£200 to spend on a new CPU & Mobo.

[xicagamer]

Hi forum,

I have a £200 budget to upgrade my current build's CPU and Motherboard and I am not the brightest spark when it comes to choosing the right CPU/Mobo combo..

My current CPU/Mobo setup is as follows:

Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.6GHz LGA775
Gigabyte LGA-775 GA-EP43-DS3L
- I also have 4GB of Corsair XMS2 1033MHz DDR2 Memory if this helps.

So. I have £200 to spend (and can go a bit higher if required!).

If anyone could tell me the best CPU/Mobo combo for the money that would be greatly appreciated! I am looking for the best performance in games mostly but also running multiple programs that require a considerable amount of resources!

I do not mind if it is AMD or Intel based, although i've read i5/i7 architecture boards do not support DDR2 memory. This is a problem for I do not have the money to replace the memory, only recently did I purchase this memory. Although I could be wrong.

Thanks for your time forum and hope you guys can help!

Bye for now!

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

So you cant just but a new rig altogether?The ddr3 is cheap.You can go very well with just one 2g ddr3 module.

 

[xicagamer]

Thank you to ps3hacker12 for your reply! I understand where your coming from and I have taken your advice. I currently have an XFX Radeon HD4890 1GB installed and it works considerably well since i've had it for a year and a half. I was planning to upgrade GPU at christmas this year so i'll probably end up buying a 5 series ATI. Thanks again, bye for now!

 

[HEXiT]

£200 wouldnt buy you anywhere near what you already have. your cpu stilll costs £150 new a decent motherboard will cost you 70-90... so you can see why i say you cant really upgrade your cpu for £200
you would need to double it to get something you could call an upgrade. then you could consider a 2500k a p67 or z68 motherboard and some ddr3 ram

i would recomend a decent 3rd party cooler and something like a 5870 or gtz 460 for your 200 total even then it wont be that big an upgrade your basically just adding dx11 support.

 

[simon12]

I agree that CPU is still good and not worth upgrading until you can afford an i5 2500K, a P67 or Z68 motherboard and 4Gb DDR3 RAM which will cost around £300+ depending on which bard you get. If you want a £200 upgrade now get a Radeon 6950.