Upgrade

[Blackstar]

Righty, at some point in the near future, I'm looking to upgrade my PC. I'll list my current specs below so you lovely people can see if you think there is anything worth keeping. I'll have about ?650 to spend, but I might be able to go a little higher.

Current Specs
2.0GHz P4 Northwood
ATi 9600XT
Creative Sound Blaster Live! Value
1GB DDR 2700 RAM
Can't remember what Mobo but i know that'll have to go anyway
80GB IDE HD
13GB IDE HD
(I'll keep the DVD-ROM and DVD-RW drives)
350W ATX Power supply
Some case which I'd like to keep

I'm thinking that AMD 64 (64/X2/FX) is the way to go, with new mobo, new 1GB DDR400 ram, and possibly a new graphics card too (PCI-E, maybe X800?) and a 250/300GB Sata HD.
I'm a bit out of the loop as far as hardware goes at the moment so I'm hoping you guys can give me some recommendations.

Thanks in advance!

[tuBBymAN]

ASUS A8N-SLi Deluxe - ?100.34
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ - ?198.50
Maxtor SATA 300Gb HDD - ?84.80
Sapphire X800GTO 256Mb GDDR3 - ?113.98
Kingston 1Gb 400Mhz (PC3200) RAM - ?62.88
Antec Truepower 480 480W PSU - ?50.14

Grand Total - ?610.65

Hope you like it :D

[Blackstar]

Thanks for the response tuBBymAN, can always count on ya!

One question, currently is it worth the extra money to get an X2 cpu?

Anyone else think different options?

[tuBBymAN]

well on ebuyer which is where i got my prices they didn't have the X2 listed they had the FX's which were about ?500

[SHimmer45]

Id go for a lower rated cpu and put the saving towards a better gfx if you can as the athlon64 does OC well... it does depend on how much you are saving doing that.

If you only need 1 gfx thn getting an SLI board is not really needed.. (esp if you using an ATI card) it does give an upgrade path tho. But an NFORCE ultra board should give the same performance.

i think OCuk have an offer on the Sapphire X800GTO/GTO2 and the card can be unlocked for release more performance. oh and make sure you get a decent board (Asus all the way for me :D ). Maxtor disks suck go for an WD or Seagate or Hitachi.

The X2 cpus cost a bomb and would blow your budget but would be nice when games etc are written to take advantage of the extra core.
I think AMD are releasing another socket/chip style soon i think (M2 rings a bell no nothing bout it as yet :confused: ).

(hope tht made sense)

[Blackstar]

I was wondering about the SLi board. I'll have a look into that.

As far as the graphics card goes, the GTO does overclock quite well according to various reviews.

The X2 3800+ is only ?30 more than the straight 64 3800+.

[SHimmer45]

Try this if you dont want an Asus board and perhaps want to use SLi and some stage.

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail ?99.95
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 ?64.95
Epox EP-9NPAJ SLi nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard ?67.95
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB ?70.50
XFX GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI ?174.00
Antec TruePower 2.0 550W PSU ?69.95

Total=? 547ish (Ex Vat)

[tuBBymAN]

Epox?! i've never heard of them i would definately stick with ASUS as i have built sooo many systems based on thier barebones or mobo's and they are always top notch quailty

[SHimmer45]

Have faith tubby they are quality boards.. i am a fan of asus boards but always good to have options

[Sc4mpi]

ditch the x800gto, and get the x800gto2 it is only bios locked and can be reflashed to a x850xtpe, i got one downstairs in my dads computer that unlocked fine, highly recommend them

[spazmochad]

overclockers.co.uk

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939)
Reason being that it has a 10x multiplyer which makes overclocking easy, means at 270fsb you'd get a 2.7ghz which is where most chips seem to get to.
?117.44

Epox EP-9NPAJ SLi nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard
Nice motherboard, thier 939 boards seem to overclock well
?79.84

BFG GeForce 7800 GT OC 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
Reasonably priced (imo lol), beast of a card will eat games for as long as your 9600xt has quite easily.
?234.94

Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS3
I'm all for 2gb now, as everyone is proberbly already aware.
?158.57


Ebuyer.com

Hiper 480watt PSU
?45

?635.79 - You'll have to save some more for a hard drive. Nothing wrong with maxtors, a bit loud but great read speeds and price.

