You know your Comp needs an upgrade when the cheapest is still better

I'm currently rolling on an aging system which I built quite a few years ago.

AMD Athlon 64 3000 @ 2.2 ghz (skt 939)
2gb of DDR1 RAM
Radeon x1950pro
etc etc etc

Anyways, I'm off to uni this september and I've been thinking about building a Desktop PC (i'll have a laptop with me as well).

I'm not interested in playing Crysis or boring generic power hungry FPS games, the only game I wouldn't mind playing is STALKER Clear Sky and maybe UT3. (i hope i'm not being too hypocritical).

Anyways, I saw in the bargains section the Geforce 8800GTS 320mb for £62 HERE so that seems like a pretty good start. Cheaper the better for me really.

I was wondering if you guys could give me some advice on other parts. I've been out this game for too long and last time I checked, the current Intel processors (the E21xx chips) seem pretty average until you overclock them in which case they far exceed the Athlon processors even on Air cooling. Some parts I won't need like a DVD drive and possibly a Hard Drive although a new case and PSU is probably recommended (unless an X-pro 460watt powersupply is stilll considered good).

Thanks guys.

Any E7000 or E8000 would do I think, probably the E7200 or E8400 are best buys (depends on overclocking or not) also the Q6600 is a good one if you want a Quad core...
As you don't need any extreme gaming rig, that card looks fine, but I think you could better get the 8800 Ultra, which would be more than enough for your needs, I think, or go for the newer series, 9600 or 9800 if you wish to spend a bit more, if not stick to the 8800 which is a fine card.
I would advise you to get a new PSU though, a Corsair tbh, a 450W to 550W should be more than enough. (Corsair TX and HX series)

I don't know howmuch you want to spend on a new case, but I'm getting the Antec Three Hundred case, which is a cheap one but should do the trick either way, there's another case, which I forgot the name from, but I'm sure staffsMike can tell you all about that one xD

What is your budget mate?

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Originally Posted by ackrite26

What is your budget mate?

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To be perfectly honest, the cheaper the better, I remember my friends last year built pretty nice computers for around £400-450 so I guess that's probably the most I'm willing to spend.

Considering I'll probably be recycling a DVD drive and Hard Drive, I'd expect it to be a little lower.

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Originally Posted by NovaSphere

Any E7000 or E8000 would do I think, probably the E7200 or E8400 are best buys (depends on overclocking or not) also the Q6600 is a good one if you want a Quad core...
As you don't need any extreme gaming rig, that card looks fine, but I think you could better get the 8800 Ultra, which would be more than enough for your needs, I think, or go for the newer series, 9600 or 9800 if you wish to spend a bit more, if not stick to the 8800 which is a fine card.
I would advise you to get a new PSU though, a Corsair tbh, a 450W to 550W should be more than enough. (Corsair TX and HX series)

I don't know howmuch you want to spend on a new case, but I'm getting the Antec Three Hundred case, which is a cheap one but should do the trick either way, there's another case, which I forgot the name from, but I'm sure staffsMike can tell you all about that one xD

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Thanks a lot for the suggestions. What about the E2xxx? Are they not particularly good? (I ask because they're cheaper haha). Q6600 is tempting since a Quad Core would definately be nice but not necessary per se.
What RAM would you suggest coupling with these? (Could you or someone perhaps suggest non overclocking RAM (I'm not familiar with what speed processor's require at the moment) and overclocking RAM).

Thanks for the help guys.

I specced this up from Ebuyer with the free Supersaver postage option:

Zotac 8800GT 512MB DDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card £74.84

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair) Retail Boxed Processor £116.73

OCZ 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 CL 4-4-4-15 PLATINUM XTC with LIFETIME WARRANTY £30.08

MSI P35 Neo-F Socket 775 FSB1333 onboard 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard £48.12

Coolermaster Elite 330 Black Mid Tower Case - No PSU £29.99

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium -SP1- Licence and media - 1 PC - OEM - DVD - 32-bit - English £65.55

Seasonic S12 II 430W PSU - 12cm Fan 80Plus Efficiency £44.64

Total: £409.95

You could probably replace the Seasonic PSU with a Corsair VX450W if you want something a bit more powerful though.

The 8800GT is a faster card than the 8800GTS 320mb though! The 8800GTS 320mb and 640mb are G80 cards with 96 shaders whereas the 8800GT and 8800GTS 512mb are G92 cards with 112 and 128 shaders so are faster!

is the q6600 not £113.16 on ebuyer?:confused:

For RAM, find some PC-6400 in whatever quantities you need, and make sure it's DDR2 not DDR3.
Anything above 6400 is overclocking, and DDR3 is a total waste of money at the moment (next to no performance gain, for about £200 extra.)

I've seen some people running better quality systems on the same RAM I've got (in my £350 computer.) That'll be this RAM at about £30-40. I got mine for £20 on Today Only, so if you check there frequently and don't mind buying in bits over the next few weeks you can probably get a better computer for the same price.

Not now is seems!:surprised:

Don't get an MSI motherboard, they tend to suck ass xD

I looked some stuff up at Scan, this is what I would get; (I've ordered my own stuff this week, for my new PC aswell ;p)

Motherboard: Asus P5Q Pro ~ £84
Proccesor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 ~ £112
PSU: Corsair HX 520W ~ £67
Graphic Card: XFX 8800GT ~ £83
Memory: Corsair 2x2GB, 4-4-4-12 RAM ~ £67
Case: Antec Three Hundred ~ £36

Total price would sum up; ~ £449

You would have an ok computer, some money to spare if you want some other stuff (maybe a newer graphic card or a new HDD), I made it 4GB of RAM straight away, with low latency, since it's cheap anyway and it's the same as the one I'm getting ;P

This build is exactly the same as mine, difference is only in the Graphic Card (I'm getting the GTX260) and I'm also getting a new HDD (my old is IDE, I wanted a SATA) so I went for the WD6400AAKS which is a 640GB HDD at the cost of ~ £52

If you want some newer graphic card, and are willing to pay the extra, I would go for the Gainward HD4850 512MB which costs ~ £120, which is a great card (my personal favor goes for Nvidia though, but the new ATI series are really good) this way you will have one of the latest graphic cards, and imo a fine PC at a total cost of ~ £486 (if you take the HD4850 instead of the 8800GT)

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Originally Posted by morda8

is the q6600 not £113.16 on ebuyer?:confused:

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somewhere like ebuyer is hard to track on price they change alot based on stock levels etc.

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Originally Posted by NovaSphere

Don't get an MSI motherboard, they tend to suck ass xD

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People I know who have them seem to have no problems. The last one I had seem totally fine for the few years I had it.

This Gigabyte P35 board is probably better though and only costs a bit more:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/141600

Sorry about the late reply.

Thank you very much for all the suggestions, they've been helpful.

Here's a nice cliched question for you now unfortunately.

"Is it really worth going quad core"?

Cheers

Ive been wading through the forums and comparison websites about that question few weeks ago. Basic summary quad would be:
1) gaming - little marginal difference, but you pay for what you get, most games not written specifically for quad
2) multi applications and graphics design, encoding etc - well worth the extra cash for quad
3) whatever you get make sure you choose one that can overclock, certain ones overclock better in each range

you know your computer needs an upgrade when its all in latin

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Originally Posted by Phalanx

"Is it really worth going quad core"?

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For gaming? No
For multitasking / graphic design or what so ever? Yes
For future proof? Questionable... hence Quad probably seems to be the better guess, but when that 'future' comes, there will be way better and much more powerfull CPU's out there, so I'd say better look at the present at this one =p