So I plugged it in and it went fizzle, fizzle

GreeBo

pop.

That was the old machine, Ive been thinking of an upgrade so now is a good time. I dont know whats dead or still living from the old machine so its pretty much a total replacement.

Looking at hardwareversand.de I have cobbled together this list:

Thermaltake Swing schwarz VB6000BWS ohne Netzteil 54,48 € (Case)
ATX-Netzt.BE Quiet! Straight Power 450 Watt / BQT E5 57,93 €
4096MB-Kit OCZ PC2-6400 ReaperX HPC Enhanced Bandwidth, CL4 117,01 €
AMD Athlon64 X2 5200+ AM2"box", 2x1024kB 90,12 €
Club3D HD3850 Overclocked 512MB, ATI Radeon HD 3850, PCI-Express 173,59 €
MS Windows Vista home premium 64bit Englisch 84,85 €
ASUS M3A, Sockel AM2+, AMD 770+SB600, ATX 69,94 €
Samsung HD321KJ 320GB Serial ATA-II, 7200 UPM, 16MB 60,97 €

Total of 708 + 30 shipping.
So, its been 5 years since my last build, is the above mad, crazy, good or what?

I use the machine for work but also playing FPS like BF2, and want to be able to continue to play newer more intense games as they come along (BF2 is a bit of a crawl at the moment)

Current machine is (was!):
Asus nforce2 A7N8X
AMD Athlon XP2400+ 2.0 GHz 266 MHz bus Socket A (Thoroughbred)
Club3D GeForce 6600GT 128MB GDDR3 AGP
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200GB SATA
TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB Dual Pack

Feel free to point out better offers or something more future proof, Im also half thinking about water cooling due to noise (oh and I might not bother with the new case)

Cheers!

TerrorFirmer

I wouldn't go with AM2, cheap prices are enticing but it's a dead upgrade path (at least, in practical terms, phenom is pointless). A cheap Core 2 can be overclocked easily on air to match or beat the 5200+, if you're that concerned about budget. I have a 60 euro 2160 at 3Ghz from the stock 1.8 on air.

It would be a good machine as is, that's not in question, but again, without a whole lot of scope for upgrading which is a shame for a brand new machine

GreeBo

ok cool, thanks for the info, I didnt know that.
Ive made some changes, hopefully in the right direction:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Tray, 4096Kb, LGA775, 64bit, Conroe 131,39 €
Gigabyte GA-N650SLI-DS4L, NVIDIA nForce650i, ATX, PCI-Express 73,96 €
Zalman CNPS8000 Sockel 775/754/939/940 31,87 €
4096MB-Kit OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 Reaper, CL4 104,11 €
Coolermaster Centurion RC534 49,99 €
ATX-Netzt.BE Quiet! Straight Power 450 Watt / BQT E5 57,93 €
Club3D HD3850 Overclocked 512MB, ATI Radeon HD 3850, PCI-Express 173,59 €
WD Caviar SE 500GB, WD5000AAJS, SATA II 84,18 €
MS Windows Vista home premium 64bit Englisch 84,85 €
Arctic Silver V (Wlp.) 3,25 €

Total Price has moved up to €795 ex shipping

Anti

Nothing wrong with that at all. Well apart from the psu. I personally would only use corsair/seasonic/ocz/tagan power supplies. Also you should be looking for 500w+ for future upgrades.

TerrorFirmer

OK brand psu in terms of quality but yeah I'd also go for something a bit stronger to cover yourself.

Also, I'd drop the 3850 in favour of this - much cheaper, and just as good. Overclocked slightly, it actually touches the HD3870 up to 1600x1200 in some reviews....good investment for a budget mid range part. Plus, you've picked out a Sli board...

Another 30 quid on the card and you'd get an 8800GT, superb card that blows either the 384mb variant or either of the HD cards away.

Or here you have the HD3870 for the same price as the 3850 you've picked, though given that the 3850 is 512mb and overclocked, there wouldn't be a world of difference.

Of course it depends on your monitor - at 1280x1024, the 8800GS is more then you'll need, whereas if you were using a 20" the HD3870/8800GT would be the sweet spot. Also, in terms of games - if BF2 is what you're currently playing, any of those cards will run it at maximum settings with full AA and AF at 100fps.

GreeBo

Anti wrote: »

Nothing wrong with that at all. Well apart from the psu. I personally would only use corsair/seasonic/ocz/tagan power supplies. Also you should be looking for 500w+ for future upgrades.

Hmm my last PSU was a beQuiet and the silence was great. Then again it did just up and die on me...
I'll take a look at the others regarding price, cheers!

GreeBo

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

OK brand psu in terms of quality but yeah I'd also go for something a bit stronger to cover yourself.

Also, I'd drop the 3850 in favour of this - much cheaper, and just as good. Overclocked slightly, it actually touches the HD3870 up to 1600x1200 in some reviews....good investment for a budget mid range part. Plus, you've picked out a Sli board...

Another 30 quid on the card and you'd get an 8800GT, superb card that blows either the 384mb variant or either of the HD cards away.

Or here you have the HD3870 for the same price as the 3850 you've picked, though given that the 3850 is 512mb and overclocked, there wouldn't be a world of difference.

Of course it depends on your monitor - at 1280x1024, the 8800GS is more then you'll need, whereas if you were using a 20" the HD3870/8800GT would be the sweet spot. Also, in terms of games - if BF2 is what you're currently playing, any of those cards will run it at maximum settings with full AA and AF at 100fps.

I think I looked at the 8800GS but wasnt sure what DirectX version it supported, or is that just drivers?
Also, I thought that crossfireX was the same thing as Sli?
Thanks again...

Anti

Any 8 Series nvidia card supports dx 10. The newer variants the 9 series will support dx 10.1. And all of the cards are backwards compatible with older versions of direct X, Drivers have nothing to do with direct X versions. Crossfire and sli are similar. But not quite the same.

SLI : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link_Interface

Crossfire : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATI_CrossFire

GreeBo

ok so I guess the question is what am I going to miss out on between 10 and 10.1?
Is it important enough to consider it when upgrading?

Reading wikipedia I dont get a feel for which is better, in any case Im probably not going to be buying a second card any time soon so does it matter?
Which leaves me in a better upgrade position in 5 years?

Cheers for all the replies.

GreeBo

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Also, I'd drop the 3850 in favour of 8800 GS

The cooler on the 8800 looks a bit "standard" compared to the 3850, I have a Zalman Vf700-BP01 on my current card but I cant find if its compatible or not. Are there standards for GPU coolers?