Time to spend some money

[~Yuckfou~]

Currently on 1700athy and GF3Ti500, I'm basically screwed for Doom 3, Farcry, HL2 and CS Source, all of which I want to play.
So I'm going to need a new MB, Graphics card, and CPU.
Suggestions on hardware and suppliers on the back of of postcard to me please.
I'm also playing with the idea of just buying a new base unit, less hassle?
Ta.

 

[inactionman]

I'm in a similar situation as you, so have been thinking about it a lot recently. What's your budget?

 

[~Yuckfou~]

I'm in a similar situation as you. What's your budget?

I'm thinking £200/£300 should do it. I'm thinking mid-range upgrade that will last a year or two. I don't want to pay a premium for the latest and greatest, but don't want the cheap and cheerful that won't last either.

While I'm at it I might go for a new sound card with this new fangled surround sound stuff too, suggestions on cards/speakers? These I don't want to spend a fortune on tbh.

 

[inactionman]

Gurk, £200-300's not much, I'm spending that on my graphics card!

I can't give you specific costs or models or anything as the net connection at work is complete poo at the moment, but on your budget you prob want to upgrade to an A64 maybe? They can start fairly cheap, get something like a A64 2800+, get a decent A64 MB (MSI are good). On the graphics card side, an ATI 9800 Pro is a good buy for circa £120+ VAT.

I'll try to give you more details a bit later.

I've always found www.overclockers.co.uk is a good place to buy stuff from, although you may find some components cheaper at the usual suspects (scan, dabs, simply, microwarehouse, etc.).

As for surround sound... it can be an arse to setup speakers for a computer, unless you have a good sized room. I don't, so I'm going the 5.1 headphones route (speedlink with mic, cost about £60, they arrive tomorrow, soundcard a bit later this week). The SB Audigy 2 ZS is currently the best surround sound soundcard, it's best to get the retail version for £80 otherwise it's not 7.1 (and it's only a couple of quid saving anyway!).

 

[wyrd_fish]

it's a bit of an awkward time to upgrade really, as athlon XPs are going out of fasion, and A64s are only just coming in

you could keep your mobo, and just got an althon 2800+ or 3000+
and a radeon 9600XT/9800pro

(note: i haven't looked at nVidia and Pentium for a while, and they may have some better/equally as good solutions)

 

[JBP|]

i would suggest looking at bargain bundles to get your mobo/processor and a stick of memory.

grafix card wise you really dont want to be getting anything slower than a 9800 pro if you want to play D3 and HL2.

you might also want to think about another stick of memory to go with the one youll get in the bundle.

somewhere in the region of £400 should cover everything..

from overclockers.co.uk

AMD Athlon XP2800 Retail / Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe / 512MB Corsair PC3200 Value Dual-Channel Kit - Bundle (BU-010-OK)

AMD Athlon "Barton" XP2800+ 333FSB (Socket A) CPU - Retail (CP-041-AM) 1
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe nForce2 (Socket A) Motherboard (MB-050-AS) 1

Corsair 512MB DDR Value Select PC3200 Kit (2x256MB) (MY-043-CS) 1

MSI ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB DDR TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-027-MS)

total price £377.74 inc VAT

 

[.Wilier.]

Personally, Id be wary of buying an A64 at the moment, since AMD are planning on changing the socket size soon, so next upgrade will be the same again (a mobo as well as CPU,) instead of just the processor.

That said, there are some great prices around at the moment. Ive always used Ebuyer and have never had any problems, other than with theyre stinky-dogshit-disease-infested home brand RAM.

