Belisarious and his Quest to upgrade/build a new PC

[Belisarius]

Our Story begins on the 1st of September, 2006 years after some woman gave birth to a high prophet in a cave. Today, inspired by his fellow Strategos Lusted, Belisarius has been inspired to embark on a quest of enlightenment and utter “Oblivion”. For friends Oblivion is the key here!

Upon making a journey to the great town of “San Gwann” Belisarius met a friend who invited him over for tea and cake, this in itself was enjoyable however his fried had other things to show the hero of this tale! His friend owned what is by today’s standards, a sodding good computer, a computer that could play Oblivion at 10,000 FPS on max graphics. Belisarius was impressed, so his friend thought he would allow Belisarius some time to play this new Oblivion, and thus like a fat chick in an all-you-can-eat buffet Belisarius gorged himself on the ownage for several hours. Finally his friend got sick of this and threw him out but lent him Oblivion. What a sick joke!

Belisarius went home to his P4 3.0 GHz 512 DDR RAM 250mb Gforce FX 5500, which could play Rome at a very good level only to find his computer sucked balls when faced with the ownage that was Oblivion. Thus he exclaimed, “Upgrade my computer with Ram and a new Card I shall!” Then the trouble started, for Belisarius is an unemployable student with his student grant cut, he has no income and a fondness for expensive whiskey, and he was, in many respects screwed from the start. But God thought it time to further urinate on his ambitions by informing him he was screwed over when buying his computer. He asked for a Motherboard that could support all the latest software and now, he realized that it doesn’t. So he needs a new motherboard, Ram and a card at least. At this point he is thinking of a new Processor and upgrading the computer to the level where Oblivion can be run in the background while he plays minesweeper. Oh what ownage that would be!

What is this hero to do? He has little knowledge of computer parts, has no idea how to build one and is unemployed. He starts with 100 US Dollars in savings, A computer with a few usable parts and the drive to succeed fueled by his addiction to Oblivion. Will this hero succeed in building his own custom computer? Will members of this community help? Oh the drama!

The Quest begins!

[Shaun]

You didnt have to write an essay on your situation man, just a list of specs and a budget would have been suficient.

So, before we help you out, we need a rough idea of your budget, as there are so many different possibilities that it would take ages, so, what is your budget?

Oh, and nothing can be salvedged really, unless your HD is pretty spacious.

[Belisarius]

You didnt have to write an essay on your situation man, just a list of specs and a budget would have been suficient.

Thats takes away half the fun.

So, before we help you out, we need a rough idea of your budget, as there are so many different possibilities that it would take ages, so, what is your budget?

Thats half the Quest friend, I will be making the money as we go along and this thread is to also suggest ways of that.
I'm looking at 600 UK Pounds at best.

Oh, and nothing can be salvedged really, unless your HD is pretty spacious.

Yup keeping those two, and the Case.

[Shaun]

Thats takes away half the fun.

For us tech monkeys, its no fun, we are interested in Specs dammit!!!

Thats half the Quest friend, I will be making the money as we go along and this thread is to also suggest ways of that.
I'm looking at 600 UK Pounds at best.

Ok, thank you.

Lets see, we are looking at about mid high range.

So, what country are you buying your stuff from? In the UK we have Novatech and scan , both very good sites.


So, I estimate that you will manage to afford an AMD Athlon 4000+ 64bit X2, a 7600GT, 2 ig Ram and an average mobo. Not high end, but will do the trick nicely. But adding another few hundred wont go amiss.

Weill get links once I know where you can buy/ship from.

Yup keeping those two, and the Case.

Good idea, this leaves only the important stuff to spend cash on. But, and this is a big but, you will almost definetly need a new PSU (powersupply), and some PSU's are made only to fit in certina cases, so if your PSU is not above 500W you will need a new one, nad might also need a new case to fit in your PSU.

[MasterAdnin]

For us tech monkeys, its no fun, we are interested in Specs dammit!!!

..... ......sorry, continue......... .

Salaam,
Adnan

[imb39]

The answers has been provided via MSN, my dear hero....

Go down the docks and offer yourself for a few shillings a time to the sailors. The shekels will flow and with this added monetary resource you can invest, if invest is the correct word, in other peripherals etc.

Why earn a fortune travelling to London when you can earn it lying on your back!

To sum it up - the fiscal situation is not conducive to your hero fulfilling his quest...

[PyrrhusIV]

Oh, and nothing can be salvedged really, unless your HD is pretty spacious.

He can salvage the Hard Drive, his CD and/or his DVD Drive, a Floppy Drive if it is on his computer. all of his wires, IDE etc, can be salvaged. PCI cards can be, like wireless cards, if he owns it. The Case as well, and who knows, maybe the fans too.

Hmm... 600 GBP eh? I'll convert that to U.S dollars and try to look for something, who knows, maybe even cheaper but still good

[Incinerate_IV]

Lets start off by finding what parts you have!

Download this:
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

Then make a screen shot of every tab of that program and post it here, so we can know what to keep and what to throw away. Heck if your computer is new enough we might even be able to keep the CPU and the Ram too.

Too tell you the truth, if all you want is to play Oblivion at good settings, all you need is a little more RAM and a better graphics card, thats it. The rest of your system is fine.

[tco]

Yea more memory and a new viedo card, even if its agp. Oblivon is not really that great tho, not this is comming from a morrowind fan.
Even though it looks great on my comp.

[Belisarius]

Lets start off by finding what parts you have!

Download this:
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

Then make a screen shot of every tab of that program and post it here, so we can know what to keep and what to throw away. Heck if your computer is new enough we might even be able to keep the CPU and the Ram too.

