Thinking of upgrading my PC

Neffneff

Fledgling Freddie
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so far i THINK i've decided on 2 new componants:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE) £61.69
Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) - Retail (CP-116-IN) £85.72


i was gonna stay AMD but i hear good things about the overclocking potential of this chip.

i am gonna need advice on memory, motherboard and gfx card, i would prefer if the total budget for all 3 items could come in at under £300 quid..please bear in mind i am gonna wanna overclock the bollocks off of that CPU.

looking forward to some good advice, ofc if anyone believes my CPU choice to be unwise, let me know.

EDIT: also would like advice on a competant cooler for overclocking that cpu.
 

Naffets

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The arctic cooling "freezer" series of cpu coolers are the best

The 805 overclocks well, however what you have to bear in mind is that in doing this you will stress your motherboard, memory and your psu. So you'll need a half decent psu, really good memory and decent cooling for the case otherwise your PWM's/CPU will overheat and then it will throttle and reduce your performance. (The 20x multiplier of that core helps oc loads though)

You are going to need to overclock the shit out of that processor to get really good results, you might be better going for something different as it requires less fiddling with to make it work well, if you are willing to put in the time and effort to tweak your processor then go for it, its £90 after all and if you can oc it well then it will perform equal to £600 or so. Motherboard wise you are going to be aiming at Abit/DFI if you are serious about overclocking and want a stable board, best thing to do is check xtremesystems.org and see what overclocks people have achieved on there with what boards and what configuration.

Graphics wise, i'd say anything 7800/X1800+ is decent enough, as for memory, you will be after any decent branded DDR2 memory, last i looked into it anything with samsung TCCD chips on it was good :) (I think thats what it was)

I've been very vague here as i personally believe you'd do better with an AMD X2 core, but its your choice.

In summary:

You need 1gb of decent branded DDR2 memory
A 7800/X1800 upwards graphics card
An abit/DFI board (check websites to see what other people are using)
Cooler: http://www.arctic-cooling.com/cpu2.php?idx=79 from http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Arctic_Cooling_CPU_Coolers.html

Hope this helps, sorry for the essay.
 

confused

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You could wait a few weeks and get the new conroe intel chips, as they whupp the pants off the old p4's and off the am2 chips, but the lowest end one is twice the price, but the benchmarks show it's speed

something like

REFERENCE DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST REMOVE
CP-126-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN)
£129.95 £129.95
MB-049-GI Gigabyte 8I945P-G (Socket LGA775) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-049-GI)
£59.95 £59.95
MY-005-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BHDC) (MY-005-GL)
£59.95 £59.95
GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG)
£99.95 £99.95
HD-079-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE)
£52.50 £52.50
Subtotal £402.30
VAT £70.41
Total £472.71
that particular chip has gone to past 3.2 on air so should clock well, not sure about mobo as i'm primarily an amd man, and ram, would be tempted by a 2 x 1gig set
 

Neffneff

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thanks for the help guys, atm im thinking along the lines of :

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE) £61.69
Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) - Retail (CP-116-IN) £85.72
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) (HS-017-AR) £18.74
Asus P5LD2 Deluxe Intel 945X (LGA775) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-108-AS) £99.82
OCZ 1GB Kit (2x512MB) 240Pin PC2-6400 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 Gold Series CAS2.5 £81.77
HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-043-HT) £205.57

alternatively could go with 2X GeForce 7600 GTs in SLI for about the same price?

can anyone point out a decent PSU to power all of this? any more advice would be appreciated ;)
 

anioal

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just get 2 gigs of ram, you never have enough ram with the curent software and ram prices are fairly low

also, ati always had crap drivers and they're control panel is a hog

and another edit for the hdd... i didnt tried .10 series from barracuda but all their previous models were rather slow when it comes about seek times. you should go for a WD (eventually one of their enterprise series)
 

confused

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hate to say it but going intel and not going for a conroe makes you ... well very stupid.

