which way to go

L

llwyd

New member
Christmas is approaching which mean hopefully some money and january sales which means a system upgrade is withing my reach. My computer is pretty capable at the moment but the performance boost conroe offeres is too much to resist (current system is X2 3800 @ 2.65 and a 1GB kit of OCZ running on a fairly poor divider and average timings with a 7800GTX @ 490 / 1.3) Basically i am trying to decide whether to:

A. Buy an E6300, a p5b Delux and a semi decent mem kit

B. Buy an 8800GTS

C. Save up for a while longer since my rig is fairly decent and then make a nice big jump when AMD get something worth writing home about / high end conroes drop into resonable price.

Any feedback is welcome but please keep it sensible (no "get a QX6700!!!"), I dont have alot of money to spend so I am relying on decent overclocking parts (which will be an adventure since i havent done any proper overclocking on Intels)
 
I'd go for A, simply because a 8800GTX will not show its full potential on your system, and you'll have some nice shiney new hardware to play with at christmas.

You could wait, but then you could be waiting forever.
 
XMS said:
I'd go for A, simply because a 8800GTX will not show its full potential on your system, and you'll have some nice shiney new hardware to play with at christmas.

You could wait, but then you could be waiting forever.
Click to expand...

yea the shiney newness is also a big attraction. would you say its worth spending an extra £30 on the cpu and getting the 6400, its stock clock is considerably higher (2.4 over 1.86 i think) which would put me over 3 gig comfortably i reckon. Also what would be the general concensus on the best memory front?
 
name='llwyd' said:
yea the shiney newness is also a big attraction. would you say its worth spending an extra £30 on the cpu and getting the 6400, its stock clock is considerably higher (2.4 over 1.86 i think) which would put me over 3 gig comfortably i reckon. Also what would be the general concensus on the best memory front?
Click to expand...

Yeah I'd probably spend the extra to ensure get the higher multi so you don't need to worry so much about the fsb capabilities of the board.

As for ram, are you going 1gb or 2gb?
 
Well it all depends on what way you want to go and how much cash you'll have after chrimbo.

The CPU and mobo and RAM upgrade would be good, but you're system is no slouch either. However in gaming they are very fast

An 8800 is a nice buy but they should drop in price fairly soon. Add that to the fact that no DX10 (or even DX10 itself) are out yet and you have yourself an answer.
 
2Gb hopefully

i will probably be selling off my main rig to make up the extra so i will have to see. i doubt i will get that much for it these days anyway but it could make all the difference. My main concern is being able to cope with UT07 and a 7800GTX at the clocks ive got it at should suffice on the graphics front but im just not sure about my haggard old X2
 
I'm locking in with "A". Jim pointed out the main thing that your current config is going to bottleneck the G80 if you go that route.

As for option C, well, you could be waiting a LONG time for that to happen. AMD hasn't even shown a glimmer of hope at releasing any new architecture that will compete with Core. AMD seem to have their head up their ass lately... I'd be less worried about Quadfather (useless....) and more worried about redesigning the architecture to get back in the race.
 
ye pretty much what i was planning. my only concern budget wise is memory, i want to be able to get a 6400 over 3 gig comfortably but if it would be better to spend the £30 extra (to go 6400 over 6300) on memory that would allow me to get a 6300 over the speed which the 6400 would acheive with £30 cheaper memory then i will do that (feel free to read that over again). I have been looking at the OCZ but i dont have a clue about DDR2 tbh. any feedback or cheap deals on memory kits would be much appreciated as i am very bored in college :)
 
You keep saying '6400', which isn't the 2.4GHz cpu, that would be the 6600... and the one I have. It has the 2MB cache, which to me makes it the cpu of choice for those that want to save money ($310 US). Couple that with a decent mobo and RAM will likely run you about $800 US total, so it isn't going to be cheap no matter how you slice it. Add in another $500-$1000 for an 8800GTS/SLI, and then $250 for Windows Vista, and you've just spent next years Christmas money. And the next three as well probably...

Then again I'm half-way through that whole scenario myself.

TJS
 
Llwyd: You posed the question of whether you should get a combo cpu/mobo/RAM or an 8800 series video card, or just continue to save and hit them all up at the same time. Rather than give my two cents about which direction, I pointed out that either way you go, it's going to cost you, and not cheaply.

I was under the assumption you were trying to go as cheap as possible, and with Vista in the near future. (Not much use getting an 8800 series card without Vista being a primary reason.)

Your setup is nice right now, but I'd agree with the rest that the cpu/mobo/RAM combo is the way to go. Your 7800 series vc's would go nicely with the C2D setup; the 8800 would be under used by the X2 3800. (All this has been mentioned, yes.)

And who doesn't want SLI?:D (Okay, I f'ed that one up...)

TJS
 
furry muff, i did forget that i mentioned the 8800, that wasnt really a viable option anyway due to power and bottlenecking, was just trying to bulk out the thread. im building a system after christmas now anyway so stay tuned
 
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