X-Mas Upgrade Questions

Fakum · Rated PG Joined: 30 Sep 2007 Posts: 9 Location: USA

I have a Christmas budget of $1000.00 to upgrade my pc (wife approved). I will be waiting for the best possible time for the best deals. I am not exactly sure when that is. Week before Xmas or right after, any way, I primarily play Delta Force Black Hawk Down, and dabble in combat flight sims (like Lomac). The Sims are hogs. I will be looking for a motherboard, CPU, (based on current research, Intel seems a tad more the
better choice at this time?) & memory. My current power supply rails will not accommodate the 26 amp minimum for the above mentioned card, my options are to install an ADD ON graphics power supply (which is about $50 compared to about $160 for a new PSU) or to obviously buy a new PSU (I have no experience with the add ons) I figure an easy $500 for a monitor (hope to get that Dell on sale by X-mas for that price) Anyway, I am posting my current specs, I would appreciate any thoughts on this upgrade, I am staying with Windows XP Pro for awhile, thanks

Current Spec =

Windows XP Pro
Mobo: Asus A7N8X Deluxe Rev2
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ (Barton Core) 400 FSB
Memory: Corsair 1GB PC 3200 2x512MB TWINX1024-3200LLPT
Power Supply: Thermaltake Pure Power W0057 RU-01TWV 500 Watt Modular
Primary Hard Drive: Hitachi 160 Gig SATA 2
Secondary Hard Drive: Maxtor 80 Gig SATA 1
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Live 5.1 (PCI)
Tower: Antec Mid Tower Sonata P4 Piano Black
Monitor: Viewsonic VX2000 20â€ Flat Panel LCD
DVD Drive / Burner: Sony DRU-510A
CD Burner: Busslink 52x24x52
Video Card: My ATI AIW 9700 Pro AGP crapped out, that is the upgrade reason, to goto PCI-Express

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 12:01:46 Post Subject:

Hi. To start, I would just go with a new, bigger power supply and skip the add on. They may work well, but it is just one more thing to worry about. Plus, if your current unit is old, there might be new features you want/need anyway.

As for the monitor... What are you getting for $500?!? That is a big monitor these days. Could probably spend half that for a good 19 inch (or bigger) widescreen.

Fakum · Rated PG Joined: 30 Sep 2007 Posts: 9 Location: USA

My current power supply is a year old 500 watt modular/ sli / dual core ready etc. unfortunately the pci-express rail max load is 21 amp max. the GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB 16X PCI Express wants a dedicated 26 amp minimum. To achieve that, I need a powersupply with a dedicated pci- express rail of 26amp +,, thatâ€™s about $200+. As far as the monitor, I currently have a Viewsonic VX2000, (20â€ LCD) I wanted to upgrade to a 24â€ widescreen. Current reviews recommend Dell 24 ultrasharp wide or BenQ, both of which are currently above $550

Hellfire · Rated XXX Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 3473

8800GTS 640MB, add-on PS and the 24" LCD will eat up almost all of your $1000 budget. Will barely leave much for a CPU/MB/RAM.

I would agree with Feelgood, a 22" would be really good as well, and depending on your exact quality requirements, you can get a pretty good 22" widescreen for $200 - $300. Possibly less if you do some work on Black Friday (day after Thanksgiving).

I got my 22" Westinghouse (not the best monitor by far), last year for $200 on BlackFriday. I've seen other 22" monitors on sale recently for even less than that.

The $300 you save with a smaller monitor will allow you to get the MB/CPU. Figuring $200 for a mid-range CPU, and $100 for a decent MB. A new Intel P35 or X38 MB will cost you more than that obviously.

Then figure in the amount/type of memory you need. 2GB is what I would recommend. Then the type depends on your MB (DDR2 or DD3). DDR2 most likely due to your budget.

