Upgrade help please

TKK

A mate has asked me to price an upgrade for his pc for him (I'll also be installing it). While I did spec the original I'm not all that up to speed on the latest hardware so I'm calling on your expertise here. He's a gamer and is finding that the recent games are beyond his machines capabilities (he doesn't like to have to turn anything down). His existing pc is a p4 on an abit board with 1GB RAM and a 7800gt. Case (Antec p180), hdd, dvd etc. are all fine. I'm not certain on the psu but if that needs upping then it'll be done too.

So it's looking like a motherboard, processor, RAM and graphics card. What would you recommend?

TKK

Oh yeah, forgot to say he's got a 19" lcd and doesn't appear interested in changing anytime soon. That should lower the cost of the graphics card anyway.

Also is there any point looking at a system that is upgradeable in the future? Judging by the current setup he's getting 2+ years out of a system and with the speed technology moves at you're probably looking at changing all the core components again to get any real improvement.

Sqaull20

Psu should be ok, whats his budget?

For €430 delivered you get this nice setup...

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-161-IN

Crucial Ballistix 2GB PC2-6400C4

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-090-CR

Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L Intel P31

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-101-GI

PNY GeForce 9600 GT

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-008-PN

Anti

bargain for 430€ to be honest.

TKK

Sorry, meant to include the budget. He's willing to go to €600.

Sqaull20

TKK wrote: »

Sorry, meant to include the budget. He's willing to go to €600.

Dont think he to spend that much, if he had 24" monitor he would..

Above spec is perfect for 19" monitor and its a great overclocker...

TerrorFirmer

Good set up by Squall, if needs be, you could drop even lower and get a cheap dual core, which overclock exceptionally well and would offer same performance as a quad in the current crop of games...though with a budget of 600 there's no need for that.

Not to mention, the 7800GT, Abit Board, P4 + 1gb ram would be worth at least 140, effectively bringing his net cost to, say, 300.

blackgold>>

why doesn't your friend just buy another gig of ram and a graphics card ?

TKK

Was actually going to look into that option as well blackgold. I'm going to have to get the details on the motherboard and look into what can be done with the existing setup.

I'm thinking that if one was to upgrade the main components maybe an oem vista should be added in order to run dx10 games. Has dx10 made it yet or are the developers still playing catch-up?

blackgold>>

He likes to play new games so buy him a new graphics card the rest is just bs that p4 is fine.