Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

Right, been delaying upgrading the Frankenstein of a PC I have. Built it years ago and been swapping and changing things as and when I can in the vein attempt to keep it able to play games at a reasonable rate.
Last thing I added was the ATI X850XT which was as good an AGP card I could find. It's lasted well but the current crop of games seem to make it struggle.
Rest of the system is prolly ready to be displayed at a museum
Athlon 2500+ running at 3200+ speeds
2GB DDR ram
Sony 4x DVD-R burner
A whole host of small HD's (2x 200Gb, 1x 40Gb & 1x 80Gb)
Sound Blaster X-Fi sound card.
All enclosed in an anodised copper case that I have to remove the side panels off otherwise the PC overheats

So after all that typing, should I carry on the upgrading route or just admit defeat and buy a whole new PC?
I've been pricing up new mobo, cpu, gfx card, PSU etc etc and it comes to around £100 shy of a whole new PC from Dell (including 19" monitor).
I'm not really up to speed on the latest tech, I'm hearing lots about the Core 2 Duo etc, is this better than the AMD dual core.
If I did upgrade, can I reuse my existing ram?

Matt

bigsinky

if you go for a new DDR2 board then you will need new RAM. All of the AM2 processor board are DDR2 and i am nearly sure all the Dual core intel boards are DDR2 as well.

Your Winnie 2500 was one of my better overclocks. I had much the same system as yourself but i went the parts upgrade route because i wanted specific parts for my new rig. I am now running a 4800+ Dual Core with 4GB PC3200 and Dual 6800GTs. Load of disk space as well (2.5TB) this copes with the vast majority of games out there basicall because the biggest resolution my 19 flatscreen can accomodate is 1280x1024 which doesnt tax the video cards to much.

I appeciate the the parts cost about £100 less than a whole brand new system but you get to put quality parts in your machine. beware, as the parts solution will leave you like me with the best part of another 2 machines(if like me you upgrade frequently). With a case, power supply and some ram you can usually build another machine. I now have 5 PCs in my house from my athlon 1.8 with and 80GB HDD to my big 4.8 Rig.

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

Thanks for the reply, yeah I suppose if I upgrade I could build a media centre PC with the remains.
If I replace the whole thing I could try fleybaying it but prolly be more hassle than it's worth!.
I've got a 18" Iiyama and a 17" dell, both can do 1280x1024 but the 18" tft suffers from ghosting. Both are analogue as well...
I've always built my own PC's but to be honest I'm not sure I can be bothered with the hassle anymore (lazy I know).

GC8

For a cheap dual core entry you might consider the Pentium D805. Out of the box its a dual 2.66GHz core with a 20x 133MHz FSB. This appears to be crap but a high mulitplier and a low FSB make for an ideal overclocking combination... These Smithfield cores usually run at 200MHz with a lower multiplier so overclocked speeds of arounf 3.6GHz are easily attained, even with a cheap system board. With better cooling and a high-end system board which allows v-core voltage adjustment overclocked speeds of 4GHz are common. Thats Pentium Extreme Edition 965 performance for about £65!

Simon

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

I think I'd like to start off with the next PC not having to be overclocked, then it at least gives me the option later on.

magic40

Hi m8 if you want to still use your memory then i would for the Asus A8N32 SLI Deluxe 939 DDR400 motherboard this will take your ram and is a very good gaming board and amd is best for gaming i am useing one now as 2gb of ddr 400 ram and AMD 64 athon x2 4200+ with a nidva 7900gtx 256mb graphics card runs all the games fine and runs cool as well

Hanslow

If you want to sell me your X850XT at a bargain price, let me know I'm still running a 2400+ (stock speeds) with a 9700 pro at the mo

T4molie

<coughs> OR you could sell it to me and as I'm in Bedfordshire I'll come and collect it

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

LOL... bidding war!

I'm still weighing up the pros and cons of both options at the mo.