However a single x1800 xt or a 7900 gt is the way to go, sli causes overheating problems, psu problems and won't be faster than a single card. Also with a single, if you run into some more money you can double up on that card, whereas if you get two lower end ones than you're stuck

and the person above who says get a wd, well just look at the overclockers forums atm, you won't see a single thread where any hard drive but the seagate 7200.10 are not being recommended as the fastest, most reliable etc HD in production

Also best cpu cooler on the market atm is the scythe Ninja, comes with a 120mm fan, damn good cooling, its absolutely huge though, so not for all cases
 

anioal

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confused said:
and the person above who says get a wd, well just look at the overclockers forums atm, you won't see a single thread where any hard drive but the seagate 7200.10 are not being recommended as the fastest, most reliable etc HD in production


i dont understand you exactly, but if you're saying that seagate is better than WD
you are a bit wrong.
seagate hard drives have nice linear transfer rates and good fiability but they lack when it comes about seek time which is the win factor in day to day operation of a hdd because one application will rarely transfer the data in a linear manner

as i said, i didnt tested 7200.10 but anandtech is saying it's only marginaly (1%-3%) faster than 7200.9 series and this .9 suck compared with WD

check this article and read it throughly (and dont get fooled by the raid0 performance of the 7200.10 series -- look at the single drive performance)

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2760&p=1

my best bet for performance/capacity is still the enterprise serie from western digital (WD RE2 )

and as a somehow side note: my own rig has 2 hard drives, a seagate and a wd and i can tell you that WD is noticeably faster than seagate (windows loading time, app loading time, daoc zoning, daoc loading lag etc)
 

Neffneff

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Okay here is the final revision for interests sake.

XFX 7600GT XXX PCI-E 256MB DDR3 DUAL DVI (590MHz Core Clock) (1600MHz Memory Clock) £131.60--- here
Hiper Type-R 530Watt 14db BLACK ATX £46.94 --- here
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) AC-FREEZ7P £18.57 --- here
Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) - Retail (CP-116-IN) £85.72 --- here
Patriot Low Latency 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (PDC21G5300LLK) (MY-002-PA) £70.44 --- here
Asus P5ND2 SLI nForce4 SLI SKT775 Motherboard £64.97 --- here
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE) £61.69 --- here


Bearing in mind this is stretching my current available budget to the limits. However the intention is, in the forseeable future, i will then purchase a thermaltake armour jnr case here for around 70 quid.

then i will aim to get _another ge force 7600 GT as above. then possibly get another gig or 2 of matched memory.

Then i will break out the water cooling, and at some point pick up another 250 GB 7200.10 hdd for raid 0.

opinions?
 

Twist

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Neffneff said:
Okay here is the final revision for interests sake.

XFX 7600GT XXX PCI-E 256MB DDR3 DUAL DVI (590MHz Core Clock) (1600MHz Memory Clock) £131.60--- here
Hiper Type-R 530Watt 14db BLACK ATX £46.94 --- here
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) AC-FREEZ7P £18.57 --- here
Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) - Retail (CP-116-IN) £85.72 --- here
Patriot Low Latency 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (PDC21G5300LLK) (MY-002-PA) £70.44 --- here
Asus P5ND2 SLI nForce4 SLI SKT775 Motherboard £64.97 --- here
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE) £61.69 --- here


Bearing in mind this is stretching my current available budget to the limits. However the intention is, in the forseeable future, i will then purchase a thermaltake armour jnr case here for around 70 quid.

then i will aim to get _another ge force 7600 GT as above. then possibly get another gig or 2 of matched memory.

Then i will break out the water cooling, and at some point pick up another 250 GB 7200.10 hdd for raid 0.

opinions?


Honestly? Wait - don't buy that now.

It sounds like you are going to have a decent amount of extra cash coming quite soon if you are looking at a 2nd gfx card, 2nd HD etc. You will be better off in the long run waiting and buying better bits in the future when you can afford it.

The new Intel core duo chips > everything else at the moment so save the extra £50 or so and get one of them.

