Pricing opinions

[WPKenny]

I've decided that this house move thing is getting on my tits so I've decided to spank some cash that I don't really have on an upgrade to make myself feel better.

The bits I want to sell are:

1x BFG 7800 GS OC AGP
1x ASROCK KT400 Pro motherboard (SATA, Onboard sound etc)
1x AMD Athlon 3000+ XP CPU
2x DDR333 512mb sticks of RAM (Crucial)
1x 19" Taxan Ergovision 975 TCO95 Monitor (CRT)

The bits I will be keeping:
1x 480 watt Tagan PSU (has all the new power plugs for mobos and CPU's)
2x 120gig SATA HDD's
1x 300gig PATA HDD
1x Globalwin 802 Case (remember those? )
And of course the varios other peripherals, keyboard, mouse, printer etc

What I'm after is a sensible suggestion on what how to sell the bits I want to sell to make the most money. In my head I'm hoping for around 200 quid since the 7800 GS alone still retails for 100 quid but I could be dreaming.
Do I sell it all as a bundle?
Sell the monitor seperately?
Sell the ram seperately?
Sell the CPU and mobo as one?
etc

Also I'm after suggestions for a machine that is the best bang for buck, not uber specs, but something that can be upgraded in the future to keep up with the times for at least a little bit before replacing the whole lot again.

Something along the lines of a Core 2 Duo, Nvidia 8600/8800 and 2 gig ram + mobo and a reasonable widescreen monitor, 19" or so.

I don't have a budget fixed in stone, but I was hoping around the 400-500 pound mark as an upper limit.

All sensible suggestions appreciated!

 

[WPKenny]

Just having a poke around on prices for things and come up with the following using all my current kit....

ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 Socket 775 8 Channel Audio AGP PCI-E ATX Motherboard - Ebuyer
and
Intel E4300 Core 2 Duo CPU - Cheap at Ebuyer!

Comes to about 115 quid which is cheaper and less hassle than flogging my gear on ebay. I've just tested my 333 memory at 400 and it's stable enough for me to write this post so worst case scenario I could stick with it until it blew up and get 2x1gig. It would also let me upgrade the gfx card at a later date but keep my AGP for now.
Gonna do a stress test now with a few games to make sure it's stable enough for at least a little while.

What do you guys reckon?

 

[Ch3tan]

I really would not go that route kenny, ddr2 is cheap as chips now. Check Tom's thread about new kit. You can get unbranded value ddr2 for next to nothing.

I rekon for £100 more you could get a higher end core2duo, a proper 775 ddr2 pcix mobo, and 2 gigs cheapo ddr2.

Sell some of your old bits to raise cash towards a gfx card and you are done, and will be happier in the long run.

From experience it is very difficult to sell crt monitors, best bet is to try local papers ads section.

 

[Ch3tan]

This is just from overclockers, you can probably shop around for cheaper.

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK)
Good value ddr2 memory with decent timings as well.

Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail
One lower the cpu you linked to, only 200mhz difference in clock speed. If you can afford it then get a newer one with 4mb cache.

Abit IP35-E (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Cheapest 775 mobo with the features you will need I could find on ocuk

£204 inc vat.

 

[Kryten]

I'll second those thoughts. The Asrock kit is dreadful - just think of the mantra "jack of all trades, master of none". I'd honestly keep running on your old AMD XP kit.

Sell the old kit separately on ebay (after the postal strike is over)
7800GS - sorry, you'll probably only find you get 60-70 for it, and only that much because its AGP
The motherboard being a KT400 chipset is next to worthless - but you might scrape 40 bundled with the processor if its a Barton 3000.

The memory you might find you'll get 20 quid for.
THe screen, unfortunately it could be a top of the range Iiyama and you'd still have to pay someone to take it off your hands - those things are literally best sold for around a tenner at the car boot sale, preparing to go down to 6 or 7 quid.

 

[WPKenny]

Thanks for the advice Ch3ts. There's a few reasons I picked out the two components above.

