Big hopes.... small budget

witnessmenow

Ok I have a relatively old Pc (built 2 years ago) with the following spec (gotta love kompletts history):

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4GHz Socket 939,

Asus A8N-SLI, nForce4 SLI,Socket-939

Crucial PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB CL3 5ns X 2 (2gbs in total)

I want to get as much performance out of this machine with spending as little money as possible!!! It'll be mostly for gaming, probably running xp , but i might throw vista on it for the larf

Heres what i was thinking, but i'm very open to suggestions:

My graphics card is currently a 2400HD or something crap like that so that definitely needs replacement. Was thinking maybe a 4850 so if i do decide to invest in a new pc later I can hold onto it. (I have a 22" monitor BTW)

I was thinking of trying to overclock the CPU (never done it before, so i said i'd give it a whirl) Some one has the same setup as mobo and processor as me here so that should help. It seems like i might be able to squeeze 2.9GHz out of it.

Ram I'm not sure... i could pick up another 2gb for €50 but will it really make that much of a difference if i stick with xp? Basically what im asking is will 2gb of ram be the bottle neck?

Power supply: I'll have to get back to you on the make and model. I know its a 520W but what im wondering is seeing as its 2 years old is going to be missign any connectors that it needs to power the graphics card?


Any advice greatly appreciated

uberpixie

witnessmenow wrote: »

Heres what i was thinking, but i'm very open to suggestions:

My graphics card is currently a 2400HD or something crap like that so that definitely needs replacement. Was thinking maybe a 4850 so if i do decide to invest in a new pc later I can hold onto it. (I have a 22" monitor BTW)

I was thinking of trying to overclock the CPU (never done it before, so i said i'd give it a whirl) Some one has the same setup as mobo and processor as me here so that should help. It seems like i might be able to squeeze 2.9GHz out of it.

Ram I'm not sure... i could pick up another 2gb for €50 but will it really make that much of a difference if i stick with xp? Basically what im asking is will 2gb of ram be the bottle neck?

Power supply: I'll have to get back to you on the make and model. I know its a 520W but what im wondering is seeing as its 2 years old is going to be missign any connectors that it needs to power the graphics card?

Ram is cheap, I would get matched 4 gigs of ram, you will never worry about ram again all for €50. Tis nothing.

Def go the 4850, they are down as far as €140 if you look.
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=354962

520w should be fine, the GFX card SHOULD come with adaptors to convert standard molex connectors to what ever you need 6/8 pin connector depending on the card.

Overclocking Intel chips is not an issue, just research your motherboard and ram before you buy and invest in a very good cpu cooler.

jonny72

Stick with the 2 gigs of ram, its XP

Buy a cooller, overclock the hell out of the processor

Buy a shiny new graphics card, just remember it will be bottlenecked until you buy a new motherboard, processor, ram. If you wanna go cheaper, then you can grab a 2nd hand 7900 for 50 or 60 euros these days

Sqaull20

Used Intel motherboard Gigabyte P35C-DS3R from Dabs.ie €48

http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4KRT&CategorySelectedId=11143&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11143,4294963788,48760000,417720000

Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2180 2.0GHz €56

http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4YD9&CategorySelectedId=11147&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11147,4294963789,4294958803

OCZ Technology 2x1GB 240DIMM PC2-6400 DDR2 Gold €36

http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4KZC&CategorySelectedId=11150&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11150,4294959239,11,405050000

Radeon HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 used €76

http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4SRZ&CategorySelectedId=11137&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11137,43990000,4294963788

€226 delivered, overclock cpu to 3.00ghz and you are set.

Spunge

damn that's a good rig for €225