Wanting to upgrade

maximusbad · August 2005

Ok i want to upgrade to socket 939 and PCI-E video. What do you reccomend? Limit is about $2,500. As I am needing to get 2 of everything(2 cpu's, 2 video cards, 2 hard drives, 2 Power Supplies, 2 Memory Kits(1GB), and 2 Heatsinks.) Let me know what you think i should get. Looking to purchase either today or tomorrow.

djstubbs · August 2005

2 of everything...

that takes your price down quite a bit.

But check my sig for parts, I recently upgraded and did a ton of research.

muddocktor · August 2005

Your budget allows for considerable differences in what you can upgrade to, so what are your main purposes for this rig? Are you into gaming almost exclusively or do you do a lot of video encoding or what? If you do a mix of things, then an X2 processor might fit the bill for you. It makes a single proc socket 939 board into a dually and you can both game and encode at the same time with an X2 proc. What I would pick would be something like this:

Mobo-Asus or DFI nf4 sli board

Proc - X2 3800+ proc with an XP90 or XP90C hsf

Memory - depends on what you want to do, mad overclocking or crazy encoding and gaming at the same time. If you are going for max memory, the Patriot has some 1 GB sticks of PC3200 that will run 2-3-2-5 timings for $130/stick. If ultra high performance is your quest, then G. Skill has a 1 GB DC kit rated to DDR600 for around $300. The key to ultimate performance on nf4 is to only use 2 sticks of ram in DC mode as using 4 sticks will almost certainly require more relaxed memory timings than running 2 sticks of ram.

Video card(s) - The clear performance leader in this area presently is the Nvidia 7800GTX vid cards. With that said, ATI will be coming out with their version of SLI, which is card based from what I've read and not dependent on a mobo supporting it. If you buy an ATI card now it can be used as the slave card when the Crossfire vid cards come out. All that is hanging your hat on future technology though with the ATI stuff; Nvidia already has SLI out and readily available.

Hard drive(s) - A lot of attractive choices out there; most everyone has at least a 3 year warrantee again and all Seagate's drives come with a 5 year warrantee now. I would suggest a very fast smaller size drive like the 10k rpm Raptor for the OS install and a large 7200 drive for your games and storage.

DVD - You can't go wrong with NEC's DVD burners

Sound - I've heard the onboard sound on the DFI boards is pretty darn good if you go with it, otherwise get an Audigy2 ZS Plat.

Speakers - Klipsch or Logitech

Monitor - Not making a guess at what fits your need

PSU - Get as good and as large a psu as you can afford from a quality company. SLI needs gobs of power, as well as overclocking a dual core proc.

MAGIC · August 2005

processor ide go with 64 3200 venice, motherboard dfi nf4 ultra dr sli, memory 1gb ocz plat rev-2, power ocz powerstream 1250, wd 74gb raptor, evga 6800 gt is gunna run you about 250, retail 3200 comes with a cooler so you really wouldnt need to buy one

MAGIC · August 2005

oh i didnt realize you had to get cases, speakers, dvd drives, and all that crap. youll have to step the graphics down a bit to a 6600, get a bit looser memory like ocz performance 2-3-3-6 i think it is, then change the raptor to a 7200rpm sata 200gb wd. that should nock about 300 bucks off of the other price i gave you. plextor makes a sata dvd burner thats about 80 bucks i think it looks nice

edcentric · August 2005

You need to define the usage.
Do you intend on going SLI? If no just buy the ultra D mobo.
Do you want to overclock? Buy the OCS VX memory.
Do you want dual core? If not buy the 3200+ now.

There are plenty of good solid PSUs for $100 or less.

Lots of options. Give us some usage guide lines.

maximusbad · August 2005

What i'm needing it for is hardcor gaming, games like Doom 3, Half-Life 2, BF2, etc. All i really need to get is the motherboard, cpu, memory, hard drive, PSU, and video card. I do not intend on doing any overclocking and for sli, i don't plan to do that either in the future.

Edit---
Also I don't really need a dual core processor, just something fast enough and that will be able to keep up with the game demands.

djstubbs · August 2005

edcentric wrote:

You need to define the usage.
Do you intend on going SLI? If no just buy the ultra D mobo.
Do you want to overclock? Buy the OCS VX memory.
Do you want dual core? If not buy the 3200+ now.

There are plenty of good solid PSUs for $100 or less.

Lots of options. Give us some usage guide lines.

You can even hardmod the DFI board for SLI, but I wanted my LAN back so I went the extra mile.

djstubbs · August 2005

maximusbad wrote:

What i'm needing it for is hardcor gaming, games like Doom 3, Half-Life 2, BF2, etc. All i really need to get is the motherboard, cpu, memory, hard drive, PSU, and video card. I do not intend on doing any overclocking and for sli, i don't plan to do that either in the future.

Edit---
Also I don't really need a dual core processor, just something fast enough and that will be able to keep up with the game demands.

Definitely go for 2 gigs of dual channel RAM, like the one I posted in the OCz support forum.

You actually gain about 15-20 fps in BF2 from having 2 gb of RAM.

MAGIC · August 2005

maximusbad wrote:

What i'm needing it for is hardcor gaming, games like Doom 3, Half-Life 2, BF2, etc. All i really need to get is the motherboard, cpu, memory, hard drive, PSU, and video card. I do not intend on doing any overclocking and for sli, i don't plan to do that either in the future.

Edit---
Also I don't really need a dual core processor, just something fast enough and that will be able to keep up with the game demands.

than go with more or less what i posted first

djstubbs · August 2005

' wrote:

[V][AGIC']than go with more or less what i posted first

I'm pretty sure with his budget he could go for something a bit better than a 3200+

But it's all up to your budget.

You'll definitely want 2 x 1gb sticks of ram, and a 7800 GTX for optimal BF2 performance.

ryko · August 2005

airbornflght · August 2005

except that he needs two systems?? am i right. you did say you needed two of everything, and that makes your budget for each computer around $1250. which wont get you that hot of a computer

MAGIC · August 2005

djstubbs wrote:

I'm pretty sure with his budget he could go for something a bit better than a 3200+

But it's all up to your budget.

You'll definitely want 2 x 1gb sticks of ram, and a 7800 GTX for optimal BF2 performance.

erm he has 2500 to build 2 computers

Wanting to upgrade

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