PC upgrade. Your suggestions please...

darklight

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I'm just about to update my PC and I'm wondering what is the best components to choose. I've heard alot of talk about holding out until next year, which I assume is because of DX10. Surely the DX10 will be directly related to graphics cards and not motherboards as such or am I incorrect?.

Anyway here are some of the components I'm thinking about buying.

ASUSTEK AM2 nForce 570 SLi ATX (not sure wether to buy the 939 socket AN8-Sli. What's the difference as I kow you can get dual core 939 chips)

Not sure about a Am2 chip though. If I go for the 939 socket I was thinking about getting the AMD 64 4600+ dual core 512kb.

Geforce 7900 GT 512 MD DDR3 PCI

2BG 184 pin PC3200 RAM

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated as I'm planning to spend about £700 - £800 inlcuding a new case/PSU/DVD rewriter etc.
 
I would avoid the 7900 range like the plague they are riden with breakdowns and texture problems in games.
 
alphaomega16 said:
I would avoid the 7900 range like the plague they are riden with breakdowns and texture problems in games.


Thanks. Any suggestions for a good PCI card? I'm willing to spend about £250 on it?
 
Personally if I were upgrading right now I'd be looking towards the new intel core 2 processors as the bottom of the line part, the E6300, costs around the same as the athlon 4600+ you are already considering. The E6300 performs around the same level as the 4600+, however it draws less power and therefore requires less cooling so it's potentially quieter. If you are willing to overclock then it gets even better as the E6300 can even outperform AMDs best processor the FX-62. Have a look at the comparison on the following site and see what you think:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2802&p=1
 
I assume you mean PCI-e

I'd go for an ATi X1900XT :smashin:
 
pRot3us said:
I assume you mean PCI-e

I'd go for an ATi X1900XT :smashin:

I agree with this.

You can pick a 512MB X1900XT (Best ATI Card atm) for £205inc VAT at OCUK
 
x1900xt and a core duo cpu/mobo.
if it were me now, thats what id be heading towards without fail.
 
Sephiro said:
Personally if I were upgrading right now I'd be looking towards the new intel core 2 processors as the bottom of the line part, the E6300, costs around the same as the athlon 4600+ you are already considering. The E6300 performs around the same level as the 4600+, however it draws less power and therefore requires less cooling so it's potentially quieter. If you are willing to overclock then it gets even better as the E6300 can even outperform AMDs best processor the FX-62. Have a look at the comparison on the following site and see what you think:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2802&p=1


I had a bad experience with Intel several years ago so I've always stuck with AMD.
 
semiskimmed said:
x1900xt and a core duo cpu/mobo.
if it were me now, thats what id be heading towards without fail.


Will dual core actually give me anything more. I;ve heard that current games etc don't untilise the dual core set up.

As for Ati I've always thought Nvdia are were better. Maybe not.
 
x1900xt=best single gfx card availabel right now.
the conroes' are dual core too and yes you wont get many games directly use the 2 cores but it will help hugely running them and background apps/OS's
 
darklight said:
I had a bad experience with Intel several years ago so I've always stuck with AMD.
Normally when I hear that it's the other way round, out of curiousity what problems did you have? I've not had an Intel processor since I got rid of my PIII 800 years ago, but I think that may change the next time I upgrade because the core 2 duo's look pretty impressive.
 
Sephiro said:
Normally when I hear that it's the other way round, out of curiousity what problems did you have? I've not had an Intel processor since I got rid of my PIII 800 years ago, but I think that may change the next time I upgrade because the core 2 duo's look pretty impressive.


Normally I build my own system every time I upgrade. On one occasion, a couple of years ago I decided to go for an Intel P3 instead of my usualy AMD chip. After building the rig which worked well for several days it started to freeze up and generally fcuk me off. I returned the chip and motherboard and switched back to AMD.

I know that this could have been a fluke with a faulty chip, as happens but it switched me right off. That and the fact all my mates asking with concerned faces why I would even consider Intel....:confused:
 
darklight said:
I know that this could have been a fluke with a faulty chip, as happens but it switched me right off. That and the fact all my mates asking with concerned faces why I would even consider Intel....:confused:
I take it they no absolutely nothing about computers then ;) :D

But seriously you would have to be quite insane to choose AMD over Intel with the current range of chips out. If somebody offered you a Porsche 911 for the same price as a Ford Focus would you still choose the Focus?

Of course you wouldn't :cool:
 
I feel the same way you do but with the way things are looking now ATI and Intel look like the best bets to last the next few years which makes me sad :(
 
alphaomega16 said:
I feel the same way you do but with the way things are looking now ATI and Intel look like the best bets to last the next few years which makes me sad :(

Why? Brand loyalty is for the foolish, its a consumers market and competition can only be a good thing.

I think what Intel has done with its new cpus is the best thing to happen to the PC market in years. AMD have been on top for years, but they got lazy, their prices went up and up and ended up like Intel used to be, now Intel comes in with a low cost, high performance processor, the tables have truely be turned. I always liked to have a cutting edge gaming machine and would always buy the best hardware available at my time of purchase, but the way prices were going up on the best cpus I thought I'd never be able to afford a top end system again.

Hurrah for Intel :thumbsup:
 
Its pretty simple.

AMD has been the choice for people who "know what their talking about" for the last 5 years...

Until last month.

Now intel with the "Conroe" processors are the things that people "know what their talking about" buy...

Thats all you need to know, for the record I've been messing about with computers for past 10 years and have never built or used an intel computer.
 
always been amd for me too - but that's only due to timing of upgrades etc with my pc - AMD have been the top dogs at the time i upgrade.

If i was doing a full upgrade now - COnroe would be the route to go - no questions asked.

I have always had Nvidia cards (away back to 2mb ones!!) but recently upgraded and at the time got a great deal on an ATI one so bought that.

