help with spec

magickangaroo · 17 Apr 2006 at 18:36

hiya, rodgered my old pc royally need to update the insides.

was lookinga t 400-500 quid.

just need a cpu, memory 2 gigs would be good as i play a lot of mmorpg, motherboard and cpu

was thinking of getting a GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 667MHz Value kit

cpu im torn between an opty and a Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego both around the same price. whats the difrence between these bar the 64 bit support

Asus A8N-SLi SE for the motherboard

and something along the lines of GeForce 6800 GS

so any ideas would be apreciated.

plus any obvious oversights like the memory having more bandwdth than can be used.

sorry used to be prety down bout this but i let it all slip.

mgk

oh if a board can use pc 3200 memory that would be grand and save me some money as i got a gig of that still.

BigDom · 17 Apr 2006 at 19:25

You don't mention which PSU you have so you may need an extra £50 for a decent one. But heres a decent spec for the rest, solid enough in all departments. The ram you specified is DDR2 which doesn't go with AMD chips (yet). CPU is nice and overclockable if you which, graphics is about the highest you can fit into the budget. I went for 2gig ram because it's best to go 2x1gb for a 2gig solution.

CP-121-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3700BNBOX) (CP-121-AM)
£128.95 £128.95
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£64.95 £64.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£89.95 £89.95
GX-037-PC PowerColor ATI Radeon X850 XT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-037-PC)
£129.95 £129.95
Subtotal £413.80
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £8.95
VAT £73.99
Total £496.74

thewonderstoat · 17 Apr 2006 at 19:59

How about an Opty 146 for a similar price?

BigDom · 17 Apr 2006 at 20:02

thewonderstoat said:
How about an Opty 146 for a similar price?

Not much in it really, the 3700+ is quicker stock ( I believe it's a faster clock speed - 2.2ghz I think ) and overclocking they have similar potential.

Monstermunch · 17 Apr 2006 at 23:22

BigDom said:
You don't mention which PSU you have so you may need an extra £50 for a decent one. But heres a decent spec for the rest, solid enough in all departments. The ram you specified is DDR2 which doesn't go with AMD chips (yet). CPU is nice and overclockable if you which, graphics is about the highest you can fit into the budget. I went for 2gig ram because it's best to go 2x1gb for a 2gig solution.

CP-121-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3700BNBOX) (CP-121-AM)
£128.95 £128.95
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£64.95 £64.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£89.95 £89.95
GX-037-PC PowerColor ATI Radeon X850 XT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-037-PC)
£129.95 £129.95
Subtotal £413.80
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £8.95
VAT £73.99
Total £496.74

Everything as BigDom says with the exception of the Motherboard. I'd avoid the crossfire boards if I were you, they are bug ridden and have a lot of problems with drivers etc. There are a lot of people RMA'ing and the moment. Look at something like the MSI Neo4 instead.

fenderbass86 · 17 Apr 2006 at 23:30

CP-121-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3700BNBOX) (CP-121-AM) 1
£128.95 £128.95
MB-046-MS MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-046-MS) 1
£64.95 £64.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL) 1
£89.95 £89.95
GX-080-LT Leadtek GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-080-LT) 1
£119.95 £119.95
Subtotal £403.80
VAT £70.67
Total £474.47

Gfx is more up to date than the X850XT. You could switch the 3700+ for the 146 Opty for a pound more if you wanted to.

BigDom · 17 Apr 2006 at 23:50

Monstermunch said:
Everything as BigDom says with the exception of the Motherboard. I'd avoid the crossfire boards if I were you, they are bug ridden and have a lot of problems with drivers etc. There are a lot of people RMA'ing and the moment. Look at something like the MSI Neo4 instead.

Drivers are fine and the one I spec is a solid board. I THINK the higher priced board is also better now but the older board is fine unless your into hardcore clocking.

As for the 7600 - newer card yes but not sure it's a better one. I'd personally stick with the X850XT.

magickangaroo · 19 Apr 2006 at 14:27

wow thanks for your assitance guys gonna place an order soon.

shoulda said i wasnt that keen on ati cards after previous experinces with them. but thank you all for your help

BigDom · 19 Apr 2006 at 15:49

magickangaroo said:
wow thanks for your assitance guys gonna place an order soon.

shoulda said i wasnt that keen on ati cards after previous experinces with them. but thank you all for your help

Modern ATI cards are at least as good as NVidia on all fronts.