Tekforums

Chat => Entertainment & Technology => Topic started by: soopahfly on February 05, 2007, 11:26:53 AM

Title: £200 Upgrade
Post by: soopahfly on February 05, 2007, 11:26:53 AM
Got Ã,£200 to upgrade my PC,

Currently its this spec

A64 3200 (939)
2gb Ram
1.5TB HDD Space
6600GT Gfx Card

Where would my money be best spent, bearing in mind im not a massive PC Gamer.
Title: Re:£200 Upgrade
Post by: Mongoose on February 05, 2007, 11:33:55 AM
if I had that machine, Id be looking to drop an X2 CPU in it
Title: £200 Upgrade
Post by: Tongy on February 05, 2007, 11:54:13 AM
Aye, I would say the same, X2... however if youre not a massive gamer why do you need an upgrade?

Core 2 ftw tho :D

Cheers
Tongy
Title: Re:£200 Upgrade
Post by: soopahfly on February 05, 2007, 12:03:15 PM
Running Vista and do a lot of work with mahooosive archives and on-the-fly video conversion/streaming
Title: £200 Upgrade
Post by: Mongoose on February 05, 2007, 12:10:34 PM
Quote from: TongyAye, I would say the same, X2... however if youre not a massive gamer why do you need an upgrade?

Core 2 ftw tho :D

Cheers
Tongy

true but to go Core2 hell have to swap out mobo and RAM as well, which will come to a lot more than Ã,£200.

Im not a massive gamer and I would love to upgrade my rig to something like the above + an X2, Photography you see
Title: £200 Upgrade
Post by: Tongy on February 05, 2007, 14:13:39 PM
Quote from: Mongoose
Quote from: TongyAye, I would say the same, X2... however if youre not a massive gamer why do you need an upgrade?

Core 2 ftw tho :D

Cheers
Tongy

true but to go Core2 hell have to swap out mobo and RAM as well, which will come to a lot more than Ã,£200.

Im not a massive gamer and I would love to upgrade my rig to something like the above + an X2, Photography you see

Youre running PC3200 DDR right? the ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA can take a Core2, has DDR slots, RAID and has PCIe http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/124950  and this http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/112704. And since shipping is free, should leave you Ã,£32 odd quid :D

Have a gander at that, see what you think.

Cheers
Tongy
Title: Re:£200 Upgrade
Post by: Beaker on February 05, 2007, 14:26:58 PM
Ã,£100 will buy you an X2 4200+, which appears to be the fastest generally available S939 processor.   Ã,£60ish will buy you an A64 3800 S939.  Either option will give you a decent enough performance hike for the money you are spending.  Might be worth checking to see if there is a compatible Opteron for your board.  You are in an odd spot, you have enough money to do a minor upgrade, but not enough to give it a huge power boost.  
Title: £200 Upgrade
Post by: Mongoose on February 05, 2007, 15:19:35 PM
Quote from: Tongy
Quote from: Mongoose
Quote from: TongyAye, I would say the same, X2... however if youre not a massive gamer why do you need an upgrade?

Core 2 ftw tho :D

Cheers
Tongy

true but to go Core2 hell have to swap out mobo and RAM as well, which will come to a lot more than Ã,£200.

Im not a massive gamer and I would love to upgrade my rig to something like the above + an X2, Photography you see

Youre running PC3200 DDR right? the ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA can take a Core2, has DDR slots, RAID and has PCIe http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/124950  and this http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/112704. And since shipping is free, should leave you Ã,£32 odd quid :D

Have a gander at that, see what you think.

Cheers
Tongy

cheers for the link Tongy, unfortunately my RAM is all RegECC because of my dual AthlonXP setup so my next upgrade is screwed whichever way I go. Unless theres a mobo out there somewhere which supports RegECC and either an Athlon X2 or Core2Duo, I wont be upgrading for a while.

Title: Re:£200 Upgrade
Post by: soopahfly on February 05, 2007, 16:00:21 PM
Tempting, but Id prefer not to run AssssRock.
Title: Re:£200 Upgrade
Post by: Walrusbonzo on February 05, 2007, 16:48:11 PM
Quote from: soopahflyRunning Vista and do a lot of work with mahooosive archives and on-the-fly video conversion/streaming

You do that and not a big gamer....

Easy choice, you want a faster CPU.  Get an X2.

Or, try and surce an Opteron 165(1.8GHz default, 1mb L2 cache per core) like me, mine does 2.7GHz aircooled.  Or even try sourcing an Opteron 170.
Title: Re:£200 Upgrade
Post by: Mongoose on February 05, 2007, 16:58:01 PM
and if you REALLY want to spend the extra Ã,£100 left over after buying your X2, get a spangly new wireless keyboard and mouse or something. The rest of your setup looks sweet as for non gaming
Title: Re:£200 Upgrade
Post by: Serious on February 05, 2007, 18:24:08 PM
or just wait till you have more to spend...
Title: Re:£200 Upgrade
Post by: Mongoose on February 05, 2007, 20:12:39 PM
Quote from: Seriousor just wait till you have more to spend...

could do that indeed, but tbh with the system he already has I would have thought the X2 is a no brainer upgrade. Core2 is faster sure, but its going to cost over twice as much with the replacement mobo and probably replacement RAM as well. Its going to be a while before there are Core2s available which will give enough of a boost to make the extra expense and hassle worth while imo.

X2 4200 is what Id do, or maybe one of those Opterons Walrus suggested if you can find one.
Title: £200 Upgrade
Post by: knighty on February 05, 2007, 21:45:08 PM
deffo get an x2.... upgrading to x2 was the only real proformance boost ive seen in a long time... its noticably faster... where as once you have a cpu going at 2+ghz, an upgrade isnt really that noticible.