Help Needed - PC Upgrade Choices

Vic Vinegar

I'm looking to upgrade our pc this week, don't wanna spend loads on it (just splurged a far amount on a laptop!)

Here's what i was thinking:

CPU - AMD Athlon II X3 440 -3 GHz -AM3 Socket €79

Mobo -MSI 770-C45 - AM3 Socket - 770 Chipset - ATX €61

OCZ Gold Low Voltage 2 x 2 GB DDR3-1333 PC3-10666 €99

And a new case, cos the one we have only has one fan and is very small

Case €36

Does anyone foresee any problems with these parts?

We already have a hard drive and a decent graphics card and sound card, so don't need those.

Am i better spending a wee bit extra and going for a quad core? the pc isn't really used for anything too intensive so i'm not really sure if it's necessary (a bit of photoshop, no gaming apart from Sims 3, FL Studio usage, some anime studio)

We have an Athlon X2 5200, 2gb of ddr2 ram at the mo, but the mobo is starting to fail and i figure it's best to upgrade sooner rather than later and be future proofed for a while in the process.

Cheers.

Solitaire

That is a bad price for cack RAM, but Pix has always been awful for RAM

And the case is a pile of poo. Squared, when you bear in mind some of the other sub-€50 cases on Pix at the moment. Thermaltake V3, NZXT Gamma, Antec 200 and 300...

Vic Vinegar

Ok, cheers, what ram do you recommend? bear in mind i'm definitely using Pix cos i need the stuff by Tuesday/Wednesday, wasn't sure about the the case, it just looked cool

Mobo & CPU ok then?

Solitaire

Nope, the cheapy Veritech stuff is sold out, you're stuck with the OCZ modules unless you put down yet another tenner on better DDR3!!

The Advance is made out of tinfoil. This multiplies the fan fail as the side fan will cause some ungodly vibration against the paper-thin sides. This is a very nice case for the long term, especially if you add a few big-ass fans to counter any OCing (the X3-4** can be fairly hot'n'heavy when overvolted). The Antec 200 is nothing to be sniffed at either, and has slightly better spec for its price (i.e. it ships with the 140mm top fan included!) although IIRC the Gamma has the nicer interior and at least some options for cable routing that doesn't involve Dremelling :P Both are around €40 on Pix.

Vic Vinegar

Ok, thanks for the advice!

I'm thinking of this ram now, costs a bit more but what the hey

Ram

Would that be a better option? seems to have better feedback online anyway

The MSi board seems ok, relatively plain and simple apparently but all i need really... will go for the Antec Two Hundred case and the Athlon II X3 435 - 2.9 GHz too i reckon.

Solitaire

Too far! :P I was really thinking of the OCZ Platinum (tight timings) or Obsidian (normal timings but high speed) kits for €109

Good choices otherwise. The MSI 770-C45 is a well-known and popular mobo, and it makes up for the lack of CrossFire with very good performance and reliability for its price point (a goodie for unlocking Athlon X3 and Phenom X2/X3 cores too! ). X4-435 is a good budget CPU. AFAIK they're all C3 stepping yet cheaper than the only incrementally faster X3-440

Vic Vinegar

Solitaire wrote: »

Too far! :P I was really thinking of the OCZ Platinum (tight timings) or Obsidian (normal timings but high speed) kits for €109

Good choices otherwise. The MSI 770-C45 is a well-known and popular mobo, and it makes up for the lack of CrossFire with very good performance and reliability for its price point (a goodie for unlocking Athlon X3 and Phenom X2/X3 cores too! ). X4-435 is a good budget CPU. AFAIK they're all C3 stepping yet cheaper than the only incrementally faster X3-440

Nice one! Any idea how long delivery takes from Scan to Ireland just out of interest? might get from them instead if they deliver quick!

Solitaire

Not at all sure about Scan... don't know if they even ship over here

Pacifico

They definitely ship here alright.... haven't ordered lately so cannot comment on the speed!