[spazmochad]

On second thought flashing the ATI card sounds fun, looks like a bargin. Brings back memories of flashing my 9800 to pro. Ditch the SLI board and get a cheap Nforce 4 ultra like others have said. Still go for the 2gb of ram though :]

[tuBBymAN]

well i say stick with my spec nice and easy and no silly flashing or overclocking required

[spazmochad]

Theres not alot of bargins around at the moment, and having parts to tweak often comes in handy later on when you want the extra performance. A64 overclocking isn't very hard and has great results and flashing a video card bios is a one off thing that doesnt require all that much effort (although I havent seen the details of how high the sucess rate is with this card)

[SGT_Snacks]

well i say stick with my spec nice and easy and no silly flashing or overclocking required

I've seen Sc4mpi's card in action, to save a lot of dosh on the graphics, hell, I'd definitly go for it.

[Sc4mpi]

the shaphire limited edition x800gto2 is the one that has the best mod ratio,it has a 98% pass rate over at xtremesystems and most on overclockers do to. its definatly still work a shot at snapping up a bargin. dint take more that 3 mins to do, and 2 floppy discs and its working fine.

[Blackstar]

Thanks for all the advice guys, i've got some thinking to do, I'll post here when I "think" i've decided on a spec to look into :)

[Blackstar]

After looking into it a bit myself and taking in what you guys have all said here is my current thinking...

Lowestonweb
Viewsonic 19" vx912 TFT - ?257.98

eBuyer
ASUS A8N-E SKT 939 Nforce 4 Mobo - ?64.47
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ - ?229.96
Matrox SATA 300Gb HDD - ?84.80
2x Corsair 512MB DDR400 RAM - ?65.87 (for both)
Antex Truepower 480W PSU - ?50.14

Overclockers
Sapphire Ati X800 GTO2 (will atleast unlock, if not overclock too :)) - ?158.57

Total - ?911.79 (?11.79 over my budget, ?650 for PC, ?250 for monitor)

Comments?

[squid]

you using your old floppy and cd drive and case i take it then?

[Blackstar]

yes, DVD-ROM, DVD-RW, Floppy, Mouse, Keyboard, Case, Speakers being ported

[SHimmer45]

mmmmm 19" tft... brought a 17" viewsonic tft at work and i was well impressed with it

[vale]

i got a 17" tft and my dad has a 21" one both viewsonics, they are very good monitors in my opinion :)

[tuBBymAN]

hmmm i think the save ?60 on the TFT and get the samsung but its your cash

[Blackstar]

Two final questions. I currently have a Sound Blaster Live! (Value) I think it is. Do you recon that's worth keeping or should I use the onboard sound on this (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=95458)mobo that I'm getting?

(Currently I have 4.1 Speakers)


2nd - After reading a could of reviews it seems that for gaming the AMD 64 3800+ performs better than the AMD x2 3800+, so I'm wondering if people think that putting my money into teh AMD 64 4000+ (which has 1mb cache) instead of the AMD X2 3800+ (which has 512k cache)?

THIS (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2484&p=10)seems to support that a AMD 64 4000+ would be better.

Thanks for all the advice all

[tuBBymAN]

dunno my onboard sound seems ok but a seperate sound card takes the load of the processor so dunno

[Jynx]

If you have a decent sound card, use it imo. Like tubby says it takes load of the processor, unless you have a seperate APU onboard.

[SGT_Snacks]

Two final questions. I currently have a Sound Blaster Live! (Value) I think it is. Do you recon that's worth keeping or should I use the onboard sound on this (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=95458)mobo that I'm getting?


