upgrade time - out of touch

[Rack]

Hi Everyone

It's upgrade time for my PC, and I really need some advice as I havent been keeping up to date.

I currently have a socket 775 machine in a silverstone Sugo case (mAtx), and I want to upgrade my graphics and CPU - gfx is a 4830 and CPU is a 4300 Core2Duo. I have 2G of RAM

Motherboard is a Gigabyte G33 DS2R

What I'm not sure about is:
should I go for a complete upgrade and move to i5, or get an 8-series CPU on 775 and 4G of DDR2 800 ram??

I'm running Windows 7 64bit.

What graphics cards will be a noticeable upgrade from the 4830? And will fit in my case?

Cheers,
Simon

[Rack]

Note: what has triggered my need for an upgrade? I have just bought a 25" monitor, and I'd like to be able to play some of the latest games at a decent res (it's 1920x1080 native)

[circuitmonkey]

to play at that resolution you'd probably be looking at a min of a GTX 260 or 5830
with those graphics cards your current system will most likely be a big bottle neck
might be time for a system refresh and a step upto an i5 system which would last you a bit longer then just upgrading the cpu and memory

[Phage]

Agreed. i5 750 or even i7 860 with 4Gb RAM and a 5850.

[Rack]

Cool, I'll look into prices

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Phenom II X6 is coming out next month so I would not upgrade now. Even you were stick with Intel it should help drive price down of the Core i5 and Core i7 if they perform well.

[Rack]

Any uATX motehrboard recommendations for i5?

Looks like there are lots of P55 uATX boards.

[Rack]

The only price difference appears to be the motherboard cost, which is a little surprising. I thought the 8400 c2d would be cheaper...

[nibbler]

Gigabyte to a UDM/H which is supposedly a monster overclocker.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Make sure you get a motherboard with at least an 8 phase VRM with cooling if you really want to do a large overclock.

Loads of people seem to not fathom why keeping the VRMs on the motherboard cool is important in the long run.

This Asrock looks a good motherboard:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/174565

[nibbler]

Make sure you get a motherboard with at least an 8 phase VRM with cooling if you really want to do a large overclock.

Loads of people seem to not fathom why keeping the VRMs on the motherboard cool is important in the long run.

This Asrock looks a good motherboard:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/174565

Not mATX :/

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Not mATX :/

Oops!!

This mATX motherboard for around £101 has an 8+3 phase VRM with cooling:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190025

This one is even better:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173533

[nibbler]

Get the gigabyte for the parallel sata ports ^^

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Get the gigabyte for the parallel sata ports ^^

Edit!!

You mean the fact the SATA ports are facing the front?

I think the Moose is feeling sleepy!!

[nibbler]

I mean parallel to the pcb