1 higher spec gfx card (7900 or X1900) > 2 x 7600 in sli for several reasons (heat, power consumption, noise & performance in some apps)

Personally I'd also go for 2 x 1GB Ram over 4 x 512 to make future increases easier & cheaper but that's just personal preference. It will be a waster to buy 2 x 512 and then 2 x 1GB later to find they don't work together tho!
 

confused

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the 7900 cards have been plauged with problems, I advise going ati atm. However get a x1800 range as the x1900s are definitely not worth the extra I Personally upgraded from x1800 to x1900 and there is absolutely no noticeable difference unless you play Oblivion at 1600x1200 at max settings, in which case the x1800 might occassionally drop below 25 fps.

For PSU, generally FSP, Enermax, Seasonic and Tagan are your friend. Hiper has had a bad rep only a couple of months ago with many people claiming failures with them that took out their entire rigs.

Liking the seagate though, very good choice
 

confused

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For overclocking on air you really should be looking at the scythe Ninja plus, or a Zalman CPS9500 - "AT" (iirc). Better coolers than the AC. Or if you're feeling very daring get the thermalite Big Typhoon, and spend the next month of so trying to work out how to fit it.
 

Neffneff

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confused said:
Or if you're feeling very daring get the thermalite Big Typhoon, and spend the next month of so trying to work out how to fit it.

lol!

i wont be taking the overclocking to the max until i get onto water cooling.

thanks for all the advice everyone, its much appreciated.
 

MadsKaizer

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fuck expensive hardware, overclocking and shit, hardware gets old by the time its released by the manufacturer, instead, just go for some decent cheap hardware.

like amd 64 cpu 3700+ or above, cheap and fairly good performance
kingston valueram, rather have 2GB of that, than 1GB of faster overclockable ram, in daoc atleast 2GB of valueram is better than 1GB of the expensive ones.
atm, there is nothing that will beat the 320GB seagate disks, the 7200.10 ones

get a cheap geforce 7900GT card and a Asus motherboard with network and sound and your running.

why spend so much money when you are going to change your system within few years for a directX 10 compatible system. and the performance contra costs is something you cant notice in daoc if you ask me, go cheap, spend your money on beers :drink:
 

confused

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MadsKaizer said:
like amd 64 cpu 3700+ or above, cheap and fairly good performance
kingston valueram, rather have 2GB of that, than 1GB of faster overclockable ram, in daoc atleast 2GB of valueram is better than 1GB of the expensive ones.
wow £50 for far far far superior performance with a conroe chip
and the 7900gt's are getting very very very bad rep atm with many of them being rma'd back to overclockers, so get a x1800 gpu and if you can get the DFI mobo
And as for ram may aswell get a couple of 1 gig strips as ram prices are so small atm its worth the little extra for the gains
 

MadsKaizer

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confused said:
wow £50 for far far far superior performance with a conroe chip
and the 7900gt's are getting very very very bad rep atm with many of them being rma'd back to overclockers, so get a x1800 gpu and if you can get the DFI mobo
And as for ram may aswell get a couple of 1 gig strips as ram prices are so small atm its worth the little extra for the gains

yeah, your right about the conroe, wasnt released when i bought new pc, so forgot about it :D
about the 7900GTs, just dont go for the cheapest manufacturers, or those that are overclocked, if you aim for the middle, there should be no problem, a card like Gainward ive know about 5 that have, and i burned 2 from 3D innovision myself, but no problems with gainward, I did buy a new zalman cooler for the gainward though.
 

confused

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MadsKaizer said:
yeah, your right about the conroe, wasnt released when i bought new pc, so forgot about it :D
about the 7900GTs, just dont go for the cheapest manufacturers, or those that are overclocked, if you aim for the middle, there should be no problem, a card like Gainward ive know about 5 that have, and i burned 2 from 3D innovision myself, but no problems with gainward, I did buy a new zalman cooler for the gainward though.
Personally i wouldn't risk it and just go straight for a x1800xtx as they clock nicely. Also the DFI intel board is a crossfire one.
 

Darzil

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confused said:
Personally i wouldn't risk it and just go straight for a x1800xtx as they clock nicely. Also the DFI intel board is a crossfire one.

