$800 upgrade

P

peacetilence

2[H]4U
Joined
Sep 23, 2004
Messages
2,343
The bug is killing me

Must replace

2500-M @ 2.5ghz
Abit NF-7
EVGA 6800GT AGP
1 gig Corsair Value Select Ram
430w Antec "trupower" PSU


I have 800 bucks give or take a couple hundred. I'm looking for the best bang per buck type of upgrade that would give me the biggest performance boost over what I have now and would last me around 2 years.

Proc - 3500+ Venice or something else. I need 100% 2.5ghz or higher with an A64 chip.
SLI Motherboard - Need a good overclocker.
7800GTX- Which Brand?
Ram- I'll probably just keep the ram I currently have unless something else would give a significant boost in performance
PSU - 430w probably isn't going to be enough for this machine,

Is there any way I can keep this around $800 bucks? I'm open to any advice and suggestions.
 
For MOBO, if you want an overclocker, go with the DFI LanParty UT SLI board. It is the best overclocking SLI board. I would go with an Antec TruePower II 550W PSU. HOWEVER, if you get an EVGA 7800GT/GTX, you can get an EVGA SLI mobo for FREE. I am not sure how well they overclock, but I am sure its not too bad.
 
edit once again: nm

I've been able to piece together an evga 7800GTX + Mobo + 3500 Venice + Antec 550 II TruPower for $875
 
peacetilence said:
edit once again: nm

I've been able to piece together an evga 7800GTX + Mobo + 3500 Venice + Antec 550 II TruPower for $875
Click to expand...

That seems kinda high to me? Did you try newegg for prices on these. You got about $700 in the 7800gtx and 3500+ if not a little more that would leave about $175 or so for a power supply? :eek:
 
Newegg was

Subtotal: $873.00
Shipping: $5.00

So slightly more. I have been unsatisfied with newegg lately so I wanted to try a different reseller.
 
Hey computerdude, you forgot about the motherboard. Thats all, if he shopped it, it could have been about 25 bucks cheaper, but i think ZZF has free shipping on most things.
 
zwbuntster said:
Hey computerdude, you forgot about the motherboard. Thats all, if he shopped it, it could have been about 25 bucks cheaper, but i think ZZF has free shipping on most things.
Click to expand...

Yeah I did I knew something didn't sound right.... :p Yes ZZF is a good site, tiger direct, monarch. Just do google search too.
 
ZZF and Monarch were the only two places I could find that had the 7800GTX + SLI board deal. I guess Newegg had it as well but it was difficult to see. ZZF has 2day free fedex shipping on everything I ordered and I didn't see that with other sites.


Do you think my Corsair Value Select ram will be good enough for this rig? I understand that FSB doesn't have a huge impact on performance with A64 chips, the timings for the ram are dectected as 2.5-3-3-8 on my Abit NF7 so hopefully I can get by with it.
 
do you really need sli?

You coulda done (this is just for people in the future), 3000+ Venice E6 from eWiz.com for $120, DFI nf4-DAGF for $90, 7800GTX for $480 (here with a game controller too), and a Seasonic S12-500 for $105 at www.case-mod.com.

That's what, like $795?

i just you got that evga deal though, that's not bad.

Anyway, what I was trying to get at is that you should try to get watercooling. Do some searching in the watercooling forum and find out about it. That will REALLY give you some longevity on your system.

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yea timings dont matter. You can probably tighten them a little. Or at least if you have decent ram you could.

The only ram upgrade id get would be 2GB. (And replace that value select entirely).
 
Yeah I notice most people are recommending 2gig of the Corsair Value select and I'm not sure I need 2 gigs just yet (not really interested in BF2 for the time being) 3500+ was essential to me because I absolutely need 2.5ghz or higher OC (lower voltage and less heat since I'll probably use stock cooling for a while) I know I could have gotten a 3000 or 3200 but I've heard some horror stories. I've never tried water cooling but it is something I might become interested in the future. Right now I want more stability and less tinkering around trying to push for a stable overclock. I spent weeks getting my 2500 mobile barton 2.5ghz stable and even had a lot of problems after that. I want to avoid all of that and have something fast from the begining with even more overhead for overclocking when I have the time and interest for it.

As for SLI, hell yeah I want it. Right now I don't need it but in maybe 6-12 months I can just pop in another card and get a nice boost if need be.
 
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