One is cost. The immediate impact on my wallet is as low as possible. I could possibly sell my board and cpu for 60 quid on ebay if the right person comes along.

I can keep my AGP graphics which tbh, isn't THAT bad. I can keep my existing memory yet still have a PCI-Express (x16) motherboard which will go up to 1066mhz right now and who knows they might release a BIOS to unlock 1333mhz.

Another big reason is there's ~52 reviews on ebuyer for that CPU. Most of which are going on about how easy it is to overclock to 3ghz in most cases and be rock solid. Some are going beyond this, even with the stock cooler. Alot of these people who are overclocking it are doing it with the above motherboard.

 

[Kryten]

You wont be squeezing any more performance out of the CPU other than below stock speed on an Asrock, straight out.

I know it's a pain spending money up front but it's worth it. I wouldn't put a 1 litre Micra engine with 200,000 miles on the clock in a ferarri just to tide me over until I can afford a real Ferarri engine.

 

[WPKenny]

You wont be squeezing any more performance out of the CPU other than below stock speed on an Asrock, straight out.

I know it's a pain spending money up front but it's worth it. I wouldn't put a 1 litre Micra engine with 200,000 miles on the clock in a ferarri just to tide me over until I can afford a real Ferarri engine.

I understand what you're trying to say. And I know what you do for a living but what about all the people on the ebuyer reviews who've said it overclocks great on that very motherboard?
As you see I've got an Asrock mobo in my pc right now. Today I've been messing about with the overclocking and it's letting me run DDR333 mem at 400mhz and the CPU at 180 instead of it's usual 166 and I've just had an hour or so on Bioshock at 25fps without a hitch. I couldn't overclock it even 1 mhz on my knackered ASUS A7n8x.

Is spending twice as much money going to give me twice as much performance FPS-wise? All I'm after is a cheap pc that'll run games notably faster than it does now. When me and Lou are out of this hole, of which I have no idea how long it will take, I can maybe get a brand spanking new system. If I can spend 50 quid here (upgrade the RAM) and 100 quid there (new gfx card) over time, it softens the blow.

I appreciate the advice, and I don't want to come across as being argumentative. I'm just trying to get an objective view of the facts. I know Asrock isn't exactly the Nike/Gucci/whatever of the mobo world but the reviewers can't all be deluded can they?

I'm quite happy with cheap and chearful if it does the job.
Money is the biggest factor for me right now. I shouldn't really be spending ANY money on upgrading right now but like I said, I feel like shit and I'm doing the girly thing and shopping to cheer myself up, I just don't want to regret it too much later.

So thank you again guys. Lou says I can sound like an arse when I "debate" like this, but I'm just trying to explore all angles.

 

[Yaka]

the 7800gs and 3000+ xp chip go for decentish prices on ebay, someone on ebay ebayed their 7800gs last month for £120, pleanty of peeps with agp setups buy em still

 

[Kryten]

Heh, dont worry, I'm sure we can all understand where you coming from.

Although I do pay attention to "reviews" from the likes of Ebuyer and their customers, but they are more likely to be biased on Big Dick Syndrome - "i.e. I have one, therefore it's the best there is." As you know, I've been doing this for many years, and my interest is the end user - why by a super SLI system with a super spangly low latency ram setup when you're playing minesweeper and emailing the wife

Asrock are by no mean bad at what they do, after all it's part of Asus - and the dual vsta motherboard is a good inbetween. It's not so much a matter of brand naming or loyalty - trust me, I'd have that board over any Abit Fatal1ty brand thing any day of the week. But I tend to try and balance the cost with performance and futureproofing, which is never easy to do. It does tend to grate that the Dual-Vsta board you're looking at with DDR400 ram and an AGP graphics card will probably be knocking circa 30% off performance from a real budget end intel P945 chipset system with pci-e and el-cheapo DDR2 memory.

I suppose at the end of the day, the motherboard isn't exactly expensive - what, £40. You'll probably be able to resell it for £20 in a years or so time, should you decide to go the whole hog. But I'm a stubborn git at time's and I still look at it as £20 wasted. But if that £20 gets you a year of your favourite game at a decent level of performance, thats no major loss.

