PAY DAY! What to get??

[Allen]

Athlon XP-M 2500+ Barton for £70.62 or the Athlon XP 2500+ Barton for £54.05 (prices from CPU City).

450W CWT PSU for £34.65 or the 465W Enermax PSU for £58.69 (prices from Scan).

I'd love a new case though, might look at the Antec Sonata which would include the PSU coz the P160 is a bit too expensive for me at the moment.

What ya think? Anything else I could do with? Any deals around I'm missing?

[malfunction]

A bigger and faster HDD? Possibly more memory (though 512 is OK). Or go for the 'real-world' things - monitor, keyboard, mouse, joystick...?

You ought to really notice the CPU... Especially if you can easily get it to 3200+ speeds. You may need a better PSU to do it though - I'd get the CWT (I have one) not only because it's good but because it's the cheaper option and BTX is on it's way some time. Sonata's meant to be good - but again - might not want to spend that much on a case when BTX is in theory coming some time this year. But well that's PCs for you isn't it? I reckon CPU (non-mobile) + PSU (CWT) if you can afford both. And as I already said - think about a bigger / faster HDD (WD JB, 7,200 RPM, 8MB cache) if you can stretch that far.

[Lee H]

get the 550 CWT PSU

I got this myself and its absolutely superb and ultra quiet. As for the case have you seen the case that savrow are selling atm for about 120 quid ? OMG that is 1 case - believe me its awesome ( and guess what the savrow site is currently down )

The case is in the new edition of Custom PC as well

Lee

[malfunction]

Al - I personally wouldn't bother with the extra expensive of the 550W unless you know you're going to be staying ATX for a while... (BTW - look a disagreement between forums members and you're not involved )... It is without a doubt a better PSU - more watts and 3 separate lines (the 450W model shares the 3.3V and 5V lines) - I just don't think it's the smart buy with BTX on the horizon.

[Lee H]

true Mal - but when BTX comes out I'm building a completely new system and using the 1 I have at the moment as a backup

Hopefully this 2.4 Ghz AMD 2500+ based system will still play a few games in at least 2 years time, if not I could always us it for messing with linux

Lee

[Allen]

(BTW - look a disagreement between forums members and you're not involved )

Well, I think CPU and PSU are a definate need. Perhaps a new HDD could be got for more space, might even be able to sell one of my 40GBers on eBay for a few quid... Can't use both at the moment, PSU isn't powerful enough!

Really don't wanna spend too much, so a case is not a necessity, but it could help with cooling and quietness as mine is too loud and hot at the moment. (most of the noise is created by the CPU, everything else is pretty quiet, I think... can't hear it over the PSU anyway!)

[BEANFro Elite]

malfunction makes a good point, added to that, most psu's that claim to be 550w usually aren't unless they're made by antec or other big names and these could cost upto £80, but personally i'd get the ordinary barton, looking at your specs the cpu is probably the only thing holding it back (if any), or save your money till the next pay day and get a faster/ stronger/ better graphics card preferably this one...

Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB DDR TV-Out/DVI - Lite Retail from...
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal...ics_cards.html

[Allen]

I like my graphics card at the moment, it does me well in everything (could use a bit more power in LO:MAC though!). Same power as a 9800SE iirc and it o/c's quite well. Have it over 550/350 I know.

[malfunction]

For what it's worth the 450W CWT I have is happily powering:

A7N8X Deluxe
XP1700+ (usually @ 2100MHz / 1.75V)
512MB PC3200 / DDR 400 (single stick - used to have 1GB but I gave away the 512MB stick!)
Radeon 9600 (non-Pro - running @ 475MHz core, 275MHz mem)
2 x 80GB WD JBs
1 x CDRW
1 x DVD
1 x FDD
5 x 80mm fans

[Swafe]

get a new cpu - both will overclock to xp3200 or more, slightly improvement from your 1.4

if i was you id sell your 40gb ( might get say 30-35 for it) then get a 120gb as there stupidly low now like 55 quid, cheap upgrade probably cost u 20 more ontop of your 40 after pnp

[malfunction]

And don't forget you should get about £20-25 for your old CPU too

[Allen]

£20-25 for a 1.4GHz?? Surely not...

Oh wait, you meant on eBay!

Was thinking of keeping me old stuff and building a HTPC. Already have a m-ATX case, 40GB HDD, 2nd DVD-ROM think I just need a case for it now.

[malfunction]

Yes I was thinking of inflated prices. Round here I reckon someone would give you £15 for it.

[Allen]

Just phoned CPU City, they currently have the AQZFA wk 40 chips and say they got 2.6GHz out of the easy on air.....

So tempting!!!

[The Fishmeister]

Just phoned CPU City, they currently have the AQZFA wk 40 chips and say they got 2.6GHz out of the easy on air.....

So tempting!!!

Hey Big Al, I recently u/g to an Xp2600 Barton from a Athlon 1.2......even a newb like me got very excited at the difference and...... I'm not pushing it yet to obscene o/c levels like most others I see are!

Do it m8! Its what paydays are for.

Fishmeister.

[Allen]

Think I'm gonna go for the normal Barton 2500+ for £54.05 and the CWT for £34.65, bills are flooding out of my arse!

Plus the g/f will moan when I can't take her out this weekend...

:edit: Also, I already have some Coolermaster thermal paste, would getting Arctic Silver make much of a difference?