 

[Insane]

Athlon XP 3000+ (333fsb) (OEM - DABS - £89.99) (retail)Ebuyer £94.91
ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe Rev. 2.0 | Dabs - £71.51
Powercolor Radeon 9800 PRO 128mb DDR AGP | Komplett.co.uk - £141.00

comes in a tad over budget at £307.42
take the CPU down to a 2700+ (333FSB) boxed from dabs for £75 to a measly £287, within your budget.. but thats if your using the same memory.

best bet is to replace the memory as well, a nice easy thing is:
Geil Golden Dragon 512mb PC3700 Dual Channel DDR Kit (2x256mb) 466MHz (4.5ns Cas 2.5 7-3-3 2T) low Latency | MicroDirect - £88.13
that gives you the dual channel capabilities of your new Nforce2 board a good work out, its only 512mb so your not going up in size, just in speed.

 

[SawTooTH]

I agree with Wilier, hold off on going for the 64s at the moment. Wait till the PCI Express etc is well established and the new socket before spurging. You'll only regret it later.

I think Doom3 will run better than you think on XP/9XXXpros and Geforce 5xxx cards. Its always nice to have those cuttin edge cards but they have to make games that the average punter can play else they wont make their money.

 

[Clown]

Pfft... I was still buying brand new SD RAM motherboards when DDR was 'established'.
If you keep waiting, you're only going to end up waiting for something else in that near future, et cetera et cetera for the rest of your life and stuff.

 

[SawTooTH]

Not quite as there are a lot of changes happening at the moment. You really want to change when its a little more settled and the technology is proven.

 

[JBP|]

Not quite as there are a lot of changes happening at the moment. You really want to change when its a little more settled and the technology is proven.

exactly why he should buy mid range now, in 12 to 18 months time most problems with new chips/grafix thingies (PCI Express) should have been sorted out

 

[SawTooTH]

Bluesnews posted a bit about Doom3 benchmarks withthe current new grx cards (perform very well as expected) as well as the older top range of cards.


http://www2.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjQy

It does look like the older cards will give a reasonable performance, unless you are an antialiasing performance monkey, in which case spend £400 to play 1 game.

 

[JBP|]

after looking at those benchmarks i wonder if HL2 benchmarks will give different sort of results.

 

[inactionman]

I'm giving in, spending approx £2k on the following:

AMD Athlon 64 3200 (Socket 754) - OEM
MSI K8N Platinum
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5
Leadtek WinFast A400TDH GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 MyVIVO TV-Out/DVI
MSI D16 16x DVD-ROM (Black)
SB Audigy 2 ZS 7.1
Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache
Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 250GB SATA 8MB Cache
Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu Ultra-Quiet CPU Cooler
Coolermaster Wave Master - Black
Viewsonic VX910 or Sony HS94P (soon, I hope!)
Mitsumi floppy + 6 in 1 flash reader (Black)

Existing kit:

Antec Truepower 550W PSU
NEC 2510A DVD Writer

Hopefully should last me a while!

 

[~Yuckfou~]

Reading the above replies makes me think go with the middle ground for now.
Anyone know what the fastest cpu I can use on my ABit KG7 is? I've looked but I'm having a bad hair day today and can't find it

 

[inactionman]

Yuck, the actual computer itself isn't that expensive, it's just that I'm spending nearly £1k on display (£500-600) and graphics card (£300).

 

[Stimpy]

Anyone know what the fastest cpu I can use on my ABit KG7 is? I've looked but I'm having a bad hair day today and can't find it

Abit KG7

- AMD Socket A Athlon (100/133MHz FSB) up to 1.4GHz
- AMD Socket A Duron (100MHz FSB) up to 1.3GHz
- AMD Socket A Athlon XP Palomino (0.18 micron process) up to 2100+
- AMD Socket A Athlon XP Thoroughbred (0.13 micron process) up to 2000+

 

[~Yuckfou~]

Abit KG7

- AMD Socket A Athlon (100/133MHz FSB) up to 1.4GHz
- AMD Socket A Duron (100MHz FSB) up to 1.3GHz
- AMD Socket A Athlon XP Palomino (0.18 micron process) up to 2100+
- AMD Socket A Athlon XP Thoroughbred (0.13 micron process) up to 2000+

Ta, new mobo it is then

 

[inactionman]

If you're splashing out one a new mobo and processor, you might as well get an A64... providing your memory is up to it, imo.