Either way, you know you've got support here, so keep thinking it over (but not too much, otherwise you/lou might decide a holiday is a better option )
Whatever you do, get new memory and flog the DDR you've got - 333mhz ram is gonna murder a core2duo and DDR2 is cheaper to buy than DDR by a long way.

 

[WPKenny]

Eek! Right, ordered it. £120 incl delivery. Always get excited ordering new techy bits. I am an impatient bugger though. I'm getting it delivered to work so there's no chance of missing the delivery as long as they can find the place.

I've ordered just the mobo and the cpu for the moment to see how it goes. If it doesn't like overlclocking my DDR333 RAM to 400mhz then I can borrow the ram in Lou's desktop machine that she bairly uses these days anyway till I get hold of some new DDR2 sticks.

I know what's going to happen though. I'll be expecting a zillion frames a second from all my games now and be bitterly dissapointed (instead of expecting a gain of 15-20fps which is more realistic). It's always the same whenever you upgrade.

I'll probably crack in a few days and get the better ram even if it does work fine with my existing stuff. heh.

So now my upgrade path is as follows:
CPU (done)
Motherboard (done)
RAM
GFX Card
Monitor
Motherboard again to make the most of the rest of it. By this stage I'll have got more than my 40 quids worth out of the motherboard.

On top of this, the CPU I'm getting should allow further overclocking as I replace components such as RAM and the motherboard.

I'm pleased to have found a "halfway house" mobo as it means I don't have to splash the cash all in one go.

 

[Kryten]

Those a cracking processors, no two ways about it. Even at stock, they're lovely little performers for suprisingly little money.

If you get stuck I can probably throw a couple of half gig sticks of ddr400 your way but i'd not want to trust things in the post at the moment :|

 

[WPKenny]

I was weak and chucked in the ram Chets recommended just before my order was picked and packed today. With a bit of luck and a following wind I should get the lot tomorrow according to their order tracking.

With a few guestimates I reckon the kit it's replacing should help me recover around half the cost on ebay (80-100 quid).

The board DOES have it's limitations. Only 4x PCI-Express slot instead of 16x and it can only handle 667 DDRII ram but I went for the 800mhz anyway so when it comes to replacing the motherboard I can stick some more of the same RAM in and make the most of it all. Plus it's an upgrade from 1gig to 2gigs (max the mobo will take) if nothing more.

With a bit of luck I should get about another year out of my 7800gs before having to finally throw in the towel and move onto a DX10 card.

 

[Tom]

I'd just like to say Kenny that my new computer is owning everything I chuck at it. In 1680x1050. Even Bioshock ran perfectly at that res, with all the detail on, and no chopping frames. Gives you an idea of how much you don't need to spend, put it that way.

 

[Ch3tan]

It will still be faster than your old system, and you have something to look forward to in a year with a decent pci x mobo and a flashy new gfx card

Tom, get a 24" monitor mate, your kit will still run everything effortlessly in 1920 *1200. And it looks even better at that res

 

[WPKenny]

It has arrived! Been twitching all day and refreshing the order tracking page. Minutes after I'd walked down the mail room to double check if it had come in yet, it arrived.
Trouble now is I got a call today to arrange a viewing on the house tomorrow night right around the time I get in from work and Lou's on her travels at the moment. So I have to spend most of this evening getting the house ship shape for the viewing and not playing with my new kit. And tomorrow night I'm off out for a meal with a bunch of mates from work.

The pressures of a social life imposing on my nerdiness!

 

[Tom]

It will still be faster than your old system, and you have something to look forward to in a year with a decent pci x mobo and a flashy new gfx card

Tom, get a 24" monitor mate, your kit will still run everything effortlessly in 1920 *1200. And it looks even better at that res

Nah, I only bought this thing because my old monitor died. I've got a good 10 years to get out of this one yet!

 

[Ch3tan]

I'll have to get tdc to work on you. His dark side powers are stronger than mine.