I got the Soundblaster LIVE! 5.1 Platinum "a similar card" and it completely outruns the crappy AC'97 you get with the Nforce 4 boards. I'd keep it, and if you want to go serious with the sound, get one of these X-FI cards :)

[SHimmer45]

the snd on nearly all N force 4 boards is AC97 based and is not great, that the 1 weak area of the Nforce 4's. the onboard snd on early Nforce boards is better, if you have got an extra card i would use it. I didnt get a seperate card in my system (VIA KT600 series) and i have mine rigged up to my Hifi etc im sure having a "proper" card would make a difference. It worth trying the onboard snd to see what you think but i would say that your creative card should out perform it.

[SGT_Snacks]

the snd on nearly all N force 4 boards is AC97 based and is not great, that the 1 weak area of the Nforce 4's. the onboard snd on early Nforce boards is better, if you have got an extra card i would use it. I didnt get a seperate card in my system (VIA KT600 series) and i have mine rigged up to my Hifi etc im sure having a "proper" card would make a difference. It worth trying the onboard snd to see what you think but i would say that your creative card should out perform it.

Nforce 2 had some weird Nvidia sound chipset as far as I know, or the Soundstorm :\

[tuBBymAN]

i though all on board sound was the AC97 stuff these days?

[BirdofPrey]

Mines some super new nvidia sound chip, thats crazy as!

[spazmochad]

Nvidia only made sound chips called SoundStorm high end Nforce 2 motherboards. They supported Realtime Dolby Digital encoding and were very popular for it. They no longer make the sound chips for Nforce 3/4 boards and instead allow the board manufacturer to choose what chip to use. Most use crappy AC 97 software chips. I belive it won't be long until someone intergrates the Audigy 2 sound chip now that X-fi is out.

[Blackstar]

Well I think the general kind of round about consensis :) that that keeping the seperate sound card MIGHT just possible be the best option ;)

I'm still undecided about the AMD 4000+ vs the AMD X2 3800+ given that at the moment there are few games which take advantage of the dual core, and my whole reason for upgrading is gaming.

[spazmochad]

Are you willing to spend time overclocking? The 4000+ is expensive for what it is. The 3800 X2 will cause more problems at the moment with the second core and slower speed of each core.
If you willing to spend some time overclocking the way I see it (in order of cheapness):
1. AMD 3000+ - ?90 - Set the FSB to 300 and have 2.7ghz with 512k cache. Sets a new standard in price/performace for those willing to invest the time. Need a good motherboard for the 300fsb though like a DFI.
2. AMD 3800+ - ^ Alot more than ?90... - Lower FSB so more motherboards will handle the overclock and getting 1mb of cache. - When I built mine I couldn't justifiy the extra cost for next to no performace difference for the cahce. The higher FSB of the 3000+ is proberbly worth more than the extra cahce.
3. AMD 3800+ X2 - at 2.7ghz with 512k cahce its gonna be as fast as the ?90 single core. When new games/applications take advantage of the extra core it will blaze ahead.
4. AMD 4400+ X2 - clock it to 2.7ghz with 1mb your looking at the same arguement as the single core above.

If your not overclocking its even harder to decide. To be totally honest at the moment games are totally dependant on the GPU, I've gone from a 2.7ghz AMD64 3000+ (option 1 :D) to a 2.13ghz centrino and noticed bugger all difference.

[SGT_Snacks]

Nvidia only made sound chips called SoundStorm high end Nforce 2 motherboards. They supported Realtime Dolby Digital encoding and were very popular for it. They no longer make the sound chips for Nforce 3/4 boards and instead allow the board manufacturer to choose what chip to use. Most use crappy AC 97 software chips. I belive it won't be long until someone intergrates the Audigy 2 sound chip now that X-fi is out.

From what I remember from the Sc4mpi knowledge database, Creative paid Nvidia off to stop making these chips as they outperformed the SoundBlaster or whatnot which was around at the time.