First major upgrade in 4 years!

[Regk]

I have 2 main objectives in getting the intel combo.

Motive #1, I am about to be laid off, and I this is one of the last thing we want to take care of before that happens, so at 157$ for a mobo cpu and ram, it appears to me to be a compelling option. A lot of people have suggested combos that would put me around 200-250$ range, and that is just not an option finiancially.

Motive #2. as cheex said, this combo should be a monumental increase in speed and performance over what I have now. If I can get something that can outmuscle this combo (mobo cpu and ram) for the same price then that just might be an option.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

If you can actually get the Q8200, ECS Mobo and RAM for $157, Go for it. I paid double. Didn't catch that part.

 

[RavenGuard]

That is great, but 2GB of ram is not enough. You will be bottlenecking that quad. You need 4MB min,if not more.

That is a cheap ATI card dont buy it. Instead buy a geforce 8800 GT or 9800 GT for about 100 bucks. Also ECS is a crummy mobo imo .

At this point lets hope your PSU can handle your CPU and your new video card. I doubt it can, seems like a generic PSU.

I recommend 600w dual rails at least at minimum.

I will say it again, your bottlenecking your CPU big time, if you buy a cheap ATI 3650 or use the one you have from other system. Buy a new video card too only 100 bones, You can get a GTX 260 from Fry's after rebate like 150 or 170 bones.

So in final

You need a new PSU even if you use the crummy 3650 which is not a gaming card.

What do you want to do with this system ? If you want to play games @ HD .. then you need like a said at minimum a 8800 or 9800 GT ..

Also you need minimum 4GB RAM or your bottlenecking again.

gl any more question let me know

I think there is a lot of misinformation in this post.

If I were in your position OP, I would start with an Athlon II x4 630, a sub-$100 gigabyte board, 2GB of memory, and if at all possible you most definitely should be buying a new PSU (400W corsair would be way more than enough, this gentleman telling you minimum 600W with any of the above mentioned cards is overkill) a new hard drive (storage is cheap, and much faster today than not long ago) and a new video card if you feel it's necessary for the games you are currently playing.

2GB should be more than enough for your setup if you're not playing anything too recent and you're staying away from Crysis and heavy background tasks like video transcoding and stuff.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If you can actually get the Q8200, ECS Mobo and RAM for $157, Go for it. I paid double. Didn't catch that part.

It won't be mind-numbingly fast, but it will be a substantial upgrade. If that board only has two RAM slots though, try to afford getting 4GB at the start, rather than spending money on 2GB now, and having to toss that out to upgrade to 4GB. (Yes, I know RAM is expensive right now.)

 

[Markfw]

I think there is a lot of misinformation in this post.

If I were in your position OP, I would start with an Athlon II x4 630, a sub-$100 gigabyte board, 2GB of memory, and if at all possible you most definitely should be buying a new PSU (400W corsair would be way more than enough, this gentleman telling you minimum 600W with any of the above mentioned cards is overkill) a new hard drive (storage is cheap, and much faster today than not long ago) and a new video card if you feel it's necessary for the games you are currently playing.

2GB should be more than enough for your setup if you're not playing anything too recent and you're staying away from Crysis and heavy background tasks like video transcoding and stuff.

I totally disagree with YOU. A 400 watt is not enough for any quad and decent video card. I burned out a 600 watt OCZ high end PSU with 2 video cards (9800 GTX+), and a 550. The only ones to survive are 700 watt and above for 2 video cards. For one card 600 is nice, but 400 is not enough. Also 2 gig of ram today is not enough for many games

 

[ShreddedWheat]

Stay away from ECS mobos!

 

[RavenGuard]

I totally disagree with YOU. A 400 watt is not enough for any quad and decent video card. I burned out a 600 watt OCZ high end PSU with 2 video cards (9800 GTX+), and a 550. The only ones to survive are 700 watt and above for 2 video cards. For one card 600 is nice, but 400 is not enough. Also 2 gig of ram today is not enough for many games

I think you'll find in the grand scheme of things, OCZ really doesn't make any "high end PSUs" in comparison to other brands. That's why they keep the PCP&C brand alive.

