£200 upgrade budget

[streetster]

Hey guys,

I'm fed up of my shuttle and its issues with my 3700+, so I want to get a new motherboard, and new graphics card (to replace my pathetic 6600gt)...

I've set a budget of £200, but thats due to me being about to put a load of crap on ebay to sell to fund the upgrade - if i can sell the sn95g5 chassis then the budget might increase..


but basically, I've been out of the loop for a while, I dont want to go the am2/conroe route If ive got a gig of pc3200, is that going to be compatible with s939 motherboards? or are they all DDR2?


any ideas people

[kalniel]

pc3200 is perfect for all s939 motherboards.

To be honest I'd suggest an ASRock dual sata 939 (~35 quid) and either a 7600GT to leave you with cash left over for a case, or if you can get another 20 quid from the chassis then a 7900GT (~185 quid).

[Noni]

Save up more and wait. Wait for conroe to get into swing and then look at your choices. S939 prices will crash soon so if I was you I would wait.

[ajones]

Have to agree with Noni. Even though you don't want to go Conroe/AM2 route, wait for them to become mainstream and you'll benefit from their impact on the rest of the market.

[kalniel]

But he's already got a nice CPU.. are you suggesting he just stops using his computer and then upgrades everything come september?

[streetster]

guys, all i want to do is get a s939 motherboard and some kind of pci-e graphics card, i already have everything else, case/psu/ram/hdd/dvd/monitor/etc its just those two bits of kit i need

I've got a p4 system which im going to strip apart and sell (and use the lovely Black widow case for my 'new' system), and i've got the sn95g5 chassis that i am hoping to sell aswell

[Clunk]

ive got an almost new Asrock 939 Dual motherboard for sale...bargain

[Noni]

An AsRock Dual Sata paired with a 7600GT/7800GT/7900GT will do you fine mate.

[streetster]

best get ebaying then methinks hows the AsRock on the overclocking front? is it worth getting an sli-capable board for a bit of future proofing?

[Noni]

Not really, SLI is only worth it on high resolutions (1600x1200 and up).

The AsRock and ABIT boards are good value. Overclocking they arent the best but they do thier job.

If you want to go overclocking look out for a DFI Ultra D.

Good luck.

Also check out the ForSale forums here, massive bargains to be found.

[MSIC]

I have the ASRock board with a 7600GT.
The board is generally fine, although I have had to seriously knock back my overclocks to prevent random reboots (i'm confident that it's neither my CPU nor RAM at fault - i'm blaming the motherboard), which is a shame as I now run my Opteron at 2.45 Ghz rather than 2.7 Ghz.
The 7600GT however is excellent. You want to look to be paying not much over £120 for one.

[streetster]

do you think the £60 price difference between the 7600gt and the 7900gt isn't worth it then? I'd like to get a board with some overclocking options, i'm fairly limited with my shuttle atm...

[NightshadowUK]

I'd recommend Abit (e.g. KN8 Ultra), they overclock really well.

[MSIC]

do you think the £60 price difference between the 7600gt and the 7900gt isn't worth it then? I'd like to get a board with some overclocking options, i'm fairly limited with my shuttle atm...

I personally wouldn't blow the budget on a graphics card alone.
The 7600GT does the job nicely in my book. I play every game at 1680 x 1050, and only ES:Oblivion has to be set on lower graphics options (and even then low to middle, with HDR and far-off lands on full).