Upgrading

[JuanHose]

My current computer is a P4 2.4Ghz, 128MB Geforce MX 440, with 256MB PC2100 RAM CL 2.5. I'm becoming frustrated at its lack of speed. Its obvious that I need more RAM, and a new graphics card as the current one is well... crap, but I've also heard great stuff about AMD processors, so I thought I would go out and get all the major stuff upgraded at the same time.

What I'm currently looking at getting are these: (click on the links and scroll down to find the particular part)
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester 90nm (Socket 939) £152.46 Overclockers UK
XFX GeForce PCX6600 GT Extreme Gamers Edition 128MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) £138.06 Overclockers UK
FoxConn NF4UK8AA-8EKRS nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) Motherboard £82.19 Overclockers UK
Corsair 512MB DDR400 XMS3200C2PT Platinum CAS2 £67.56 Overclockers UK
Tagan TG380-U01 380W ATX2.0 Silent PSU £46.94 Overclockers UK

I was just wondering if everything here is compatible, or if theres anything that I've forgotten to think about? I dont know too much about the specifications of motherboards so I'm not sure if its got all the features needed. All opinions are welcome and if theres anyone who wants to recommend a different product then I'm open to it. Thanks for all your help :smile

[xxHadesxx]

Hi

Firstly, I would just like to mention that you should be extremely wary for buying components from overclockers.co.uk. Whilst there prices are decent and they deliver promptly their after-sales services are quite frankly abysmal. Having had bad experiences with them in the past, I just won't buy anything that has the capacity to fail and need returning from them, because they will just muck you about. Having sent a component back to them twice and having it returned to myself, with the special delivery costs at my expense is not good, especially when they sent me the wrong parts in the first place

I wish I could say that my problems with them were an isolated issue, because there choice of overclocable components and prices are greatm but the web is full of many similar kind of horror stories

Onto the components themselves, both the CPU there and graphics card are a solid choice, they should give you good performance for the games or today and the near future For the price range, that card can't really be beaten and the difference between a 128mb and 256mb card are nearly neglible, so a great buy there on both accounts

I haven't had any expeience with the brand of motherboard that you posted, but I appears to have all the features that you would need, unless you want SLI graphics cards. But if you were to go for that choice, it's only worth doing currently with the 6800 line of cards, and that is a crazy amount of money (~£600) that only the most performance demanding people would require, as you can buy a whole system for that

The RAM is also fast, and seems to have great timings, but if you can afford it, I would suggest getting an additional 512mb stick, in the form of a 1GB Dual Kit, such as this as shown on the same page as you posted:

Corsair 1GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x512MB) £131.54

If you want to get the most out of that system, then having that extra 512mb will really help improve both desktop and gaming performance. Also with a dual channel motherboard, you will get excellent speed with that ram. (If you do go this route then make sure you mount the RAM sticks in the correct channels to get dual channel support).

That PSU seems to have what you need, so a good choice. Never used one before though so it's worth checking online for a few reviews 380W should be sufficient for that current setup

I assume as you are upgrading you will use the optical drives and hard drives from your previous setup as well as the case so you should be sorted in that regard. Overall, that system seems good in all regards, but I would highly recommend the additional RAM

Thanks for reading, any further questions and I will be happy to answer

[JuanHose]

Thanks for taking the time to reply. My friend recently bought a lot of stuff from Overclockers Uk and he was quite positive about them, perhaps he was lucky though. You might be happy to know that I found a lot of these components on other websites for cheaper, so I was wondering what you all think of Dabs.com , Ebuyer.com and Microdirect.co.uk Are they any better than Overclockers UK? Particularly Dabs.com as they seem to be the cheapest.

As an update. I've decided to go for a more powerful PSU (around 480W, not quite sure which model yet) and get the Asus AV8 nForce 4 SLI motherboard instead of the previously mentioned ones.

[xxHadesxx]

I would highly recommend dabs.com, as I have used them before many times with no problems of any kind. I have never used ebuyer myself, but have heard of others using it with no problems and having great results.

Other stores I have used have been :

www.novatech.co.uk
www.scan.co.uk
www.watford.co.uk

Never had any problems with any of these stores mentioned, besides getting a faulty ram module from novatech, but their customer service was great and they replaced it promptly. I believe you already know my stance on overclockers.co.uk, and I would recommend any of the above stores over those <insert expletives> at overclockers.co.uk :blush

Good choice with getting a beefier power supply, 380W should have been sufficient but power requirements are ever increasing so it can&#39;t hurt to prepare yourself for the future. Try to get a PSU with the dual fan design to help increase air flow.

As for the ASUS AV8 nForce 4 SLI motherboard, I use an Asus here myself on my current socket A system and so far it has been a great motherboard with no problems. I have heard stories of the ASUS AV8 board being a bit quirky when dealing with overclocking, but I am unsure if that is an avenue you wish to take. Recent BIOS updates seemed to have improved the stability and performance of the board anyway, so this seems to be a moot point.

Any thoughts on the suggested additional RAM? I can&#39;t recommend this upgrade highly enough if you intend to do any serious degree of gaming with that system

[napoleonic]

are you going to overclock it?

[OTZ]

the corsair ram works quite well with the S939 chips/boards. i am running 2x512MB of the value ram at cas 2 - no stability problems whatsoever. good choice of parts&#33;

[JuanHose]

I forgot to add that I am now planning to get 1GB of RAM as xxHadesxx recommended :smile I&#39;ve never overclocked anything before but the idea interests me. I&#39;d like to at least try it some time to see its benefits. I wouldnt want to do huge overclocking, so anything which is moderately overclockable is fine for me. Having had a look at Dabs.com, I&#39;ve managed to find some savings and therefor think about getting the more expensive motherboard, psu, and extra RAM.

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (socket 939) inc Fan £129.19
Asus A8N SLi Socket 939 nForce 4 PCI-E £88.70
Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT 128MC PCI-E £107.94
TWINX1024-3200C2PT PC3200 2x512MB CL2 £123.22
Antec Neo ATX2.0 480W Power Supply £85.75

What do you guys think of them, graphics card in particular, are Gigabyte a decent card maker? My friend is also trying to get me to buy a new case, but I&#39;m not so convinced as I&#39;ve got no problem with my current one, as long as everything fits. What would be the reasons to buy a new case? Heres a pic of my case .Thanks again guys :smile

[JuanHose]

double post, problems with connection :blush

[Pausanias]

On the subject of Dabs.com & EBUYER.com, neither of them, so far, have let me down. I have used Dabs for a few years now and do recommend them to others. EBUYER is a company I have only bought a couple of components from, but have been reliable so far, plus a friend at work use them a lot and recommended them to me. I also like savstore.com and simply.co.uk, but I suppose I have been lucky over the years, as I haven&#39;t had to return any items so far, or request tech/after sales support. The only one who let me down was jungle, so I never went back to them.

[JuanHose]

I&#39;ve now ordered the parts I mentioned last post. However my friend said something along the lines that if my case was not ATX 2.0 compatible, then the PSU and motherboard would not fit in it. My question is, does anyone know how I can find out if it is compatible?

[ferres]

Check out some mid tower Lian Li cases. If they match the size of your case then you should be ok.

Mini towers are a no no.

Regarding sli;
I have read somewhere that for sli to work on a game it must have a profile support from Nvidia, otherwise it will only run with one GPU. *OD*