Hardware Upgrade Advice

Post by **President Gas** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 1:31 pm

Well, it's that time again. The Gas Machine needs some extra punch so Ineed to buy some bits. Unfortunately, I've been completely out of the loop on desktop hardware for quite a while now so some hurried investigation left me a bit unsure as to what goes with what any more and if it's any use or not.

My current, gerbil powered system is as follows:

Abit IC7 Mobo
Pentium 4 2.4 CPU
512MB PC3200 RAM
GeForce 3 GFX (AGP)
250GB IDE HDD
Plus assorted carp (CDRW, PS Keyboard etc)

Obviously, pretty much all of that has to go. Here is what I am thinking about. Is it any good and do they go together? The machine will be a dual boot (Mrs Gas just can't get on with Linux and I want to start getting back into some limited gaming) WinXP/Linux. GFX performance has to be in the resonable to good range but not a screaming monster.

Mobo: Abit AB9 Pro i965, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX (Â£107)

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 775, 2.13 GHz, 1066MHz FSB, Allendale Core, 2MB Cache (Â£150)

RAM: 2Gb (2X1Gb) Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC5300 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15 (Â£150)

GFX: Not sure here - Thinking : Geforce NVidia 7900 GT - PCI-E (Must be Nvidia - better Linux support) (256MB version say Â£150ish?)

HDD: 2 x 250 Gb Samsung SP2504C SpinPoint P120, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, 9.0 ms, NCQ (RAID1) (Â£100)

Monitor : 24" Dell 2407WFP Widescreen Midnight Grey 1920x1200 1000:1 6ms VGA/DVI + Card Reader/4Port USB2 Hub (cÂ£600) (Worried might need better GFX card to get best out of it

Plus standard DVD-RW+/- All formats thingy

Back of the fag packet calculation comes to Â£1,287

So, any good? Bag of carp? I don't know any more. Ask me about servers, I know all about them

Any guidance appreciated.

Ta muchly

Wed Oct 25, 2006 4:18 pm

Couple of things I thought:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 775, 2.13 GHz, 1066MHz FSB, Allendale Core, 2MB Cache (Â£150)
</div>
Try to get the E6600 as it has double the onboard cache and I think you can pick it up for very close to the price you mentioned for the 6400. Intel are also going to be releasing a quad core version but I don't know if this will have a huge effect on the prices of the current versions which will be perfectly adequate for some time.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>GFX: Not sure here - Thinking : Geforce NVidia 7900 GT - PCI-E (Must be Nvidia - better Linux support) (256MB version say Â£150ish?)
</div>
I believe that the 8800 cards are not far off the market, so may drop the price of some of the cards although I'm not sure what timescale your looking at upgrading in etc.

Also with Christmas just around the corner theirs not going to be many bargains around i wouldn't have thought. I've always tried to time upgrades to happen just after as stores suffer their Christmas pinch with people having maxed their CC's

Post by **Claw** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 9:20 am

Looooaaadsaaa moneyyyy

Nothing to add other than asking where you'll be getting it from?

Post by **Clingy** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 12:38 pm

Nah...you need a Joystick

Post by **President Gas** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 1:30 pm

Myocardial Infarction wrote: Couple of things I thought:

Try to get the E6600 as it has double the onboard cache and I think you can pick it up for very close to the price you mentioned for the 6400. Intel are also going to be releasing a quad core version but I don't know if this will have a huge effect on the prices of the current versions which will be perfectly adequate for some time.

I'll have a look around and see who's doing what pricing wise.

Claw wrote: Looooaaadsaaa moneyyyy

Nothing to add other than asking where you'll be getting it from?

Just buying the bits ff=rom Scan or Aria or whatever and whacjing it together myself.

Clingy wrote: Nah...you need a Joystick

F off ya old coot!

Another quick question - I take it I'll need a new PSU too? Current one has the standar P4 power connector.

Post by **Nellyboy** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 1:50 pm

My tagan psu has been whisper quiet. Its a 480w and was about 60 notes roughly a year ago. I will be keeping it for my new rig if it will have the right connectors.

As said above the G80? nvidia cards will be out soon so wait till then then grab a great bargain price for a top end card with old chip on it.

Samsung spinpoint drives are good imo. Mine is fast and quiet.

Post by **Hippy** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 4:27 pm

Gimme a shout if you want to sell any of those bits gas, tis better than my system that!

Post by **President Gas** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 12:46 am

OK, I've been doing a bit more investigation and this is what I have come up with:

MOBO: Abit AW9D-MAX Intel 975X (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (cÂ£140)

CPU: Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) (cÂ£216)

Memory: 2Gb (2X1Gb) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-12 (cÂ£185)

HDD: 2 x 250 Gb Samsung SP2504C SpinPoint P120, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, 9.0 ms, NCQ configured as RAID 0 (cÂ£50 each)

Monitor: 22" Samsung SM225BW WideScreen (cÂ£300)

All that's missing is a PSU and a GFX card. Am thinking about the Nvidia 7950 series but not sure. Have no clue about PSUs and new mobos....

Can probably wait till after Christmas for 8800 series to push down prices on 7950s. Might get better price for cpu then too.

Does this look ok (assuming you guys can recommend a good card and PSU)

Ta!

Post by **Trig** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 8:10 am

Whats the machine being used for, are you overclocking?

Post by **President Gas** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 8:36 am

Machine will be dual boot.

Windows side will be XP initially, probably Vista soonish. This will get used by Mrs Gas for general web browsing, email, office, music etc.

I will use it for games mostly. I don't need to it to run every option on at a million fps but I would like decent performance. Obvisouly I want the gfx to run at the native resolution of the monitor ( 1680x1050 ) with no slowdown. I have held off going for a 24" monitor so I can spend the extra cash on a decent gfx if required.

Linux side will be used for browsing, mail, office, music etc as well as running VMs.

Not bothered about overclocking - I want the machine to be nice and quiert so not getting into oc and lots of cooling etc.

Post by **Trig** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:10 am

Well the spec doesnt look that bad then, get yourself a 7950 and change your ram a bit, no point going for that kinda ram if your not overclocking as the normal PC2-4200 (533 stuff) will do, I only put 5400 in mine to give me a bit of room to clock later if I decided the E6400 wasnt fast enough.

I did look at the AW9D but ended up going for the AB9-Pro instead, theres a review of both on the place that shouldnt be mentioned.

Post by **President Gas** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 1:07 pm

OK, 7950GT it is then. Any recommendations on make? There seems to be quite a spread of prices for what is essentially the same board.

Also, any info on PSUs? I am assuming here I'll need a new one for that mobo? Current one has the standard P4 power connector.

Post by **Trig** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 4:06 pm

I got a nice Antec Trio thing, anything over 450 should be ok but not sure as that gfx card might cause a bit more drain than my old x700.

Post by **Dakaras** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 12:03 am

Ive been really happy with my 7800GT by BFG <a href="http://www.bfgtech.com/" target="_blank">http://www.bfgtech.com/</a>