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Thread: Recommendations for upgrade

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    Recommendations for upgrade

    Having been out of the custom build for some time, I'm just waaaay out of date on techs, so would appreciate some guidance.

    the PC in question is for my old man. Currently, he has:
    Abit KN9 SLI mobo
    2x dual head PCIe graphics cards
    2GB DDR2 RAM
    AMD X2 3800+ (I think). Essentially, running at 2GHz

    He's running a retail version of W7 HP, so would be re-using that if the hardware were to change.

    His current set up has started to become tempremental. Just the other day, it looks like all of the USB ports on the rear connectors have died (although some are still producing 5V power), and one of the USB headers connected to a rear plate seems to have died too.

    So he only has the second of the three USB headers working (connected to a dual USB port on the front of the case).

    He's about to try the third USB header to see if that works, but my guess is it's the controller on its way out. He definately needs more than one USB header / two USB ports, and I'm not too keen on daisy chaning lots of devices via hubs.

    So, short term solution, pick up a PCI USB2 controller card. £12 will give him 3/4 USB ports to play with.

    However, it might just be time to upgrade the entire system. He doesn't need a good games platform, but does a fair amount of audio transcoding as he's a DJ. Graphics don't need to be good at 3D - we'd be re-using the existing two cards. But having an SLI mobo is good as it allows him to have four monitors should he need to.

    Question is, is it worth getting another AM2 mobo, or upgrade to AM3. Are AM2 processors backwards compatible on AM3 mobos? (sorry for newbie question), etc. Or should we ditch everything and start again from scratch. Value for money is important and don't want to spend too much, but want something pretty zippy for multitasking office stuff + odd CPU intensive transcoding task.

    What would you suggest?

    Cheers

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    Re: Recommendations for upgrade

    Quote Originally Posted by tfboy View Post
    Question is, is it worth getting another AM2 mobo, or upgrade to AM3. Are AM2 processors backwards compatible on AM3 mobos? (sorry for newbie question), etc. Or should we ditch everything and start again from scratch.
    Nope, but AM3 chips are backwards compatible with AM2 and AM2+ boards* (AM3 chips have both DDR2 and DDR3 controllers on die, so can use either variety of memory).

    Value for money is important and don't want to spend too much, but want something pretty zippy for multitasking office stuff + odd CPU intensive transcoding task.
    At the moment, AMD are all about value in the low to mid range with their very top end breaking even (depending on what the ask is) with the bottom of Intel's top end selection - but for a lot less money. The £160 1055T (hex-core) may well work in the existing board*, but you could get a more modern AMD 7 or 8 series GX motherboard (you can get AM2+ 7xxGX boards, so you could re-use his existing RAM) which has an on-board ATI 4200, which is fairly beefy for regular desktop work and makes triple screening fairly easy.

    * May need a BIOS update to work, but as it's Abit that's probably unlikely to happen.


    tl;dr

    If you want to keep it as cheap as possible, AM2 (or AM2+) board + new AM3 chip + existing RAM == winrar.

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    Re: Recommendations for upgrade

    Just a quick note I believe that AM3 cpus are only backwards compatable with AM2+ and are not compatable with AM2. If you search around im sure theres some AM3 mobos that take DDR2 instead of DDR3 RAM allowing you to reuse ur old ram.

    Heres a couple of AM3 mobos with DDR2. They are the only ones scan does form what I can see.
    http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-ATX

    http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...-Micro-ATX-VGA

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

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    Re: Recommendations for upgrade

    Thanks guys.

    Makes sense

    I'll have a look, but as he only has I think 1GB DDR2 RAM, it's probably not worth trying to reuse it.

    Incidentally, after some experimenting, it looks like his USB ports have come back to life after W7 decided it needed to reinstall drivers ?? So the upgrade may not be as urgent as I thought. But will keep the options open in any case.

    Cheers,
    Xav

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    Re: Recommendations for upgrade

    if you fancy going AMD hex-core and want to keep SLI capability then you really need to be looking at one of these:

    ASUS nForce 750 SLI (AM3 / DDR3) - £76
    ASUS nForce 980 SLI (AM3 / DDR3) - £100

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    Re: Recommendations for upgrade

    Having said that, I don't see why he needs SLI.

