Upgrade Time

AndyMinx · Post by **AndyMinx** » 05 Feb 2007, 19:20

Morning all!

Well it's time for my upgrade so I was wondering what you all think to this system I might put together. My Current System is as follows;

Abit KV8Pro motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ Socket 754
1Gb Overclockers Value DDR400 RAM
ATi Radeon 9800Pro 256Mb
120Gb SATA HDD
Soundblaster Audigy LS 24Bit sound card
Belkin PCI 4 port USB expansion card
650W PSU
CD-ROM drive
DVD+RW drive
3.5" Floppy drive

My proposed system is:

Asus M2V VIA K8T890 motherboard
AMD Athlon X2 5200+ Socket AM2
2Gb Corsair Value DDR667 RAM
ATi Radeon X1950Pro 512Mb Graphics
160Gb SATA2 HDD
Soundblaster Audigy LS 24Bit sound card
Belkin PCI 4 port USB expansion card
530W Tagan PSU
CD-ROM drive
DVD+RW drive
3.5" Floppy drive

What do we all think?

Cheers,

Quixoticish · Post by **Quixoticish** » 05 Feb 2007, 20:47

Looks cracking, however I'd change the motherboard/CPU to an Intel Core 2 Duo combo if you can, I've used both and the Intel really has the AMD beat hands down this time.

Post by **DaveB** » 05 Feb 2007, 20:58

Does this mean my XP2400 is out of date now?? :roll: Strewth.. how time flies

ATB

DaveB :tab:

Paul K · Post by **Paul K** » 05 Feb 2007, 21:04

Andy, your old computer would be an upgrade for me!

JimCooper · Post by **JimCooper** » 05 Feb 2007, 21:32

Chris H wrote:Looks cracking, however I'd change the motherboard/CPU to an Intel Core 2 Duo combo if you can, I've used both and the Intel really has the AMD beat hands down this time.

Totally agree... get a LGA775 Motherboard and E6600 processor.
The 6600 will probably cost about Â£10 more but its got a 4MB cache compared with the 1MB cache on the AMD.

Good choice with X1950Pro as good as the 7950GT but cheaper

Regards

Jim

AndyMinx · Post by **AndyMinx** » 05 Feb 2007, 22:47

Thanks for that guys!
Is there a vast performance increase with the E6600?
Just I've almost always been an AMD and ATi man and i'm a touch reluctant to change! :redface:

Still, all worth considering and this is precisely why I posted here before commiting nearly Â£700 to it!

Cheers,

JimCooper · Post by **JimCooper** » 06 Feb 2007, 00:24

AndyMinx wrote:Thanks for that guys!
Is there a vast performance increase with the E6600?
Just I've almost always been an AMD and ATi man and i'm a touch reluctant to change! :redface:

Still, all worth considering and this is precisely why I posted here before commiting nearly Â£700 to it!

Cheers,

Andy,

Like you I was a stalwart AMD man right up until Pentium M and the Core2 were released. At the moment Intel blows away AMD and the E6600 is superb.
Haven't seen a comparison of E6600 with X2 5200+ but compared to the X2 5000+ (in Unreal Tournament) it was 114 fps versus 98 fps
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html? ... &chart=167

I'm not a big fan of ATI... prefer nVidia because you can horizontal and vertical span them across multiple monitors.. Not such a big issue now because you can couple the ATI to a Matrox TripleHead2Go if you want to span multiple monitors (at a cost though and reduced resolution) Â£ for Â£ you'll get better frame rates from the ATI if you don't want to span (unless they've produced updated derivers for spanning now????)
If you want to span your virtual cokpit across more than one monitor I'd go for 7950GT (or 7950GTX if you can afford it) If you really want to push the boat out 8800GTX will give more than 50% extra fps

Regards

Jim

Quixoticish · Post by **Quixoticish** » 06 Feb 2007, 01:33

AndyMinx wrote:Thanks for that guys!
Is there a vast performance increase with the E6600?
Just I've almost always been an AMD and ATi man and i'm a touch reluctant to change! :redface:

Still, all worth considering and this is precisely why I posted here before commiting nearly Â£700 to it!

Cheers,

I was an AMD man until I actually picked up a core 2 duo on special offer when I was building a rig for the better half; I was very impressed. It really is the dogs danglies compared to the AMD, you actually get far better performance for your money. I'm running the 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo on an MSI P965 Platinum with 2GB of RAM and a Radeon X1950Pro and I've yet to find anything to force it to break into a sweat, including FSX which runs quite happily maxed out with a few tweaks here and there. And on a plus side the graphics card was so cheap that I won't feel guilty about upgrading when the DirectX 10 cards start to hit the mainstream.

tonymadge · Post by **tonymadge** » 06 Feb 2007, 15:37

Abit KV8Pro motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ Socket 754
1Gb Overclockers Value DDR400 RAM
ATi Radeon 9800Pro 256Mb
120Gb SATA HDD
Soundblaster Audigy LS 24Bit sound card
Belkin PCI 4 port USB expansion card
650W PSU
CD-ROM drive
DVD+RW drive
3.5" Floppy drive

Andy your right the old system is cack will give you Â£100 for it

The new one looks a mighty thing though, I have found that Nvidia cards on AA settings alone (not in FS) does give the problem of not seeing an aircraft in the aircraft selection menu. I know a lot of people who have this problem..... if there is a cure let me know..thats why I stay AA on FS only :sad:

AndyG · Post by **AndyG** » 06 Feb 2007, 16:37

tonymadge wrote:.... I have found that Nvidia cards on AA settings alone (not in FS) does give the problem of not seeing an aircraft in the aircraft selection menu. I know a lot of people who have this problem..... if there is a cure let me know..thats why I stay AA on FS only :sad:

That's a weird one Tony! I'm a confirmed Nvidia user, always use the AA settings for the card and have never had that problem!

Andy, the only thing I can add to all the above is to consider looking at the Creative X-Fi soundcards. I switched from a vanilla Audigy to the X-Fi a few months back, best investment I made in a long while, the audio quality is astounding! :shock: BTW I've never experienced any of the problems others were getting with the Audigy 2 cards either.

AndyG