Upgrade from Athlon X2 4200+

[spinitboy]

Decided to take the plunge and sell my old Athlon X2 4200+ (S939) and go for a new system. I'd like to get something with a bit of longevity in it (i.e it lasts me for a good 4+ years) as am due to get married next year so funds will be short. Am looking at around £500-700 and would like something that is quick and plays games reasonably well.
Currently looking at the Gigabyte X58 UD4 and a Core i7 920 with 3 gb RAM and an ATI 4850. Have got HDDs etc already.
Comments?

 

[jjbtexas]

What kinds of games? i would atleast get a 4870 especially with the recent price drop.

 

[spinitboy]

mainly 1st person shooters to be honest. But am not a hardcore gamer, just every now and again when i get a chance. The Way I set my PC up is so that there are several OS's installed on seperate HDDs in the system. it will normally boot up into my general usage / download PC. All my important films, music etc is stored on external USB drives. When I get a chance a just change the boot up drive to the gaming one and then have a good blast!. So to that end I don't want to spend a significant amount on the VGA. If i need to in the future i could just get another 4850 and go Crossfire i suppose..... What do u think?

 

[xthekidx]

What price drop? Prices haven't budged on the 4870's that I can tell. Maybe they will start to fall in a couple weeks, but from what I can tell they are staying pretty steady. Once big retailers clear out their stocks of cards you might start to see prices drop, but retailers aren't going to start selling a card for a reduced amount when they bought the card from the distributer at the higher rate before the price cuts.

 

[spinitboy]

I must admit, that due to the exchange rate and the weak pound, its unlikely we'd get price cuts over here in Blighty anyway!

 

[spinitboy]

Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz Nehalem 8mb Cache LGA1366 - Retail
Asus ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI / HDTV (PCI-E) - Retail
Antec Three Hundred Cool and Quiet Gaming Case - No PSU
Corsair TX 650W ATX2.2 SLi Compliant PSU
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
Elixir 3GB DDR3 (3 x 1024MB) PC3-10660 (1333MHz) TRI Channel Kit

All this for : £724.53 INC VAT and Delivery..

Is that a good deal?!?!? I've priced it up at various online retailers and thats the cheapest i can get.

 

[xthekidx]

What components do you already have? I don't see you fitting an i7 system in there for £700, even without the HDD or OS included in the price.

 

[spinitboy]

I have got HDDs, keyboard, mouse, monitor. Need a new case as the one I have is Sh*t. I have an Antec 450w PSU, but I wasn't sure if this would be enough for an i7 system. Have got the OS etc.. its just the real Core system.

 

[xthekidx]

Will you sli/xfire ever? if you won't, then the 450w Antec should be ok, unless its like 4 or 5 years old...then you might want a new one.

 

[xthekidx]

You can make that build work if you won't sli/xfire ever I think, however you will get a lot more for your money if you went with a core 2 or Phenom II build instead. It doesn't really sound to me like you need an i7 for what you do...the i7 is only worthwhile if you do video editing or things like that, otherwise its performance is similar to the Q9550 in most apps. If you went with the older technology then you could get a better GPU that will make gaming much better too.

 

[spinitboy]

I looked at going X48 chipset with a a Q9550 (or Q9650) and the processor is virtually the same price as a 920 i7. The board is cheaper, but only by around £50
So i thought that going for the i7 would also future proof it slightly....

 

[xthekidx]

x48 chipsets are expensive. Look at the gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P or UD3R for mobo. The difference is xfire or not.

 

[spinitboy]

Whats the difference between the X45 and X48? anything worthwhile?

 

[spinitboy]

the GA-EP45-UD3P is £109.. but for an extra £40 u get the X58

 

[xthekidx]

No not really, you get dual x16 instead of x16 and x8 mode on P45. This may result in a 5% increase in GPU performance overall, but its not worth it, especially since your slave card won't be used to its full potential anyway. Its not a really useful chipset anymore, if you can afford x48 then you can afford x58 as well, which would be the way to go then.

 

[spinitboy]

Its a tough choice...
The only bloody reason am doing this is cos I went to change the heat sink on my MSI Neo4 SLI Northbridge and accidentally hit the board with my pliers.. Since i changed it, and put everything back in, the PC won't boot.. it powers on, but doesn't even get to Post.......

 

[xthekidx]

the GA-EP45-UD3P is £109.. but for an extra £40 u get the X58

You also have to pay £50 or so extra for a kit of DDR3 memory.

 

[xthekidx]

Its a tough choice...
The only bloody reason am doing this is cos I went to change the heat sink on my MSI Neo4 SLI Northbridge and accidentally hit the board with my pliers.. Since i changed it, and put everything back in, the PC won't boot.. it powers on, but doesn't even get to Post.......

Damn that sucks. Is that system in addition to the other PC you are planning to sell? could you cannabalize anything else from that system?

 

[spinitboy]

No thats my main system. Its got all the stuff in it. Current spec was (until the pliers incident!)

MSI K8N Neo Platinum SLI Mainboard
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
Corsair XMS TwinX DDR PC3200 (2gb)
2 SATA Raid 1 - 250gb Samsung HDDs
1 Samsung PATA 200gb
1 Maxtor 200gb SATA
Nvidia 8600GT 256mb DDR3
Antec 450w PSU
Silverstone case

 

[jitpublisher]

Tell you what I had and what I did.
Had a S939 4600 X2, DFI Lanparty 3200CFX/DRG, 2 gig of Patriot memory, 8800GTS 512.
Kept my old Raidmax case, BFG 680LS PSU, SATA harddrives, optical drives, floppy, mouse keyboard, GPU, etc.
Bought a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-US2H, 4 gig (2x2)of Crucial 1066 memory rated to run at 1200mhz, and a Phenom II 920. Paid $305 US for the 3 items, picked them up at Frys. You could probably do a little better online.
I am quite impressed for the price I paid.
Went from around 9800 in 3Dmark 06 to a little over 15,200.
I play COD 4 quite a bit, and it runs silky smooth at 1280x1024 (max my 19" LCD will do) with everything on highest settings.
In general, the difference over my old S939 system is night and day.