Check out NewEgg for the PS, should be able to get a decent PS for $100 - $125, even an Ultra PS wouldn't be too bad if you're trying to save money, and you can get them less than $100, sometimes even close to free.

acruxksa · Posted: Mon, 01 Oct 2007 18:13:04 Post Subject:

Any QUALITY 500w psu will be able to run an 8800gts and c2d (or AMD X2 for that matter). If you are going to go quad you might want to think about moving up to a good 600w+ psu, but I've read of people running quad core cpu's and 8800gts's on 500w psu's without any trouble. I personally have run an OC'd quad with two radeon x1950pro's in crossfire on a 600w psu without any issues. the x1950p crossfire draws a lot more juice than an 8800gts so that should give you an idea of what you would actually need.

There are several 500w+ psu's that will work fine with your system, but as with many things, not all psu's are created equal so you need to do some research.

I also agree that you would be paying a premium for a 24" lcd and could get a nice 22" lcd for nearly half the price. I recently upgraded from a 20" wide screen lcd to a 22" wide screen lcd and can tell you that there is quite a bit of difference in size. I had to move my monitor back about 6" because it felt too close. Since you have set a budget, this is an area where you need to lower your expectations, 22" instead of 24" will give you a lot of extra cash for the other upgrades.

My recommendations:
your current psu (upgrade at a later date)
Mobo - asus p5k or abit ip35 (or their cheaper variants p5k-se and ip35-e) ($115 - $135)
Memory - are you overclocking? $105 - $180 depending.
cpu - e6750 ($200)
video - evga 8800gts ($375)
video - 22" lcd ($300) (possibly upgrade at a later date when 24" prices drop)

These are current prices and should come down a bit over the next couple months, so by X-Mas you would hopefully be under your budget. Especially considering the up coming release of intel's x38 chipset and the possible release of some wolfdale (penryn) cpu's around Christmas.

Fakum · Rated PG Joined: 30 Sep 2007 Posts: 9 Location: USA

All great advice, thanks guys. I have to agree with you all about the 24â€ monitor. I went to BestBuy the other day, just to get a feel on the sizes,, maybe thatâ€™s a tad to big. That decision will certainly help the budget. I have decided NOT to go quad core. I donâ€™t have any applications that will take advantage of that technology, nor dod I believe I will in the next few years. It seems Core 2 Duo is the path for me, I just gotta figure out which one is best for my application/budget. I havnt figured out though is that the Q6600 is not that much more expensive then some of the core 2 duoâ€™s? So I donâ€™t know if that is a worth while investment , even though I donâ€™t have much use for quad cores, I am not certain if the extra costs will give me significant performance for gaming over the core 2 duo? Anyway. Iâ€™m still at it,, thanks for the feedback, most appreciated

acruxksa · Posted: Mon, 01 Oct 2007 19:53:01 Post Subject:

The quad will do nothing to improve gaming performance on current games. Future games, possibly. It is going to depend on how well game designers implement multi threading into their games.

I love my quad and will never go back, but I'm only an occasional gamer who uses my system primarily for other things that the quad excels at. (audio/video encoding and folding@home)

I'm not a big fan of your psu, but it should suffice for the near term. If you had money in the budget it would be worthwhile to upgrade to something a bit better. This would be easy if for example, you held off on replacing your 20" lcd and went with a good psu instead. I'm happy with my new 22", but I wouldn't really consider going from a 20" to a 22" a required upgrade. I did it because I had a need for another monitor and saw it as an opportunity to upgrade.

Hellfire · Rated XXX Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 3473

I THINK Crysis is the first game that is being designed with multi-core CPU's in mind. Which wouldn't surprise me. Although you would probably need to be running Vista to take advantage of them Grin

Fakum · Rated PG Joined: 30 Sep 2007 Posts: 9 Location: USA

acruxksa, are you suggesting the PSU that u hav listed in ur spec? If you are, hav u seen this report? (note the rail configuration and its ampacity, its lower than what I hav now)

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/371/1