Spec me a MB, CPU & mem - with restrictions

[MartynH]

Hey,

I'm not a novice PC builder, but I've also not built a PC for a good 4 years, so was wondering if I can get some advice from you lovely people.

I've got a 4 year old machine which is still alright-ish (spec below) but I'm getting some weird behaviour which I think is the MoBo: The network constantly drops (IM constantly logging out, can't download big files without it bombing half way through) and various progs constantly bomb out (firefox and anything using flash in particular) (I'm a wed dev by trade so no FF or flash makes it tricky!) I've reinstalled XP various times with the same behaviour reappearing.

So...I've decided that it's prob time to upgrade a few bits, namely the MoBo, Ram and CPU. I've got to take in to consideration that I've got an SLi setup and also my case mounts the MoBo upside down (initially got a card with a big built in heatsink and pipe from various chips on the MoBo and it soon fried!)

I don't really mind too much about money; I mainly use it for work but I play a few games too. I'm not too bothered about overclocking, but like bells and whistles to play about with.

Would anyone care to spec me happy?

Current PC Spec:
DFi Lanparty NF4 SLI-DR
AMD 64 X2 4400+
2GB old school Ram
2x7800 GTx
Lian Li PC-V1100
some kinda Audigy sound card
74Gb 10K prm Raptor Boot drive
3*250Gb HDD
1Kw Tagan modular PSU

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A modern graphics card such as HD4850 or 9800GTX+ will be faster than your 7800GTX in SLI. They will also use less power too and 512mb of graphics RAM will also be an improvement in modern games!! I would personally sell both your 7800GTX graphics cards and use the money towards an upgrade. You should be able to get £60+ for both cards on Ebay. Also since your X2 4400+ is a socket 939 processor you will get £70+ on Ebay for it!! Selling your old graphics cards and CPU would pay for a new graphics card.

Regarding an upgrade this is what I would be considering:

1.)A Phenom II X3 720(around £125) or a Phenom II X4 940(around £190).

2.)A 790GX motherboard(around £80 to £125). These are usually crossfire capable.

This Asus 790GX is meant to be quite good:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...A-RAID-ATX-VGA

3.)4gb of DDR2 RAM(around £35 to £50)

4.)An HD4850 or 9800GTX+ which will cost around £110 to £120 or an HD4870 512mb(around £150) or HD4870 1gb(around £170):

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146705

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s....html?NOV-4850

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?ASU-98GTXP

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s....html?POW-4870

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...html?POW-48701

Alternatively two HD4830 cards in crossfire will be very fast too:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s....html?SAP-4830

[Hyperviper34]

Did this for a friend, may help you.... Not SLi but your get more out of a 9800GTX+ than 2 x 7800's.

Mobo - Gigabyte GA-EP43-S3L iP43 Skt 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard £65.18

CPU - Intel C2D E7400,2.80GHz,775(1066FSB)3MB L2 Cache,Retail £99.99

HSF - Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-7P Freezer 7 Pro Socket 775 Processor Cooler £16.29

RAM - Corsair 4GB(2x2GB)DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400,XMS2,Non-ECC,Unbuffered £34.99

GPU - Zotac 9800GTX+ 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out PhysX/Cuda PCI-E Graphics Card £116.95

Test Results -

A straight raise in FSB from 266MHz to 333MHz, the board I used for testing was stable with no voltage increases.

E7400@ 3.5Ghz

3dMark03 - 44,000

3dMark06 - 13,827

CPC BM - 1133 (1325, 1304, 771)

Vista Score - 5.8