I have no loyalty to any brand - best bang for buck at the time of upgrading is the way forward.
 
could anyone tell me if this is a good gaming system

cpu: intel pentium d 950 dual core (3.40Ghz)
ram: 2048mb dual channel DDR2 533MHz (2x1024) memory
graphic card: 256mb nvidia geforce 7900 gs graphic card
hard drive: 320GB
 
As I have said to others I would avoid the 7900 series of nvidia cards.
 
jpb82 said:
could anyone tell me if this is a good gaming system

cpu: intel pentium d 950 dual core (3.40Ghz)
ram: 2048mb dual channel DDR2 533MHz (2x1024) memory
graphic card: 256mb nvidia geforce 7900 gs graphic card
hard drive: 320GB
I wouldn't recommend that processor for a gaming system as it's based on Intels old architecture, which performs pretty poorly in gaming when compared to AMDs current and Intels latest processors. The Intel Core 2 Duo E6300, which is based on the new architecture, actually costs less as far as I can see and will give better overall performance in games.
 
jpb82 said:
could anyone tell me if this is a good gaming system

cpu: intel pentium d 950 dual core (3.40Ghz)
ram: 2048mb dual channel DDR2 533MHz (2x1024) memory
graphic card: 256mb nvidia geforce 7900 gs graphic card
hard drive: 320GB

Yep, like what the guy said above this.

You won't be getting very good gaming performance with that processor, Although I've got a 7800GTX myself. The ATI X1900 XTs seem to be the things to get they cost £200 new from overclockers.co.uk

Personally though, I'd wait a few months before buying a whole new setup - I am infact. My old overclocked 146 opteron to 3.2ghz went capput a few months ago, just got round to buying a cheap 4000+, they're supposed to be going to 3ghz+ on air so should do pretty darn well in me vapochill LS and only £80.

That will tide me over for the next 3-6 months.

If you checkout...

http://www.overclockers.com

they seem to think cpu prices are gonna go through the floor within the next 3-6 months, I'm just waiting for that, and also some decent DX10 graphics cards.

Although you might not believe it with conroe around, now is definately NOT the time to be buying a decent pc setup.

Your graphics card will be worth half what it is if you buy now in a few months, and the cpu....maybe even less.

Just make sure you think it through because it might be cutting edge now sure, but you'll be paying quite abit, and in a few months you might be able to pay abit more than half the outlay now for a far better system.

In anycase, there would be some concern in my mind buying now, even if the system is the dogs danglies and all the rest of it.

(Defo avaoid anything "Pentium"\"AMD"...."Core 2 Duo" is where its at, for price, performance, and overclockability if there is such a word)

sorry for commas

Ah yeah, overclockers.co.uk are a-holes, make sure you don't buy everything from them, a couple of their items are cheaper than anywhere else at the mo. This generally isn't the case, and their support is pretty poor. They've got a disgraceful attitude with returns (especially graphics cards).
 
robo989 said:
Ah yeah, overclockers.co.uk are a-holes, make sure you don't buy everything from them, a couple of their items are cheaper than anywhere else at the mo. This generally isn't the case, and their support is pretty poor. They've got a disgraceful attitude with returns (especially graphics cards).
Finally someone else who shares my sentiments.... I used to use OCuk for loads of orders and they were great - until something went wrong. To cut a long story short I had to return a faulty motherboard and it took them 6 months (and several phone calls every week) to get a replacement. As a result I'd rather eat a bowl of broken glass than buy something from them again; even if it means I have to pay a bit more to buy things elsewhere.
 
Sephiro said:
Finally someone else who shares my sentiments.... I used to use OCuk for loads of orders and they were great - until something went wrong. To cut a long story short I had to return a faulty motherboard and it took them 6 months (and several phone calls every week) to get a replacement. As a result I'd rather eat a bowl of broken glass than buy something from them again; even if it means I have to pay a bit more to buy things elsewhere.

lol, yep they are a funny bunch. I always get a sense of inbreeding when visiting their forums. The post count of the regulars is beyond belief these days.

I used to like them around 2000-2001, I'm sure they must have changed ownership since then? The way everyone rants on about how great they are in their forums almost makes me feel dirty just reading it.

The thing with RMAs with them is that because they are a small company they tend to send off the broken item to the manufacturer, this can lead you either waiting a week or two. Which is fine, or if your unlucky, a month or two.

You just can't be sure, they are also very misleading with their returns policy. Actually their policy was technically illegal until recently where its a little more clear. They attempt to minimise their responsibility and put it on to the manufactuere.

When UK law states that the contract is with the reseller and not the manufacturer.

Anyway, although I have bough a lot of stuff from them, its only when they are doing it super cheap, their prices do update with the distribution price pretty quick usually but thats about all their good for.

I just hate there horrible matey atmosphere they try to portay in the forums.

Maybe I'm just a grump git but reading post after post of bum licking from regulars with 100000000 posts of gibberish does tend to make you that way.

(sorry for OT, but its kinda related ;))
 
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17613854

Just read that for some proof on OCUK ;)

"After 28 days send it back to the manufacturer regardless"????!!!

Sorry, come again?

Everyone there is brainwashed, they've all been turned into little cybergimps with wallets that are way too loose, read it, you can almost feel "the family"...ya know what I mean ;)

:thumbsdow
 
robo989 said:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17613854

Just read that for some proof on OCUK ;)

"After 28 days send it back to the manufacturer regardless"????!!!

Sorry, come again?

Everyone there is brainwashed, they've all been turned into little cybergimps with wallets that are way too loose, read it, you can almost feel "the family"...ya know what I mean ;)

:thumbsdow

wtf? Surely thats against the law. (as in if something is faulty within 6 months, the shop has to replace / refund you).
 

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