Looking to upgrade current PC - Playing with a few options

[Behemoth]

I found out today how much my bonus will be from work for this month, while its not a big payout, it's enough to make me think more seriously at upgrading my current PC. The only thing I'm not happy with in it at the moment is the useless Asus M2N SLi board I've got.

What I don't need, graphics card which is a 4850 1 Gig. I don't need any hard drives or optical drives, neither do I need a case or PSU. I've got a 500 wat OCZ stealth stream supply and an Antec 300 case, that said I do find the location of the PSU rather annoying. Neither do I need an operating system, keyboard, mouse or monitor.

What I'd like is to keep the budget in the realms of £200 or so, don't really want to go over that if I can help it. if I do have to go DDR3 then minimum I'll want is 4 gig, I looked at prices the other night and thought ouch ! Would be nice if I could use my existing DDR2 but doubt thats possible. If so then I can just sell what I've got and that will go towards the cost of the upgrade should I decided to go ahead.

I think that going Intel S775 is a bad idea, so really looking at staying with AMD, Core I5 is a bit out of my reach I feel.

I may not go ahead with this, it's just an idea. Failing that I shall be buying a motherboard off Gamersaregood and will carry on using my X2 5600 and DDR2 ram.

[Ulti]

To be honest, your system seems pretty good really. Sure it won't get over 20k in 3DMark06 but it should be able to do most things pretty well, gaming for one.

Within the £200, the best thing would be to get a Phenom II 955 or something along those lines. However, I'm pretty sure you're motherboard is an AM2 board and thus will only support AM2+ at most and not AM3.

If you get a AM3 board that would require DDR3 RAM which cannot be fitted in your budget along with a decent processor. You COULD get an AMD770 AM3 board and risk it with a Phenom II 550 and try to unlock to a quad core but that is pretty pushing it as it's around £70 for the CPU, £80 for some RAM which would leave £50 for the motherboard - doable but buying a processor for the sole purpose of unlocking might leave you disappointed if it doesn't work as planned.

Bottomline: If you have an AM2+ board, you can get a quad core Phenom II. You could also risk it by trying to unlock a Phenom II 550. But at the end, it doesn't really seem you need an upgrade.

[scaryjim]

I'd go with a Phenom II X4 940 coupled with either a Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 or an ASRock A790GXH/128M. Both combinations will give you change from £200, and be a pretty significant boost over your existing Athlon X2 / M2N combo...

[Ulti]

Well if he went for a Phenom II X4 940, it'd work on his current mobo so no need to buy a new one. There might be a slight performance loss running it on an AM2 board but I'm not too sure.

[12GaugeShotty]

If you are going to buy a new CPU and motherboard why not go with a Core i5?

[Ulti]

Because he has a £200 budget, i5 750 is around £140 alone. Sure he could also fit in the cheapest motherboard but what about the RAM?

[Behemoth]

Hmm well it looks like I'll get that motherboard off gamersaregood then. If I'm not going to see much of an improvement it's not worth spending out all that money for very little gain.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This is what I would look at getting:

Phenom II X4 955BE ~ £121

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

Asus M3A78-T ~ £59

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

DFI JR 790GX-M2RS ~ £65

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

TBH,even if you don't get a Phenom II X4 the Asus M3A78-T is a fantastic motherboard for the price!!

[Behemoth]

Thanks Cat, at those prices I am tempted, but I've just been reminded by my Dad that my car needs a new exhaust system, and after that I notice from my service records I'm due a cambelt change aswell, so any plans of an upgrade will have to be put on the back burner

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thanks Cat, at those prices I am tempted, but I've just been reminded by my Dad that my car needs a new exhaust system, and after that I notice from my service records I'm due a cambelt change aswell, so any plans of an upgrade will have to be put on the back burner

I would probably look to get at least the Asus M3A78-T as it is an excellent motherboard for the price. IIRC it was around £100 when it came out and has excellent reviews too:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/758/1/

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Asus_M3A78-T

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid...e=expert&pid=1

[Pob255]

Yes the Asus M3A78-T would be a nice board to get, 790GX & SB750 gives you good scope for overclocking and performance.
The DFI JR 790GX-M2RS is the same 790GX & SB750 combo, but in an mATX format

You can keep the Athlon x2 5600 for now as that will still work in ether board, so you could get phenon II or athlon II later on.

[Behemoth]

Just had a eord with a friend who owes me some cash, he's agreed to buy the Asus for me