£300 upgrade advice

[-iceblade^]

sorry to do this so soon after the last time but by the looks of it my budget has increased to £300

what can i do to make this system be better whilst getting as much bang for my buck as possible? i game, and have read many posts saying dual is better than quad in that aspect, but would an E8400 at 3.6ghz be noticeably better than my E8400 at gaming??? i would like to get more ram, and also another card for CrossfireX if possible

also, i've decided to RMA my mobo, and if i can, get a P5Q Pro instead.

[crazyfool]

as people will tell you on here most games dont have a performance increase after they hit 2.4ghz so in which case a q6600 would be better bang for buck... as for a gpu at gtx260 or a 4850 would be the best for 1650 x 1050 gaming... theres your 300 quid spent then

[-iceblade^]

I already have a 4850, i forgot to mention.

[matty-hodgson]

faster HD(s)?
more RAM?
another 4850?

you could probably fit all of that into your £300 budget

[SiM]

4GB Ram
24 inch monitor

[Webby]

To your CPU question I would not be upgrading from an E2*** at 3GHz to another duel core the gains would be negligible. If you really wanted to upgrade CPU I would be looking at the E5200, you will definetly see bigger gains spending the money on graphics grunt.

So assuming you can RMA your board and can get an identical replacement then I would be tepted to sell the board when you get it back and add that money to your £300 with that you could buy an X38 or X48 motherboard (perhaps the DFI DK X38-TS2R £105 on Scan) add in 2x 4850's for £200 - £260. That may require a new PSU as well so perhaps a new board P5Q-Pro (~£90) and a 4870 1GB or a GTX260.

You mention wanting more RAM potentially do you run Vista 64 or are you running a 32 bit OS? If your still on 32 bit then remember a 1GB graphics card will reduce the maximum addressible system memory to ~2.75GB. So if you plan to crossfire 2x 1GB 4850's then you better be on a 64 bit OS and if you have a 1GB card the extra RAM will be of dubious value £30 for 0.75GB poor value.

[-iceblade^]

4GB Ram
24 inch monitor

I would like the 4gb ram, but the 24" monitor is overkill, i think, lol. Mostly i want improved performance, and i heard that the 4850 isn't that great at that res...

faster HD(s)?
more RAM?
another 4850?

you could probably fit all of that into your £300 budget

good calls. I dont need more space, though...

To your CPU question I would not be upgrading from an E2*** at 3GHz to another duel core the gains would be negligible. If you really wanted to upgrade CPU I would be looking at the E5200, you will definetly see bigger gains spending the money on graphics grunt.

So assuming you can RMA your board and can get an identical replacement then I would be tepted to sell the board when you get it back and add that money to your £300 with that you could buy an X38 or X48 motherboard (perhaps the DFI DK X38-TS2R £105 on Scan) add in 2x 4850's for £200 - £260. That may require a new PSU as well so perhaps a new board P5Q-Pro (~£90) and a 4870 1GB or a GTX260.

You mention wanting more RAM potentially do you run Vista 64 or are you running a 32 bit OS? If your still on 32 bit then remember a 1GB graphics card will reduce the maximum addressible system memory to ~2.75GB. So if you plan to crossfire 2x 1GB 4850's then you better be on a 64 bit OS and if you have a 1GB card the extra RAM will be of dubious value £30 for 0.75GB poor value.

Great advice, and by the looks of it, what a fantastic board so you suggest leaving the CPU as it is, then? I'm using Vista 64-bit, yes, and as i already have a 512mb 4850, i was thinking of just getting another, and a better PSU such as a Corsair of some sort .

[Webby]

Oh missed that you already had a 4850 that makes it easy then

DFI DK X38-TS2R £105
4850 £100-£130 get the same as whatever you have already (at least in terms of memory and clock speeds)
4GB of Ram DDR2-800 £50 and sell your current 2GB or buy another 2GB for £30
Corsair 620W will be more than enough £85 or you could get away with a HX520 £68 or a Enermax Modu82 525W £75 if modular is not important then a Corsair TX650 £65 or VX550 £58

With the sale of your old board you should have enough funds to cover it