BUDGET build/upgrade advice please ??

Sure it's been asked 000's before but hoping for some buying advice.

OK currently have:
Athlon XP2500 Barton (o/c to 2.2), MSI KT6V mobo, 512Mb PC2700 Twinmos RAM
6800GT AGP, 80 & 160Gb SATA generic 400W PSU. Was thinking of u/g RAM to 1/2Gb anyway and my CPU runs qute hot in summer - systems seems slower than used to be (had it for 2 yrs so done well).
Chieftec BX case, drives, optical, graphics all will transfer.

Opinions please - bear in mind budget requirement - all from one supplier SCAN.
MOBO - ASrock SATA2 as it means I won't have to get new PCIE graphics - mine is fine for what I play (CS/CSS, BF2, COD2 all @ 1024 x 768)
RAM - 2X1GB does'nt need to be performance
CPU - single Athlon 939 3000/3200
PSU - if I need it ...... good quality 500W

LN12194 Asrock AR-939DUAL-SATA2 ULi M1695, S939, AGP / PCI-Express, DDR 400, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £34.50 £40.54

LN10725 AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Socket939 , Venice Core, 2.0GHz , 512KB Cache, Retail £57.32 £67.35

LN9106 2GB (2X1GB) Corsair TwinX DDR, PC3200 (400), 184 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 2-3-3-6 £116.00 £136.30


Thanks in advance PimPsT3R

anyone ??????


colleague may have sock 754 A64 3200 F/S - I know upgrade path will be non-existant but would be cheaper with a NF3 mobo ??

All sounds good to me, get a Hiper Type-R 580w if you have £50 to drop on a top PSU :)

939 is about as cheap tbh, and much more upgradable

I recommend Seasonic psu's. You may get away with the 430.

Edit: can the upgrade wait a month? Just in case AMD prices come down a fair bit when Conroe comes out.

Only change I would make is to get Corsair VS or any other brand name value ram. The normal or performance ram really won't make a worthwhile increase in performance.

Thanks for replies so far .....

amjedm can wait a bit for upgrade - not sure if they'll come down by much more tho.

DarkHorse - I was thinking Corsair VS. You can lock the memeory spedd can't you on A64 and just o/c the processor ??


Maybe I'll go with this A64 sock 754 for the interim with cheap mobo & 1 x 1Gb (will hardly cost me anything at all), then if that is underpowered during the next year for any games I'll do a big upgrade - prob need a new GFX by then anyway.......

cheers:)

It would seem to be a real shame to upgrade CPU, mobo and ram and not be moving on to socket AM2 & DDR2. Can you not wait long enough to save for a 7600GT which should be faster than what you have. Perhaps you can sell your current graphics card?

Change the ram for some bog standard pc3200 and save about £36 espically if you use 754 as single channel is much less picky than daul channel.

My Gigabyte K8NS Pro works really well and my 3200+ overclocks from 2.2 to 2.5 which with my 6800GT keeps me playing for one more year.

Don't go AM2 yet as DDR2 is really expensive wait it out and prices will drop.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by teachmech

Don't go AM2 yet as DDR2 is really expensive wait it out and prices will drop.

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1GB stick of Value Select PC3200 = £57.58
1GB stick of Value Select PC5300 = £54.23

DDR2 is cheaper and no longer slower than DDR, that is why AMD have adopted it.

1Gb stick pc3200 £50.40

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...roductID=97647

Quote:

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Originally Posted by amjedm

I recommend Seasonic psu's. You may get away with the 430.

Edit: can the upgrade wait a month? Just in case AMD prices come down a fair bit when Conroe comes out.

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Agreed. In fact, I pretty much guarantee the 430 will be sufficient. I also agree with the edit too.

Also, don't be expecting too much from the upgrade. I went from an XP2500 o/c @ 2200 on a KT600 with 1GB RAM and a 6800NU to the system on the left which is o/c to 2800. <- Only thing I retained was the case and the 1Gb of RAM.

Sure it's faster and has better quality of gfx, but was it worth the 700 odd notes to do so? On reflection, probably not - the old system was still pretty good even by today's standards (as is yours).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ThePimPsTeR

DarkHorse - I was thinking Corsair VS. You can lock the memeory spedd can't you on A64 and just o/c the processor ??

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Its not locked as such but ram no longer needs to limit overclocking like with athlon xps. With an xp you could use a divider but there was a massive performance hit while with athlon 64 there is none.

As an example if I wanted to run my chip at 2700mhz an easy way to do it would be 300x9 for the processor and then run the memory on a 2/3 divider at 200mhz ie stock.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by teachmech

1Gb stick pc3200 £50.40

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They also have a 1GB stick of DDR2 unbranded PC4200 for £43.71

I was trying to compare like with like, same brand & performance level.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ThePimPsTeR

Was thinking of u/g RAM to 1/2Gb anyway and my CPU runs qute hot in summer - systems seems slower than used to be (had it for 2 yrs so done well).

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This slowing down in performance over time is often due to the Hard Drive.
I had a similar problem, I upgraded to an AMD 64 3000 with more memory but kept the old hard drive. I was very disappointed to see that the computer was still running slow.
However, after I reformatted the drive and installed Windows XP, the computer flew.
So to start with I would try a reformat or purchase a new hard drive and install windows xp fresh.
Then in another 6 months maybe upgrade your whole system.
I think it would be a waste of that good graphics (6800gt) if you were to upgrade everything right now.

Point taken.

valid points there - thanks for that.
I'll see how this A64 processor from mate pans out - may still u/g.

cheers PimPy