New PC parts, quick questions (just in case)!

stakey

Hey folks,

I'm about to purchase some nice upgrades for my PC which is starting to show its age

Current machine is an AMD XP 2500, Asus A7N8X-X mainboard, 2 IDE HD's, 1 GB RAM, 9600XT all tucked into a Antec Sonata (w/350 w PSU)

The upgrades are gonna include

MB S939 Asus A8N-SLI Premium Edition
256MB XFX GeForce 6800GT PCIe
CPU AMD Athlon 64 3700+ S.Diego SSE3 Box

So just a few questions

Will the Athlon 3700's packaged fan do the job for a gaming machine or would I be better off going for a better fan? I would imagine the latter, just checkin though : )

Will the overall upgrade stuff sit well with a 350 Watt PSU or would I be better off getting a new one, if I do have to get a new one could the 350 W at least hold up until I have the cash?

Jes.de, I've ordered RAM off of them before which I found okay and speedy however, for something like Processors/Mainboards/Graphics Cards, what are they like? Any problems? Returns?

I can get that lot 100 euro cheaper off of Jes over Komplett so hoping they're grand for this sort of stuff....

Anything I've missed?

Cheers for your times folks...

Mad Mike

I have a 3500+ on an ASUS A8NE mobo in an Antec Sonata and I can offer some opinions:

1. Stock AMD heatsink and fan are just fine - well able to cool the chip down. Not the quietest but the motherboard has intelligent fan control so it will slow the fan down to a whisper when you are not pushing the processor hard.

2. The Antec Sonata has a very high quality 350W PSU and is a lot better than most cheap 400W or even 450W PSUs. I am running 3500+, X800XL, 1MB Ram, 2*HDD and 1 x DVD off it with plenty Amps to spare. My only complaint about the Antec PSU is that it isn't as silent as I'd like when the PC is idling.

3. I am generally pleased with the ASUS mobo except that it came with a very noisy fan on the chipset. It was by far the loudest thing in the box. I think Asus may have replaced it with a quieter model but I replaced mine with a Zalman fanless chipset cooler (about €7 in Peats) and it made a huge difference.


General comment: Why buy a SLI motherboard? Why not use the extra cash to put a 7800 series graphics card in a non-sli board?

JPA

Mad Mike wrote:

2. The Antec Sonata has a very high quality 350W PSU and is a lot better than most cheap 400W or even 450W PSUs. I am running 3500+, X800XL, 1MB Ram, 2*HDD and 1 x DVD off it with plenty Amps to spare. My only complaint about the Antec PSU is that it isn't as silent as I'd like when the PC is idling.

Man, you need to get with the times!


Sorry!

Mad Mike

Any program that can't fit into 1MB is just useless bloatware - bring back the 640kB limit!

Oops - I stand corrected - make that 1GB Ram, well spotted JPA

stakey

Mad Mike wrote:

General comment: Why buy a SLI motherboard? Why not use the extra cash to put a 7800 series graphics card in a non-sli board?

To be honest, just trying to future proof the machine, however I am open to suggestions

Jammer

the 7800gt is cheap as chips over at OCUK. Get a better psu too, esp for the sli board! Approx 500W from antec/ocz/seasonic...

K.O.Kiki

Why pay for future-proofing, when you can let your good friend, Mr OC, do the work for you!
Hmm... what about a DFI mobo? You could use that for some nice overclocking!

On a more serious note, it may be better to buy a Venice-core 3500+, and pay the by-now-tiny premium for a 7800GT -- I think the difference is down to €50~ish now



ps: I am not Mr OC

stakey

I know Mr.OC very well, he's been a great help for my poor old 2500 and 9600 so far...

I'm thinking of going with the BFG GeForce 7800 GT OC 256MB on OCUK

toning down the processor to 3500, but im not too sure about this one, would like the 1MB cache as opposed to the 512kb...

Any thoughts?

romperstomper

This is very close to how I want to upgrade my PC too.
I'm also running a sonata 1 case with the 350W PSU, 1Gb ram with a 3Ghz HT Northwood on a abit IC7-G board with a 6800GT

I want to go with athlon 64 bit gaming and my budget stretches to the 7800GT, MB S939 Asus A8N-SLI Premium Edition
3800+ AMD S. Diego.

My question is, will I notice a significant difference? My current system stuggles with BF2 & Quake 4