one i advertised is 2.1V.

This motherboard is good and future proofed more then most, Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK £90, i paid £99 for it and works wonders for me.

Dont get quad, dont even bother with a budget like that, hes a gamer right? the only games that support quad are crysis and supreme commander, minimal difference with crysis compared to dual, i havent seen a difference. I recommend something like, e8400 Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK £136, gone up but still good price, i have it and totally recommend it.

If you want to overclock in the future, spend the money saved from going dual core etc on water cooling.

Any other questions?

[Blitzen]

Ok heres my advice:

If money is an issue(if you have a budget which he does) then drop the ram, buy this ram: Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK thats £35, if speed is an issue for him then you can easily overclock this ram to 930Mhz, i done it and its stable for me atm (970 was stable but then randomly failed on second boot), best of all, warranty covers overclocking as long as you dont up the voltage over its rated, the one i advertised is 2.1V.

This motherboard is good and future proofed more then most, Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK £90, i paid £99 for it and works wonders for me.

Dont get quad, dont even bother with a budget like that, hes a gamer right? the only games that support quad are crysis and supreme commander, minimal difference with crysis compared to dual, i havent seen a difference. I recommend something like, e8400 Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK £136, gone up but still good price, i have it and totally recommend it.

If you want to overclock in the future, spend the money saved from going dual core etc on water cooling.

Any other questions?

I dont agree.
The 8400's are decent but are really having issues.

There is no doubt, though older, the Q6600 is a better CPU and will have a longer lifespan.
For the sake of £20 the Q6600 is the better option.

[Biscuit]

Well he seems pretty set on Quad and 1Ghz ram but i will have a chat to him about it.
I have heard there been quite a few problems with those E8*** series?

What sets the NF750 aside from the P35?

[Hicks12]

the only problem i have seen and suffer from is the incorrect temperature readings, first batch only seems to be affected. And if you are refering to the compatability then the asus p5n-d already supports that out of the box.
The p5n-d has pci-e 2.0, granted it isnt much use yet but its future proofing graphics cards, sli is you really need it although 1 card is better then one if its better.

[Biscuit]

granted it isnt much use yet but its future proofing graphics cards, sli is you really need it although 1 card is better then one if its better.

what

[atmadden]

Imho on the setup you have quoted you can trim it. But it all depends if you want to overclock and by how much. My philosphy is to go with a basic overclockable board in my case MSI P35 Neo2 FR for £60 which goes well over 500 FSB and some overclockable cheap ram. What I have saved can be put to a decent graphics card. I downgraded from a Q6600 to an E8400 and I am happy with it best clock I could get was 3.6ghz on the quad core and 4.5ghz on the dual. I enjoy overclocking and will probably buy a Q9450 when they are released.

[staffsMike]

It depends how frequently you are planning on upgrading imo.

E8400 (assuming it's not a duff chip) will be fine for now.. but that said so is a pentium dual core. They overclock to 3.0GHz in most cases which is more than enough for games to run nicely.

4.5GHz isn't really needed, my E6600 stock runs all the current games just fine. In fact my T7500 2.2GHz in my laptop does to.

So if you plan on upgrading in a years time, maybe 2 then a dual/quad will make next to no difference to games I'm sure.

If you don't want to upgrade for a long time (3+ years) which is fair enough as I don't so I'm sure there are others.. Then getting a quad now is a better idea to me. For the sake of £20 your computer is going to be far more capable in the years to come.

[AndrewJ]

I am said mate, I fancy going quad core because I tend to hang about the latest games so i'd like to be sure my processor won't be on the upgrade list anytime soon, also the mid end to high end motherboards while they may be OTT if I don't OC, I would prefer to know I have the quality of a high end motherboard, rather than a budget board in my computer.

As for upgrading I tend to as a rule do it yearly.

[staffsMike]

Can't fault the Abit IP-35. Between £60 and £70 (depending on the day lol).

Quality is top notch with a near perfect layout.
Service is awesome, if you do have any problems just toddle over here
abit.care@HEXUS - HEXUS.community discussion forums and everything will be sorted for you I'm sure.
Overclocks very nicely but if you want the ultimate overclocking ability then the PRO version of the same board can be found for as low as £90 (again depending on the day - scan today only ) but even at £110 its still an amazing board.

Personally I would go, IP-35 (or pro) £70 or £110 at their most respectively
A Q6600 as it will be easier to overclock and performs very well. ~£150
4GB PC6400 (2x2GB) as you won't need PC8500 for the Q6600 ~ £60

So it could be done for as cheaply as £280. At a decent cooler and you are talking £300 and you have the best bangs for bucks around imo

[AndrewJ]

Ahh please note I am not into the whole OC thing, I am the type if I wish to go quicker get a bigger/faster engine.

Hence the thought for a huge cpu powerful ram and a high end mobo...

[staffsMike]

IP-35 suits then. It will overclock a long way if you require it but it's a perect balance of cost vs quality anyway

[Biscuit]

A question from me, how well roughly do u think an E8400 would overclock on OCZ platinum DDR2 PC6400?

[staffsMike]

Assuming the RAM can hit 900MHz (not a big overclock really) you will get to 4.0GHz running 1:1

[Biscuit]

Cheers as usual mike!

[AndrewJ]

So given what I have read and that my lady friend has informed me I shall have £500 beginning of March.

I plan on

A

Q6600 CPU

2GB Dominator Ram

Asus P5k-E motherboard

Hopefully enough left for a damn good cooler * suggestions * and four new case fans 120mm *suggestions for best/quiet/airflow *