Computer Budget

[Valkybabe]

Heya people!

Sorry to ask but need some advice, i am thinking of upgrading my computer at the moment due to it being old and running kinda slow. I have a budget of £1000 and just wondered if anyone can help me in the best things i can get for my money.

I just really need a motherboard, CPU, GFX card and memory as the rest i use at the moment will be ok.

The spec i run atm is:

2.8ghz p4
1GB ram
120GB HD
ATi 9800XT

Any help would be great as i am kinda lost on what i could get with my budget.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

Power Supply Unit:
Tagan TG580-U15 (580W Easycon series)

Motherboard:
MSI K8N Diamond

CPU:
AMD Athlon 64 X2
or
AMD Opteron Dual Core

CPU Cooler:
Zalman CNPS9500 LED

Memory:
Geil Ultra Platinum PC3200, 2048MB dual channel

Graphics Card:
MSI nVidia 7800GT 256 pcix

Graphics Card Cooler:
Zalman VF900-Cu

 

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

or this set of Geil memory

Btw, the website of Zalman is www.zalman.co.kr

 

[Valkybabe]

Thankyou for your reply,

I have checked out all the following that you mentioned and looked up prices on Overclockers.co.uk:

Motherboard = MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum nForce3 Ultra (Socket 939) Motherboard (MB-027-MS) == £76.32
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM) == £333.64
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Ultra-X nForce4 Special Edition CAS2 (GLXNF1GB3200DC) (MY-056-GL) == £105.69
MSI GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-064-MS) == £234.94
Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower (Socket 939/754/478/775) CPU Cooler (HS-015-ZA) == £32.84
Zalman VF900-CU Quiet Copper VGA Cooler (SY-008-ZA) == £24.62
Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-009-TG) == £105.69

Total Cost is: £913.74

Is that correct? Just wondering before i order them.

Thanks for all your help with all this.

 

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

Thankyou for your reply,

I have checked out all the following that you mentioned and looked up prices on Overclockers.co.uk:

Motherboard = MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum nForce3 Ultra (Socket 939) Motherboard (MB-027-MS) == £76.32
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM) == £333.64
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Ultra-X nForce4 Special Edition CAS2 (GLXNF1GB3200DC) (MY-056-GL) == £105.69
MSI GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-064-MS) == £234.94
Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower (Socket 939/754/478/775) CPU Cooler (HS-015-ZA) == £32.84
Zalman VF900-CU Quiet Copper VGA Cooler (SY-008-ZA) == £24.62
Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-009-TG) == £105.69

Total Cost is: £913.74

Is that correct? Just wondering before i order them.

Thanks for all your help with all this.

You've got an older generation motherboard in there, a Neo2, I'll have a peek at overclockers to see if I can find it

 

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-046-MS)
Okay, they don't have the SLI Diamond motherboard but that one should do the job just fine aswell
It sadly doesn't have some options the SLI diamond has like the onboard like SLI, Creative Live 24 bits onboard audio and dual lan but it's also almost 100 bucks cheaper


That graphics card you got there is one step higher than the one I opped but well, the GT ain't that much different in price over at overclockers so that's cool

Though I must say this is only one of the options... You will have a very fast PC with this set and one that can please you for the coming few years while playing the better games and all. I like this set because, well, I kinda fancy nVidia and MSI but other people could advice you different according to their likings

Whatever you choose to buy, you will need to fully reinstall windows with this.

Ohw, also get a little tube of
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) (AC-000-AC) for optimal heat transferrance between cpu/gpu and coolers
and perhaps a little bottle of
Akasa TIM-clean CPU & Heatsink Cleaner (OA-001-AK)
for the cleaning

 

[ceixava]

get the 3800+ x2 instead of the 4400+
and get a asus a8n series mobo (nforce4)
also, get 2GB mem, its worth the extra bucks

just last night when duallogging my clients ate up 973 and 890 MB of memory

 

[Valkybabe]

ok i think i am going to get this. I added a HD also which i forgot

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-046-MS) == £76.32

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM) == £333.64

GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Ultra-X nForce4 Special Edition CAS2 (GLXNF1GB3200DC) (MY-056-GL) == £105.69

MSI GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-064-MS) == £234.94

Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower (Socket 939/754/478/775) CPU Cooler (HS-015-ZA) == £32.84

Zalman VF900-CU Quiet Copper VGA Cooler (SY-008-ZA) == £24.62

Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-009-TG) == £105.69

Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 200GB 2000JS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-048-WD) == £58.69



Total = £972.43


Regarding the Hard drive i was going to go for the Raptor but that will be over my budget which i will replace soon as i get some spare cash. Other than that it looks like it will do the job which i need anyways. Also will upgrade my Ram to 2gb when i get more cash always (always darn money haha!).

And regarding audio i already use a SB Live with Creative Desktop Theatre 5.1 surround which i am happy with so thats no biggy as i can put them straight into the new machine.

Any more tips or comments apprieciated, other than that. Thankyou for all your help!

 

[Twist]

I'd recommend 2GB RAM now if you can possibly stretch that far (or buy 1x1GB stick rather than 2x512), otherwise looks ok

 

[Zaffa]

im pretty sure the Neo2 got AGP port and now PCI-E so the gfx would not fit

and dont buy a motherboard with AGP ;<

 

[ceixava]

I'd recommend 2GB RAM now if you can possibly stretch that far (or buy 1x1GB stick rather than 2x512), otherwise looks ok

no no and no

you need 2x stick of same size mem for todays hardware for dual channel mode

otherwise i still agree, 2GB makes life alot easier

 

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

im pretty sure the Neo2 got AGP port and now PCI-E so the gfx would not fit

and dont buy a motherboard with AGP ;<

read it again mate, she got a Neo4 listed there

I'd recommend 2GB RAM now if you can possibly stretch that far (or buy 1x1GB stick rather than 2x512), otherwise looks ok

You'd lose all advantage of dualchannel with one stick but yeah 2GB is better but then again I'd opt for the higher CPU and buy an extra set of mem next month cos a new CPU is more expensive

 

[Twist]

no no and no

you need 2x stick of same size mem for todays hardware for dual channel mode

otherwise i still agree, 2GB makes life alot easier

I am aware of that, however I am also aware of the problems with many MB's coping with dual channel when you have 4 sticks in place. If you plan to upgrade to 2 GB soon then you're better off with 2 x 1GB sticks