yarg ye comes the time for me to upgrade.

right now i've got...

Athlon XP 3200+ 2.220Ghz (Barton core)
1,536MB DDR400 CL3.0
two 80GB Western digital PATA
one 40GB Western digital SATA
Evga 66600GT 667Mhz/1.03Ghz (overclock)
Asus vento 3600 case
Enermax 600W sli Noisetaker (44A 12v+)

This is what im aiming for now..

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+(65W) Windsor 2.0GHz Socket AM2
Patriot 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
EVGA 640-P2-N821-AR GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3
ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP
Seagate SV35 Series ST3250824SV 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s

now re-using the Case,psu and two Hard drives this should get me a whole lotta' performance for well under 1,000$

and for you arse's yes i know 1024MB is kind of skirt'n the memory standards but i can always get more when im pushed against the wall.

honestly im hoping that the 8800GTS is going to come down in price

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Q I dress up as cartoon characters

Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £42.99 (£50.51)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC)
£114.99 (£135.11)
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS KO ACS3 SILENT 640MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
£289.99 (£340.74)Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99 (£82.24)
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £101.99 (£119.84)

That is from www.overclockers.co.uk

While at £728.44(incl VAT) that's a bit over your current budget it does get you a much better CPU and motherboard and a silent cooled GTS as well as 2GB of RAM. Quite frankly right now anything other then a C2D processor is a waste of money. With that mobo the E6300 can be easily overclocked to over 3Ghz from its original 1.86Ghz without any extra cooling. To be safe you might want to spent £10 on an artic cooler freezer 7.

If your 6600GT is PCI-E then I'd stick with that for a few more months as the cheaper nVidia DX10 cards are just about to be released along with ATis rival cards which will be very interesting to see how they compete with the nVidia cards.

The DS3 and E6300 were born to be together and are the perfect overclocking setup. For £200 you can have one of the most powerful desktop processing solutions available.

I'd probably get one of the newer brisbane core's instead of the windsor.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103774
It's 65nm die size and will put out a little less heat. This is the 4000dual core brisbane for $160. It should be as good an overclocker as any AMD out too.

He's die-hard AMD darg we've talked before, it's useless =)

Who knows it may pay off in 6 months when the K8L's come out. If they're faster than the core2duo's he should be able to plug one in.

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well you didnt pay attention to anything i was saying

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Q I dress up as cartoon characters

thanks for the tip

yes i love A to the m to the mutha' D.

that is why im going with AM2 i dont want to be right against the wall when i build this. i did that with this computer. while this barton core 3200+ is still rocking it starts to feel the pain in FEAR and BF2142. i was lookin at newegg and a 4400+ x2 is 179.99. X2 isn't really anything amazo to me. but 1 extra core isnt bad. lol and if i could afford it i'd go with socket F 1207.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Q I dress up as cartoon characters

I started playing the AM2 game from the getgo Indo, I'm able to fly just fine into all but the laggiest bombing mission just fine, on a 3800 SC, 2 GB and a BFG 7900GTOC.

The SC gets me real nice performance for a bargain, but is vulnerable to poorly performing anti-virus interrupting my game. The 3800 x2 will likely handle that scenario better but not play the game as well, but if you OC you may make it up nicely.

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You probably heard we ain't in the prisoner-takin' business; we in the killin' Axis business. And cousin, Business is a-boomin'.

I see no reference in your original post where you said you didn't want an Intel processor. I gave you the best value for money processor and motherboard available at the moment. If you want to stick with a less powerful machine for the same cost then be my guest. To me though that's like buying a Mac as a gaming machine.

seriously, intel is the best value for the money right now if you plan to replace your mobo/cpu/ram. me, im just going to pick up a socket939 opteron and stretch my current components out another year or so. if i wanted to do a full overhaul ... intel all the way.

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Diavoli Rossi is always looking for nuggets to turn into ace pilots. Click the sig for information.

If the K8L is faster than the core2duo than AMD would be the better buy to socket the new processors later. That just remains to be seen.

Right now with what is in the store yes the core2duo is better but that could easily change and if the past is any indicator than it will. So buy amd if you want. I'm afraid for them though intel has some really good stuff coming. 45nm core2duo's in 6 months with 6megs of cache at 1333fsb. Intel is also raising the transistor count from 280 million to 410 million transistors on 1 chip. The K8L better be pretty good.

