advice on upgrade

[Russ]

hiya lads and ladies.

at the moment, i have opteron 146 @2.8/9, 1gb of OCZ Performance that are worth keeping.

but im still on agp with a 9800AIW (soft modded to pro), now for as close to £250 as possible, i'd like to move to pci-e. but, with vista on the horizon, i'd like something slightly future proof aswell, can anybody recomend what to go for. will need new mobo,gfx and maybe PSU (mine doesnt support sli for sure, but not sure how xfire is powered).

thanks
Russ

[markspeed]

With only £250 to spend, a new motherboard, graphics card and power supply is asking alot but its not impossible.

Do you use your computer for gaming or anything that requires alot from the graphics card?

[Russ]

yeah, i play a lot of bf2/prey i dont mind going over, but nothing to much

[sawyen]

Well.. how about Asus A8N SLI Premium for £75+

then save the rest for a 7900GT?

[nichomach]

I've got on very well with the Abit KN8 SLi, £65 and free delivery. Are you really likely to go SLi? If so, then obviously you're going to be going green on the graphics front. A bog stock Leadtek 7900GT will set you back about £162. That'd only give you about £23 to play with on the PSU front, however, and that ain't much. How about THIS. Bit over, but not much.

[Russ]

I've got on very well with the Abit KN8 SLi, £65 and free delivery. Are you really likely to go SLi? If so, then obviously you're going to be going green on the graphics front. A bog stock Leadtek 7900GT will set you back about £162. That'd only give you about £23 to play with on the PSU front, however, and that ain't much. How about THIS. Bit over, but not much.

sounds good, how will this stand up against DX10 and vista though

[nichomach]

Well, DX10 will largely be a matter of the GPU for gaming, so I can't see the mobo being an issue. As far as the GPU goes, if you're buying ANY GPU now, then you have to factor in that it doesn't support DX10. That said, firstly you can hunt round ebay for a second 7900GT if you find you're underpowered, in the second I'm queasy about the projected power draw for first run DX10 cards anyway (they're talking about the GPU alone drawing between 110-300 watts FFS), so I'd stick on a DX9 part until sanity reasserts itself, and in the third I wouldn't buy a first run DX10 part in the first place until they've got the bugs ironed out - and you just KNOW there are going to be bugs, right? As far as storage goes, Vista's instant/rapid boot would depend on your hard disk having flash memory integrated or there being an add-in flash drive in the system. Samsung have already announced an "instant-on" supporting 4GB flash disk anyway, so you could go that way for an easy upgrade (it's either SATA or PATA, can't remember which).

[Supershanks]

i'm in pretty much same boat am upgrading monitor & thought i'd go 4 a x1900xt which is about best bang/£ atm. Have decided 2 go ahead after seeing DirectX 9.0L comes with dx10 & vista & will allow u to run pre vista cards I found this useful Vista &Directx 10

hope this helps
luck

[nichomach]

If SLi isn't an issue, I'd concur with that.

[Russ]

so you reckon im just better off hanging on till i have more money to waste and dx10/vista is out?

[Supershanks]

I'm saying i'm going ahead with a non dx10 card & not waiting for vista.
Reasoning:-
1) Not going to adopt vista on launch - whilst vista has been reasonably well tested there are always some issues that arise & bite u in the bum, as an early adopter, i'll give it 6~12m b4 adoption, next years main spend is early going on conroe.
2) Games have 2 be written with dx10 in mind, clearly many in pipeline now will be dx10 capable, but your old favourites won't benefit. There may be more glitches as the new dx10 games come on line with the new cards etc.,
2) When DX9 or whatever came out there was supposed to be a great leap forward in gfx performance , actual outturn - this took a while to happen.
3) expect a premium on new dx10 cards (maybe even shortages) buying x1900xt say seems pretty good value now will probably be even better in next 2 months.
4) even finally going vista still gives DirectX 9.0L to get the last few months out of the old x1900XT

Probably overiding the above is how much you game, i'm not a massive gamer so I can reason as i have, it's really up 2 u what u do.

luck

[Russ]

i do love gaming, and its becoming a chore rather than a pleasure tbh. will i need a new psu with a x1900xt?

[Supershanks]

What psu u using now can't see it in your system specs. x1900xt uses most juice but odds are that any dx10 capable card will do the same. Power Consumption and Noise Level of Contemporary Graphics Cards article shows power 4 most groups of cards.divide the watts by 12 to get the 12v amps. you can check the amps shown on the side of your psu to see wwhats 12v u pull.
Roughly :-
100% of cpu = 12v
100% Gfx card = 12v
100% fans = 12v

[Russ]

i have 500w atm so not a problem, i just wondered if it works of a "floppy" power lead or another sort

[Supershanks]

i just wondered if it works of a "floppy" power lead or another sort

U mean gfx card. Cards > 6600/7600 usually have a pci-e power plug which connects 2 PCI Express Connecters 2nd & 3rd from left Total watts mean squat it's the amps on the 12v that matters, most forums suggest a minimum of 28A 12v to run an overclocked cpu & hi end gfx card.

luck

[unrealhippie]

Remember not all PSU's are worth their rating. Just because it says 500w doesnt mean it is, your best buying a quality PSU, I recommend Hiper Performance PSU's if your on a budget, OCZ if you just need the sleek looks

I'd say dont buy a SLI motherboard, get a NF4 board like the DFI Ultra-D or an ASUS non-sli one to save cash, then for GPU - x1900xt or 7900gt!