Upgrading this week...

G

gen3000

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May 2, 2007
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Ok, a couple of months ago on here I made a topic and got some help on what to upgrade on my system but a few things got in the way.
Anyway, this week I know I can definitely upgrade and have a decent budget now.
I don't really know what things to get and that's why I'm asking for your help. I know I wanna get a Q6600 and probably 2gig ram.
Currently have 2gig pc3200, p4 2.8ghz and 7800 gs+ (24 pipe). I also have a 120gig internal and a 500gig internal which I currently have in an external enclosure (no sata ports on mobo).
I wanna either put the 500 gig inside the new machine or buy another internal - either way, would like to end up with 1 external, an internal and the 120gig as an external.
Have a crap monitor atm (15" lcd) but hope to upgrade that to 22" by christmas so would like to buy a video card in prepartion for that. Was looking at an 8800 but not sure which one would be suitable.
Will also need a new mobo.
I will also be looking to buy a new case and all cooling stuff (never had to buy an extra cooling stuff before so not sure at all which parts I'd be looking for).
Reading that back it looks like I will be upgrading most parts of the system :p
Anyway my budget is £400 - £500 and I hope you guys can point me in the right way of what to buy.
 
If you want to go cheap on the board and continue to use your DDR and AGP card, you can get the AsRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 as a stopgap solution until you could afford a better board.

If you don't need any fancy features on the mobo (raid/firewire), then get the Abit IP35-E. If you need legacy ports, get the Gigabyte P35-DS3L. If you need raid, bump up to the P35-DS3R. If you want Firewire, check out the Asus P5K. If you want both Firewire and RAID, the Abit IP35 vanilla is good. Anything higher than that is basically high end with better chipset cooling for better overclocking. These boards include the Asus P5K-E, Gigabyte P35-DS4, and the crowd favorite, Abit IP35 Pro.

For a 22" LCD, I'd recommend the 8800GTS 320MB if you don't mind turning the settings down sometimes. If you want higher detail, the 640MB would serve you well. If you want something in between those, the HD 2900 Pro works well, and can OC to XT speeds. Of course, the ideal card is the 8800GTX for that size monitor.

For cooling the Q6600, look into the Tuniq Tower 120, Thermalright Ultima 90 + Hydrowave fan, or the Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme + S-Flex fan.

For HDDs, you can't go wrong with any Seagate, WD, Hitachi, or Samsung 500GB drive. The Seagate and Hitachi run kinda hot, but are fast. The Seagate has a 5yr warranty, the rest have 3yr. The WD and Samsung are quiet. All perform on par with each other. If you need to save money, you can drop down to the 320GB models.
 
You'd have to price out the parts individually and look at the savings. Then decide if those are the parts you need or not. Will you be getting more for your money with that bundle?

Basically, for example, if you don't need the IP35 Pro, but the savings were enough to make the bundle cost the same as if you bought lesser parts individually, then yes. It would only be worth it to get the bundle if you get more for your money.
 
I also just read about the 8800 gt. You think it's worth waiting till next week for this instead of getting the gts?
 
It's only a week or so away so yeah, it's worth checking out.
 
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