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you know i know that you should know that i like AMD.

not that iv'e had all that much problems with intel. it's just man they've been pieces o' crap in the past. i deal with there damn processors all day. nothing like a box of burnt out pentium 4's sitting next to my desk to prove it.

but on the other hand i know a computer almost 8 years old still chuggin' it's pentium III playing garrys mod and counter strike. while all the other computers around it have burnt out. but i think that computer is just magic. although i'm sitting next to a 6 year old athlon xp 2400+ that is still whoppin *** on garrys mod and half life 2. it still plays wwiionline pretty well. not great but its playable.

that being said. i'm sticking with AMD.

seriously i cant afford a bad *** intel cpu at the moment. but i can afford a decent AMD. and i know what a AMD will give me performance wise every time. and buying the AM2 socket will (hopefully) allow me to upgrade down the line.

another sad note is that Nvidia doesnt really support that many intel motherboards. and they are a little more expensive.

look at these too.

149.99$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131013
139.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131142

the AMD is more expensive. but there are a SHAT load more features. the AMD feature's swapless sli 7.1 surround dual Gigabit ethernet blah blah blah. there is just more on the mainboards.

this really isnt meaning im NOT looking at intel. I just need solid Performance numbers.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103774

that's what im looking at. (maybe)

that 160 or so bucks is right at the top maybe a little above my proccessor budget. i'm really trying to squeeze in that 8800GTS. that is the main factor of my upgrade.

And i can't wait any longer i've got a kid on the way and this is my last build for awhile. and the lower the total price the better.

that's why you can see i'm skimping in some areas and putting more in others. i know what counts in a computer and what costs the most to upgrade. CPU's get cheaper as time goes on. GPU's tend to get cheap to a point then hang out at that price range till they fall out of the market. then it's ebay and thats always risky. i went with 1GB of ram because that is cheap stuff and an easy upgrade down the road. the mobo accepts 8GB so ive got alot of room to improve. the SLI gives me more room to grow as the 8800'S get cheaper.

this is my master plan. buy the mainboard first. then the memory. these prices stay still for long periods of time. buying the cpu next will give me a little flex in waiting for the graphics card. this whole reason. i want that card to slide down in price. it only takes weeks for video cards to slide in price. sometimes you dont notice it. but it is always happening. bud420 bought his card at 290$ it's now 183$ that was about 3 months ago. thats what almost 50$ a month.

if i can wrangle the budget around i might get a intel. but i know from all the farking computers i've built. do NOT skimp on the mainboard and the power supply. those bad arse cpu's are only as good as the motherboards they are sitting in. it took me months of research to buy the motherboard im using now. (Msi K7n2 Delta II Type II LSR) at the time this mainboard beat every other motherboard in stock performance out there. it wasn't a good overclocker but thats not what im looking for. i want power out of the box. i dont want to have to overclock to match what other boards are doing out of the box. and to this day im still pulling 35-40fps in wwiionline. hell people with athlon 64's arn't getting as good of performance as i am.

get what i'm saying?

that same reason is why im using a Enermax 600W noisetaker. it's farking overkill to the max for my computer. but when i bought it i knew that i could use it for at least another two builds. it'll power the 8800GTS and then some. now i had no idea that a 8800GTS was ever to exist. this was back in the day of 6800ultras as king cards. and i was powering a 6600GT. but i had the money to buy a power supply and i needed it. and now iv'e got that extra power to use. plus the voltages are the exact same as the day i pulled it out of the box and put it in.

plan and simple. a good power supply makes your computer run better and last longer. if you have never looked at what a crappy power supply (like ones that come in your case) does to your computer. download a voltage reader. cheap power supplys go all over the place sometimes they sway as much as 2.0V -/+. that is killing the shat inside the computer. lol i gained almost 450 points on 3dmark at the time with the new power supply. that is how much my computer was being starved of power.

bud420's got a issue right as i type. he's got a stellar setup intel cpu 7900GT KO superclock blah blah. same power supply as i do. enermax Noisetaker deluxe.

but his performance is no where near where it should be. well it's getting better as we beat it into driver submission. but from the start it had some damn hard problems. we're talking 34fps in doom3. now were upto 104fps in ultra mode and climbing. he's buying new memory (faster) which should be a cure all. but still a non amazo motherboard will whoop your *** into a corner.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Q I dress up as cartoon characters

I can definitely see why you want to stay with AMD. I upgraded my machine about 5 months ago and I definitely could have done with a better plan from the start. I never even checked to see that my dell mobo wasn't standard ATX size. I ended up spending more then I meant to and wasting money getting an AGP 7600GT when I could have saved a bit and bought the PCI-E version as I was getting a DUAL-VSTA anyway. At the time though I didn't realise I'd have to change mobos.