Too tell you the truth, if all you want is to play Oblivion at good settings, all you need is a little more RAM and a better graphics card, thats it. The rest of your system is fine.

Coolness, I shall do this when I come home.

[UnderdawgIV]

Vanilla Oblivion may not be great but with all the mods in the upcoming section it damn is! It got me playing again!

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/i...owtopic=515789

Oh, hmmm, that seems like a adequate budget, since you already have a monitor, HDD, and DVD drive.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 2 x 1.86Ghz 2Mb Cache 1066 FSB Dual Core Processor £119.00
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s....html?IL-E6300

Motherboard: Asus P5W DH Deluxe WiFi 975x (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £136.00
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?ASU-P5WDHD

Memory (RAM): OCZ 2GB Kit (2x1GB) 240Pin PC2-5400 667MHz Dual Channel Gold GX XTC £125.00
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?OCZ-G542GX

GPU (Video Card): Sapphire X1900XTX 512MB GDDR3 512MB PCI-E VIVO Graphics Card £249.00
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?SAP-X19XTX

That's pretty top of the line there. Just learn to overclock. The e6300 Allendale can reach over FX-62 speeds on stock cooling. That's why I put in that nice motherboard. That comes to 629.

That may be a bit much, so you can get by by getting only 1GB of RAM which should shave off $50.

[Belisarius]

Vanilla Oblivion may not be great but with all the mods in the upcoming section it damn is! It got me playing again!

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/i...owtopic=515789

Oh, hmmm, that seems like a adequate budget, since you already have a monitor, HDD, and DVD drive.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 2 x 1.86Ghz 2Mb Cache 1066 FSB Dual Core Processor £119.00
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s....html?IL-E6300

Motherboard: Asus P5W DH Deluxe WiFi 975x (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £136.00
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?ASU-P5WDHD

Memory (RAM): OCZ 2GB Kit (2x1GB) 240Pin PC2-5400 667MHz Dual Channel Gold GX XTC £125.00
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?OCZ-G542GX

GPU (Video Card): Sapphire X1900XTX 512MB GDDR3 512MB PCI-E VIVO Graphics Card £249.00
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?SAP-X19XTX

That's pretty top of the line there. Just learn to overclock. The e6300 Allendale can reach over FX-62 speeds on stock cooling. That's why I put in that nice motherboard. That comes to 629.

That may be a bit much, so you can get by by getting only 1GB of RAM which should shave off $50.

Wow Thanks, I will certainly look into these.

That said I forgot to change the Currency -

500.00 MTL Malta Liri = 783.856 GBP

[Shaun]

Wow Thanks, I will certainly look into these.

That said I forgot to change the Currency -

500.00 MTL Malta Liri = 783.856 GBP

Ok, so you have £750 to work with, that makes it.

Well in that case everything that UnderdawgIV listed is good except that you will have a little more to spend on the CPU, go for the fasted Core Duo you can afford in that case.

[UnderdawgIV]

Yeah. Those should be pretty easy. Should be something like 100 more pounds.

[Belisarius]

I want to, as much as possible keep the ones I have for a few reasons (one being I still live with my parents and dont want them knowing where I spend my cash ) I will look into it soon.

EDIT -

My friend has a

an asus p5s800-vm

Can someone tell me what is the maximum this supports?

[Aristocrat]

Thats a motherboard...not a power supply.
http://reviews.cnet.com/Asus_P5S800_...-31228337.html

[Belisarius]

I know, I didnt edit the post proper.

Thanks, I'll forward that on.

[Aristocrat]

Bah, most cases are standard ATX which means they fit ATX psu's, though sometimes Dells, HPs, etc are built differently...which is why prebuilt computers are annoying.
What you need to worry about is power, a psu that is bad or not powerful to run your system will mean no end of trouble, but seeing as your computer wont sucking up too much juice you MAY get by if the psu is just 300 watts.

[sunsmountain]

Belisarius went home to his P4 3.0 GHz 512 DDR RAM 250mb Gforce FX 5500, which could play Rome at a very good level only to find his computer sucked balls when faced with the ownage that was Oblivion.

And so the months went on, while Belisarius was being tortured by the ownage. He was patient until November, and got a R620 or G80. This new missus kicked the shins out under Oblivions' legs, forcing her to her knees...

Although that FX 5500 is in dire need of an upgrade (as is the rest), I would wait for a DX 10 compliant card. Get an XBOX 360 in the mean time, and play till your hearts content. Know one thing for sure:

This is not max settings, and all cards get pwned unless you SLI/Crossfire at $1000+
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2746&p=4

This is not max settings, no HDR or soft shadows, but yes to Bloom and AA, and all other settings are maxed: All cards get pwned regardless
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/08/...tx/page11.html
You cannot get above 1024x768 which is pathetic in my opinion.

For a good single GPU Oblivion experience, only these cards will do:
GF7950 GX2
X1950XTX
X1900XTX

and those are pretty expensive... since you are getting a new power supply as well I would make sure it fits the bill the R600/G80 pose, by waiting for them. It is rumored their power and performance levels are a new leap, but even if true, the X1950XTX is not a bad card at all.

[UnderdawgIV]

Did you check out the mods I linked to? I swear you will regret buying just a Xbox360. Anyways, you could always sell the X1900XT later when the G80/R600 drops in November, and they are going to be expensive (around $700? just like when the 7800GTX/X1800XT came out last year). Anyways, DX10 games are not going to be the norm until 1-1.5 years from now, specially since Vista and specially Vista Premium (Premium you need to play games) keeo getting pushed back plus all the bugs they'll come with.