£230 Upgrade to old System

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: 3-4 days BUDGET RANGE: £230 (less preffered)

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming (Aion,Warhammer, COD5) - Want solid FPS in Cpu Itensive games not neccessarily max

settings.

PARTS NOT REQUIRED:

JUST REQUIRE CPU / RAM - 4 gig/ MOBO / Perhaps PSU.

Current Parts

Case - Mesh Computer Case no specs
PSU - hec-550td-pte (550w) - (nearly 4 years old) I know i should replace.. if can fit in budget will.
Sata Hardrive 250gig , no idea what brand.
XFX 4850 512MB
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 (Build 2600) - 32 BIT


PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: ebuyer.com


OVERCLOCKING: No - May in a year buy aftermarket cooler and overclock but not now.
SLI OR CROSSFIRE: No

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1680 x 1050 on viewsonic VX1940W

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:

More or less set on the X2 550 BE... had considered X3 720 but think id rather have the faster Dual Core.

Happy enough with DDR 2 800mhz ram, unless there is some major improvements from 1066. Dont see DDR3 fitting into budget.

My future upgrade for the new system would likely be buying newest GPU in a year. So minor future proofing would be nice but not important.

My current possibles are as follows.

Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Kit CL5 1.8v - £41.99
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/166785

AMD Phenom X2 550 Black Edition 3.1GHz 6MB L3 Chche Socket AM3 Retail - £74.71
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/166518


I had planned this mobo but its out of stock

ASRock 770 AM2+ board
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/166037



Thanks for your time.

I had considered that mobo, could you explain more why you picked out that one?

Find that a bit confusing, but Ill be going for this all the same, Just gotta find my self a replacement 12cm fan for my case which stopped working and ill be set.

cheers for the feedback.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152009

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/131052

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132563

as with anything in life you get what you pay for

I plan to go over prices once I am 100% set on what I am after. Last check ebuyer is easily cheapest, long history of being good. Have used scan but the site seems overly confusing and they lack alot of stock. Overclockers heard alot of horror stories from the past. cclonline never heard of.

Again have a proper look once I am sure on things. Cheers for the reminder!

Currently thinking ill go for the Corsair 450W VX Series PSU - ATX12V v2.2, but its not really going to let me get the latest single GFX card in a year. But its a damm fine PSU from what I have read.

Scan - Iv used for the past 5 years, not had a single proble with these guys, stock can sometimes be low, but thats with any site right? There Customer Services and return/RMA is brilliant to, from personal experience.

Aria.co.uk - I would avoid, but sometimes they can have some great offers/significantly cheaper, I wouldnt buy from them unless its atleast £10 or more cheaper. Their Customer Services is average - crap, and their RMA/Returns is, well I had to go to consumer advice and was thinking of going small claims to get a graphics card refunded/replaced after them keeping it for over 6 months with continued bs of "its still being tested".

overclockers - Great prices sometimes and super fast delivery, their support and forums is great too, but like you said, its had its fair share of horror stories, personally I've never had a problem with them, RMA for return a few things and they have refunded without question, even though it was bought in error.

CCL computers/CCLonline.com, used to be the best custom parts place locally. It started off as a local shop about 10 years or more ago, they have since gone online and are growing. Personally its great to have a etailer shop locally, see something online, buy in store etc, they are based in bradford. Anyhow, prices are high 80% of the time, offers - hardly ever exist, BUT there customer support and RMA, refund/exchange etc, is pretty good.

So, comes down to scan and ebuyer. Ebuyer is alot bigger and alot less personal, more like comparing a hypermarket to your local supermarket, I'd prefer the local supermarket for its more personal touch.

Glad you liked it

Used novatech too, got a few fans fro them, delivery was a little slow, but as thats all I have ever bought from them, not used their customer services or RMA'd anything, so cant comment there. Also, they dont see to have much to choose from.

Other places are, ebay.co.uk - use it to find online etailers, so you dont have to buy from ebay, microdirect.co.uk, dell.co.uk, pcworld.co.uk/.com etc, always check as many sites as you can, even though places like pcworld/staples.co.uk dont have parts such as CPU's, they can sometimes have deals, such as Displays and Keyboards and mouse's, printers, etc so a last place to check. Yeh, I know, online shopping can take ages, took me a ages to decide on where to buy, with multiple tabs/explorers open

Random update. Changed ram to

Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 HyperX Memory CL5 2.2V
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148859

Over Budget, but... well It should be better ;p

best i could do for the price,ebuyer doesn have a big selection http://overclockers.co.uk/showprod [...] =HS-000-TQ

cheers, Ill keep that in mind.

Decided in the end to not buy a new fan.. got so sick of my speakers humming i bought new speakers instead lol.