If however you do feel the urge to go intel then the GB DS3 cannot be beaten. It's cheap and goddamn fast. A new record of 520FSB was reached on OCUK forums with an E6400 and that's with air cooling! That's 4.16Ghz from a chip that comes stock at half that. With the 45nm architecture and the higher density cpus coming out we can only expect better and better from Intel atm. Last year AMD was undisputed king but right now Intel can't be touched.

I just wish I had the sense to spend my money wisely. I bought the Titan 550W case and PSU from Antec for £80 which are both fantastic products. The PSU got pretty damn stunning reviews at the time and the case has great airflow and plenty of space. With that I bought the 7600GT AGP with the intention of moving everything from my old Dell case into my new case, hooking up the new PSU and gfx and sitting back to enjoy a pretty cheap upgrade.
All in all with a couple extra fans and a cpu cooler that cost be roughly £220.

Then however I needed a new mobo, luckily I found the DUAL-VSTA which supported DDR RAM and AGP. Another £50.

Then Eeek! B****x! My CPU is 478 pin instead of 775 dell fooled me again by posting the wrong specs for the PC I bought when I checked it online. Apparently I year after I bought my dell they were still using the same name PC but with 775 cpus. CPU-Z never told me because the dell non-spec mobo wouldn't register half the things like that.

So I buy an E6300 for £130. So glad I bought this baby as I can see myself having it for many years but I just wish she had a decent motherboard to live in and reach full potential.

So in total I spent £400. With wise planning I could perhaps have squeezed a gig of DDR2 ram, PCI-E gfx and the DS3/6300 combo as well as the case. Well ok maybe not but I sure wouldn't be having to spend as much on my next upgrade as I do now.

i take it you found out about dells "power supply connection" also?

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Q I dress up as cartoon characters

No I didn't actually but I never tried plugging the old PSU into my new mobo, it seemed to have the right 4 pin mobo power plug though. Maybe they changed their PSUs after I bought mine. It was still a crappy 305w noname =/

It'd be foolish to buy AMD at this point in time. In much the same way that I wish I'd bought AMD the last time around. Screw loyalty to some company - buy the best product available at the price point, otherwise you're just a mug fanboy, sorry.

You don't have to buy a badass one btw, people are easily overclocking the entry-level ones to ridiculous speeds.

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but seeing how this setup needs to last another 4 years overclocking isnt always a option. and iv'e just got some uneasy feeling these intel's won't last that long.

My entire family run's AMD. everyone from my grandparents to my brother in law we all run AMD,EVGA and ENERMAX.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Q I dress up as cartoon characters

Well at the moment the intels run everything people can throw at them at stock speeds very well. It's also worth mentioning that the new intels run very cool, much much cooler than the previous couple of generations so overclocking with decent cooling shouldn't really be a concern. At the moment overclocking is kind of academic due to programmers not really having figured out how to fully take advantage of multiple cores for applications like WW2OL.

I built my system with the specific intention of overclocking when I need to - I try to build systems with a 3 year lifespan (my last was with the fastest, most expensive non-xeon intel chip at the time, had I known then, I would have gone AMD, but that's another story).

The fact of the matter is that currently the core2duo beats anything AMD has to offer by a clear margin, thus it would be foolish to buy anything other than the best available processor available (dollar for dollar) if you are building a new system, particularly as this game being as CPU intensive as it is.

The way I see my current E6600 CPU lifespan is as follows:

1st 9 months to a year:

CPU eats up everything I throw at it, no overclock, minimum fan speed on aftermarket cooler, maybe upping that during summer (no air conditioning).

