Shoe string budget. Will this suffice?

[headsup]

I'm planning an upgrade but I'm very short on cash. What do people reckon to the following.. will it play new and upcoming games ok?

AMD Athlon 64 3000+
Gigabyte S754 VIA K8T800
Radeon 9800 128MB
Crucial 512MB PC3200 CL3

Is this a wise budget upgrade?

A couple of other queries if anyone feels up to it :-

How much OC potential is there with the above system? Just a little on the athlon I assume?

What quality power supply do I really need? I understand the *very* cheap ones are a false economy, but I can do with something reasonably cheap can't I? Anyone care to recommend some wattages and models?

What sort of extra cooling should I be thinking about, again given that I'm not doing anything too crazy?

And lastly, will sticking in my cheapo 40gig maxtor drive that I bought 2 years ago massively hinder system performance?

Thanks!

 

[Vertigo Acid]

For a budget PSU, look at the 350w Fortron units. They're <$50 and very powerful for their rating.

 

[headsup]

For a budget PSU, look at the 350w Fortron units. They're <$50 and very powerful for their rating.

Thanks for the tip, that's a decent price.

How much abuse would you say they can take compared to the usual top end brands? Worth trying any OC'ing with a fortron?

 

[schapman]

When I last upgraded and wanted a new psu, I just got the antec sonata. That way I got an awsome case (and I mean awsome), plus a truepower 380 psu. and its like 130 canadian so its quite affordable

 

[Carnival Forces]

Fortron units are purported to be very strong, so i think it'll serve you well

as far as OCing goes, that depends on your mobo, make sure it has AGP/PCI lock or you'll be sitting looking at a default voltage BIOS screen and crying--like me.

i doubt your HDD will hinder performance that much.

it's a good thing it isn't SATA, as those don't seem to lock their frequencies, meaning when you OC you OC the PCI connector to the SATA HDD too, leading to HDD corruption (baddddd times )

gl/hf

 

[headsup]

it's a good thing it isn't SATA, as those don't seem to lock their frequencies, meaning when you OC you OC the PCI connector to the SATA HDD too, leading to HDD corruption (baddddd times )

Ohh, SATA is bad for overclocking? I was sort of drawn to it like a moth to a flame..

Do you remember the days when all this modding and clocking stuff didn't exist? When cpu's were welded to the frigging motherboard? Yeah, you know, 10 or 15 years ago. That's when I was last "into" PC geekery. Welcome to my world. I have a lot of reading up to do

 

[apHytHiaTe]

Wait! Dont most mobo's have SATA integrated? Or does that run off the pci bus? Just get a board that has a pci/agp lock if so, like the kv8 pro ($100) when the bios revision comes out.

 

[headsup]

Wait! Dont most mobo's have SATA integrated? Or does that run off the pci bus? Just get a board that has a pci/agp lock if so, like the kv8 pro ($100) when the bios revision comes out.

There's been a lot of talk about the KV8 and its software situation - is there an estimate on when this is going to happen?

I did say I was going to get the chaintech (purely for cash reasons), but I've found a cheap 9800 card (well, cheap for the UK anyway), so I might be able to push the abit board if it's suitable.

 

[Klade]

I just bought a Fortron 350watt from newegg for my new comp. Its pretty cheap at 25$. The only place you might be running into trouble on your upgrade is your ram. Doom 3 requires 512 megs a min req. Games coming out in the future using that engine and or the half-life 2 engine are likely to follow this trend.

I have also been told (though I have no experience with this myself) that crucial isn't the greatest ram when it comes to overclocking. Though I really think it depends on just how much to plan to oc.

 

[headsup]

Yeah. Thinking about setting myself up with more of a stable base to start with - KV8 + 1gig maybe, then splurging on a *really* nice graphics card later this year if I can afford it.

Ho hum, decisions decisions.