I wouldn't personally go with an ATi graphics card, as their history with Camelot is poor, and I don't see any reason it'd improve. Shame, cos otherwise they are good - they are technically better than Nvidia, but the drivers can be iffy.

Darzil
 

confused

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So you'd go for a less good card which had a higher chance of failure...
 

Darzil

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confused said:
So you'd go for a less good card which had a higher chance of failure...

No, I'd go for the Gainward cards, as they have a very good rep and have served me well, have a low failure rate and whilst I'd get slightly less bang for the buck, the performance would be fine, and there would be less chance of Camelot issues (Which is my most played game by far).

Darzil
 

confused

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The Gainward "golden sample" (512meg) is £199.95 +VAT whereas the HIS Excalibur x1800xt 512 is £174.95 +VAT

Your call as both will run basically the same
 

Jupitus

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Darzil said:
I wouldn't personally go with an ATi graphics card, as their history with Camelot is poor, and I don't see any reason it'd improve. Shame, cos otherwise they are good - they are technically better than Nvidia, but the drivers can be iffy.

Darzil

Can't comment about DAOC performance these days, but I will say that I used to be an Nvidia user who also heard this 'bad drivers' stuff about ATI. That is a bit out of date now, I'd say. ATI seem to have seriously upped their game in terms of driver provision and I never have had any issues using them.

/2p
 

Ati

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Jupitus said:
Can't comment about DAOC performance these days, but I will say that I used to be an Nvidia user who also heard this 'bad drivers' stuff about ATI. That is a bit out of date now, I'd say. ATI seem to have seriously upped their game in terms of driver provision and I never have had any issues using them.

/2p


My ATI card drivers failed during daoc. Avoid them.
 

confused

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so.. choice is high chance of card being a buggerred one and spending more for it. Or getting a faster card that some people have had driver issues with that is cheaper

Edit: using 2 x1900's and not had driver issues with daoc or any other game. Infact it seems to be Nvidia who people are whining about atm
 

Twist

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confused said:
so.. choice is high chance of card being a buggerred one and spending more for it. Or getting a faster card that some people have had driver issues with that is cheaper

Edit: using 2 x1900's and not had driver issues with daoc or any other game. Infact it seems to be Nvidia who people are whining about atm

I've never known any of my friends have any gfx card issues with DAoC and between us that's 20+ machines with a variety of ATI & Nvidea cards since beta (i've had 4 cards in that time). Yes some driver versions have caused issues for some people etc but if you buy a decent recognised brand and use a set of drivers that are tried and tested you should be fine whatever you use :)
 

Neffneff

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Small Update :)

So I've got all the bits on that list now (except i bought OCZ gold RAM instead @ 667mhz)

the thermaltake case is awesome and looks great :)

and omg @ that cpu, right now, 100% stable im running it @ 3.9 GHz with a small increase in voltage, still only on air cooling (voltage rise is about 0.08 volts).

Idle CPU temperature is anything from 31-35 degrees depending on room temp. and under FULL load its around 45 degrees.

im sure i can and probably will push this cpu further, but i may wait for the watercooling now as the cpu cooler is on the verge of making noise, and i like my stuff quiet. (fan spinds @ around 2000rpm when under full load 1600 when idle..so i got another 500rpmish but it gets noisy im sure)

i would recommend that board, memory and cpu to anyone looking to get a cheapish upgrade with large potential.
 

Neffneff

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i fail to see what the problem is with me recommending a CPU that overclocks very easily and reliably to a performance similar to 700 quid CPUs and yet only costs 85 quid?
 

Ballard

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Neffneff said:
i fail to see what the problem is with me recommending a CPU that overclocks very easily and reliably to a performance similar to 700 quid CPUs and yet only costs 85 quid?

Isnt the conroe going to start at circa £130?
 

confused

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Ballard said:
Isnt the conroe going to start at circa £130?
Price: £129.95 (£152.69 Including VAT at 17.5%)
From Ocuk but then again it'll perform faster than a fx 62 when clocked which is worth more than the top intel.
 

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