2nd year:

Improvements/Revolution in threading techniques mean multi core CPUs can be fully taken advantage of by time critical applications e.g. games - CPU can be overclocked extensively while still cooled by aftermarket aircooling.

3rd year:

New motherboards released allowing ludicrous overclock speeds - water cooling kit purchased and stupid speed obtained. Intel/AMD announce hard light processors with clock/throughput speeds never before imagined. New system specced.

A lot changes in three years, and by all means you could wait to see what AMD comes out with for their next series, but by that time the rules will have changed again - you can wait forever for the next, bleeding edge technology, but at some point you have to bite the bullet and drop the cash or you'll never get anything.

As it stands if you're buying a system at the moment, core2duo is the only way to go.

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One thing to consider.

Intel came out with their new processor and that's all fine and dandy. I have one myself, but AMD has yet to have their chance at designing a ddr2 based processor from the ground up.

When this comes out, if it's faster than the core2duo don't be surprised. AMD has done it before. If they can pull it off and the new processors can socket into existing AM2 boards then the people who stayed loyal to AMD are going to be pretty happy. That's what indo is counting on. Almost always whoever has the latest design that just came out has the faster chips at the moment. Right now it's intel, AMD has yet to answer.

Just like right now gforce has the 8800 and ATI basically has no counterpart. When ATI does release one I have no doubts it will be faster than the 8800. They've had all this extra time to look at what the competition has and better the design. That's just the way it goes. It's the same with processors, or at least it has been up until now.

When the thunderbird series from amd came out it blew away the pentium III's Then the Pentium4 came out and blew away the AMD thunderbirds. The higher end X2's were outperforming just about anything intel until about 9 months ago. AMD will have an answer for the core2duo.

Personally I really like the architecture of the AMD's. Very often the limiting factor on intel overclocks as of late is the northbridge that communicates between the cpu and ram reaching it's limit when the ram and cpu still have headroom.

On an AMD there is no northbridge on the motherboard. The memory controller is built into the CPU so it's possible that without the northbridge to limit overclocks that they could get higher than the intels. We shall see. I'm checking the hardware sites regularly waiting for word on the new AMD's.

There really is some amazing drama going on in the computer hardware industry right now and it's anyone's guess how it will play out. Nvidia has positioned itself as a powerhouse motherboard producer, but up until now it has made motherboards for AMD's. AMD just bought ATI so it's safe to assume that nvidia probably won't make new AMD boards.

Intel was supporting crossfire for ATI but now that AMD owns it that will soon end. Nvidia still won't let intel support SLI though. Looks like they want the motherboard and the videocard market since anyone who plans on running SLI has to buy an Nvidia motherboard, now with intel chips. I'm still waiting to see what will happen. Who's going to make AMD chipsets, VIA? SIS? or ATI? that's all thats left after nvidia and intel. Personally I never liked via or sis chipsets. Without the popular nforce motherboards amd may be in trouble.

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Clearly, the latest thing will always be the fastest, but if you're waiting for what's just around the corner, you'll be waiting forever.

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i'm not sure. Nvidia makes some intel mobo's not as much as AMD though. And hell thats the only motherboard chipset i'll buy. I'm looking at intel.

i still can't know till i have that money in my hand and im looking at the checkout button.

lol is it stressfull to anyone else trying to decide on which part to buy?

the 8800GTS will be the first thing iv'e ever bought that is top of the farking line as far as computer parts (besides the power supply)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Q I dress up as cartoon characters

Far as I know all new nforce boards are for intel only. No more new nforce AMD boards. AMD screwed that up when they bought ATI. That's what I was saying.

The latest nforce chipset for AMD's is the nforce 590 and that came out like last July. All the 600 series are intel. So if you like nforce better say hello to the dark side(intel)...muahahahah

I think that the Abit quadGT is the best MB to buy for the core2duo right now. It's down to $199 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813127019
It's crossfire though. I don't care about 2 video cards and I like ATI anyway. The backlights on the board are the coolest thing ever. You can make them dance to 8 different patterns in the bios or turn them just on or off. Here's a pic of one.


I'd like to buy one and just plug my parts in but I want a power supply with an 8pin plug first. 500fsb overclocks on air have been fairly consistant with the e6300 as long as you buy good enough ram and a decent aftermarket cpu cooler.

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