PC Upgrade

[Whipped]

Ok, after 4 years running an Athlon XP 2600 I'm finally going to upgrade my PC.

So far I've priced up the following

• AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Socket AM2 (2.2GHz) L2 1MB (2x512KB) Retail Boxed Processor
• New 550W PSU (Old PSU is also 4 years old and gathering a lot of dust)
• Crucial (CT2KIT6464AA667) 1GB kit (512MBx2) DDR2 PC2-5300 CL=5 UNBUFFERED NON-ECC DDR2-667 1.8v 64Meg x 64 (Not fussed with the small performance gain 800MHz memory will give me)

What I'm stuck on is which AM2 mobo to get.

I'm not going to be using SLI anytime in the next few years as I've stumbled across a Quadro FX4400 and can't afford a second one

The basic thing I need is good clearence from the first PCI-E x16 slot at the rear to fit the FX4400 in.

I'll be re-using my old tower case, SATA Hard drives and DVD writer.

At the moment I've only really looked at the Asus M2N-E Socket AM2 NF570ULTRA Audio Lan USB2 2000FSB SATA ATX.

Is anyone running an AM2 mobo and can recommend one that works and is stable?

 

[Wij]

Ok, after 4 years running an Athlon XP 2600 I'm finally going to upgrade my PC.

So far I've priced up the following

• AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Socket AM2 (2.2GHz) L2 1MB (2x512KB) Retail Boxed Processor
• New 550W PSU (Old PSU is also 4 years old and gathering a lot of dust)
• Crucial (CT2KIT6464AA667) 1GB kit (512MBx2) DDR2 PC2-5300 CL=5 UNBUFFERED NON-ECC DDR2-667 1.8v 64Meg x 64 (Not fussed with the small performance gain 800MHz memory will give me)

What I'm stuck on is which AM2 mobo to get.

I'm not going to be using SLI anytime in the next few years as I've stumbled across a Quadro FX4400 and can't afford a second one

The basic thing I need is good clearence from the first PCI-E x16 slot at the rear to fit the FX4400 in.

I'll be re-using my old tower case, SATA Hard drives and DVD writer.

At the moment I've only really looked at the Asus M2N-E Socket AM2 NF570ULTRA Audio Lan USB2 2000FSB SATA ATX.

Is anyone running an AM2 mobo and can recommend one that works and is stable?

If you're willing to change mobo, cpu and memory you'd be stupid to go AMD at the minute. Intel are way ahead on price/performance/overclocking currently and AMDs current .65nm CPUs haven't changed that a jot.

 

[Ch3tan]

Yep core2duo all the way right now whipped. The only reason to go AMD right now would be fanatasism.

 

[Whipped]

Sounds like a good case for intel. Haven't had an intel since around 98 when I had a P120. Been AMD all the way since then (Including the dreaded K6-2/333 )

Looks like a move back to Intel is in the cards. Will shop around and pop back with what I find for more opinion.

 

[Whipped]

ok, been looking around and reading reviews and decided on the following.

• Msi P965-Platinum iP965, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX - £73.00 Ex VAT
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 S775, 2.13Ghz, 1066Mhz FSB, Conroe Core, 2M Cache Retail - £119.50 Ex VAT
• Corsair® Value Select 1Gb DDR2 PC4200 Kit (2 x 512MB) (VS1GBKIT533D2) - £59.00 Ex VAT
• Advance 400w Power Supply Unit AMD & INTEL P4 - £12.00 Ex VAT
• Subtotal - £263.50
• VAT - £46.12
• Total - £309.62

Comes just above my £300 limit, but I'll just not eat lunch one day

The above combine with my Quadro FX4400, 300GB SATA drive and a DVD-RW should make for a reasonably nifty system to run Supreme Commander on.

May even invest in a new 17" monitor at some point to dual-screen it

Any comments on the above?

 

[Ch3tan]

Whipped, unless their is hardly any price difference then go for the cheaper 6300 cpu. It clocks to about the same speed as the 6400.

I am running my 6400 at 3.15ghz on air, but the 6300 is quite capable of the same.

As for mobo's, check some other hardware forums. The gigabyte boards come highly recommended for use with the core2duos, and asus boards seem to have problems when overclocking. The ds3 board is about £90.

Oh and you will want to overclock.

 

[Whipped]

The MSI seemed to be good for overclocking/price/performance. I'll take another look at the Gigabyte one as it was one of the other boards I was looking at.

As for the chip, I guess I'm always a little worried when it comes to overclocking (Especially as I've also had overheating problems in the past, no doubt due to my AMD choices). The 6300 was the one I was looking at originally as well.

 

[Clown]

Whipped, unless their is hardly any price difference then go for the cheaper 6300 cpu. It clocks to about the same speed as the 6600 can overclock.

Fixed.

 

[Ch3tan]

I chose the gigabyte over any other boards as it seemed to have the best results when overclocking and the least problems with compatibility.

 

[Whipped]

Had a quick look for a ds3 board and come up short. Think I saw DS4 boards. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

 

[Ch3tan]

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=14498&GroupID=1093

 

[crappies]

The amd 2600's were great.

Many were shipped with the 333 fsb/512kb cache which added performace and stability. And although they were made to run at 1.8ghz, many could easily overclock past 2ghz.

A good buy for the money, and I'm sure its served you well.

 

[Whipped]

Cheers for the help guys. All my goodies arrived today. It's all put together and even without overclocking yet, Battlefield 2142 runs at full res, with everything turned up as high as it will go, with no slow down at all

Finally, a PC I can game on in comfort again

Went for my last list above in the end, but with a E6300 instead.

Will run this one in a bit first and then try overclocking it a bit.

 

[Ch3tan]

I wouldn't bother running it in, it overclocks fine straight away

 

[Whipped]

To overclock I have to overclick the FSB (As the chip's multiplier is locked), correct?

What I'm wondering is, because I was stingy and only bought cheap PC4200 RAM that runs at 533MHz, as soon as I increase the FSB I'm overclocking my memory as well. If I'm going to overclock do you think it's worth getting some faster memory so that I'm not putting undue strain on them?

 

[Ch3tan]

Well you won't know till you try Even your cheapo memory should be able to overclock a little.

 

[Whipped]

Well, the board allows be to incrememt in 1MHz steps. Guess I'd have to go some toburn out my memory