    You can get four monitors through a variety of ways: two nVidia cards, one nVidia card plus one ATI card, two ATI cards, or one ATI card with EyeFinity. SLI doesn't even come into the equation, since that's about combining the power of multiple cards to drive one display.

    If he's using D-SUB at the moment (or doesn't mind using it versus digital) then a Radeon 5450 plus onboard graphics would power 4 monitors, or equally stick with the current cards.
    Last edited by jim; 28-06-2010 at 09:16 AM.

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    Re: Recommendations for upgrade

    Quote Originally Posted by Cheapy View Post
    Just a quick note I believe that AM3 cpus are only backwards compatable with AM2+ and are not compatable with AM2. If you search around im sure theres some AM3 mobos that take DDR2 instead of DDR3 RAM allowing you to reuse ur old ram.
    Nope, it depends on the mobo manufacturer and whether or not they are willing to create an updated BIOS to support it. My old man has an AM2 board which supports AM3 chips (although not the newest ones - but at least up to a 720BE).

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    Re: Recommendations for upgrade

    The only reason I mentioned SLI was to get the two PCIe 16x slots. If there are cards out there that only require 1x PCIe lane (are there any), then I suppose any recent mobo will do?

    Happy for a non SLI mobo as long as I can plug in two graphics cards or maybe just one card but still use the onboard GPU if the mobo provides one.

    I'd prefer to stick to DVI - screens are 1600x1200 or more

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    Re: Recommendations for upgrade

    Quote Originally Posted by tfboy View Post
    The only reason I mentioned SLI was to get the two PCIe 16x slots. If there are cards out there that only require 1x PCIe lane (are there any), then I suppose any recent mobo will do?

    Happy for a non SLI mobo as long as I can plug in two graphics cards or maybe just one card but still use the onboard GPU if the mobo provides one.

    I'd prefer to stick to DVI - screens are 1600x1200 or more
    You don't need an SLI mobo for multiple graphics card slots - that's what I'm getting at.

    They're not the same thing at all.

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    Re: Recommendations for upgrade

    No need to be snooty, Jim

    How are dual 16x PCIe capable mobos called if they're not SLI or crossfire? Are there motherboards with two 16x PCIe slots that aren't SLI (or crossfire or whatever other "bonding" technology)?


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    Re: Recommendations for upgrade

    Quote Originally Posted by .walls View Post
    Nope, it depends on the mobo manufacturer and whether or not they are willing to create an updated BIOS to support it. My old man has an AM2 board which supports AM3 chips (although not the newest ones - but at least up to a 720BE).
    Oh right didnt know that.

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    Re: Recommendations for upgrade

    Quote Originally Posted by tfboy View Post
    No need to be snooty, Jim

    How are dual 16x PCIe capable mobos called if they're not SLI or crossfire? Are there motherboards with two 16x PCIe slots that aren't SLI (or crossfire or whatever other "bonding" technology)?

    I'm only trying to save you money

    Well, first off, SLI motherboards have SLI chips in them. There are a lot of boards out there that will do Crossfire, but not SLI - because they don't have the nVidia chip. Mine is one of them, afaik. As a result, if you want an SLI board, you'll end up with an nVidia board rather than an Intel or AMD board - which is what scaryjim was linking you to.

    Then you've also got to consider that you only need 16x PCIe for top-end gaming graphics - and even then 16x isn't always a necessity. If we're not talking about maximum gaming FPS, then you don't need the full 16x, or even 8x - but if a board has one 16x slot and the rest at 4x or 1x, the board probably won't be marketed as an SLI/Crossfire solution.

    SLI and Crossfire are designed to get two cards working in tandem to produce high FPS on one single screen. If you want multiple graphics cards running multiple screens, then that technology isn't required. In fact, there's nothing to stop you using PCI graphics cards in PCI slots (i.e. ancient stuff) if all you want is more monitors.

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    Re: Recommendations for upgrade

    If you're just after an AM2 motherboard with 2 PCIe x16 slots you probably want this Sapphire, based on AMDs 770 chipset.

    AM2 motherboards are getting increasingly hard to find at retail though... AM3 is very much becoming dominant...

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    Re: Recommendations for upgrade

    Thanks both Jims

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