A good quality 600 watt PSU should be able to handle something like 2x4870 in crossfire.

To run a 5770, a 400 watt would be more than enough, just stick to Seasonic or other over achieving brands.

My media center PC is a Phenom II 720 with a bit of an OC, 2gb DDR2-800 and an HD4770, running on a Corsair 400w. The HD5770 uses something like 20 watts more than the 4770 on full load, so it shouldn't be a problem.

My last PC was a Phenom II 940 overclocked to 3.8GHZ, 4GB DDR2-1066, HD4890 + HD4870, a few hard drives/dvd drives and a Xonar DX. I was using a PCP&C Silencer 610w, worked like a charm for about a year.

I recently upgraded, I now have an I7 860@4ghz, hd5870, two dvd drives, two Intel SSDs, 3 hard drives, 4GB DDR3-1600, kept the Xonar DX, and the PCP&C 610w is more than enough for that.

This PSU is almost 3 years old now, no hiccups.

Look up any reviews showing "total system power usage" and you'll find that most components require much less power than you think. There are too many crappy power supplies out on the market and people are misinformed as to which brands/products are good performers.



Here is an example for you. I posted the TOTAL SYSTEM LOAD WATTAGE as reported by a review site after each graphics card:

Core i7 Test System Specs
- Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Edition (Overclocked @ 3.70GHz)
- x3 2GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 (CAS 9-9-9-24)
- Asus P6T Deluxe (Intel X58)
- OCZ GameXStream (700 watt)
- Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA300)
- Asus GeForce GTX 260 (896MB) ---------------------->334w
- Asus GeForce 9800 GT (1GB)------------------------->276w
- Asus GeForce 9600 GT (512MB)---------------------->238w
- HIS Radeon HD 5850 (1GB)--------------------------->319w
- HIS Radeon HD 5770 (1GB)--------------------------->284w
- HIS Radeon HD 5750 (1GB)--------------------------->266w
- Asus Radeon HD 4870 (512MB)----------------------->335w
- HIS Radeon HD 4850 (1GB)--------------------------->268w
- HIS Radeon HD 4770 (512MB)------------------------>254w
- Asus Radeon HD 3850 (512MB)----------------------->311w

A 9800GTX+ is about 30-odd watts more than a 4850 on load, which would put it at just a few watts less than an HD5850, which from the above review you can see is using about 320 watts at load for the entire system.

So long as the PSU can dish out the required amps, you really don't need to go overkill. Most good quality 500 watt supplies would have enough amperage to operate an HD5850 and likely a 5870 no problem.

 

[8steve8]

so much mis- and bad- information on this thread, it's funny.

Good luck.

 

[Z80]

Exactly where are you getting the Intel Q8200 CPU, ECS G31 tm Mobo and 2GB of Supertalent DDR2 800 for $157 shipped? That's like almost getting the MB and RAM for free! I might want to get in on this deal myself.

 

[lifeblood]

I have a 430W Rosewill and it was fine with my previous 3650 and my current 4830.

Get the best motherboard you can with afford with whatever CPU and a single 2GB stick of RAM. It will be a lot faster than what you have now. ECS is fine as long as you don't overclock.

The when your financially more secure you can sell your whatever CPU for something better, get more RAM, or better power supply, etc. In short, get a good base system then add on as money allows.

 

[spdfreak]

I have 2 main objectives in getting the intel combo.

Motive #1, I am about to be laid off, and I this is one of the last thing we want to take care of before that happens, so at 157$ for a mobo cpu and ram, it appears to me to be a compelling option. A lot of people have suggested combos that would put me around 200-250$ range, and that is just not an option finiancially.

Motive #2. as cheex said, this combo should be a monumental increase in speed and performance over what I have now. If I can get something that can outmuscle this combo (mobo cpu and ram) for the same price then that just might be an option.

Dude, not to pry into your personal life too much, but if you are about to get laid off and the difference between 160.00 and 200+ is going to break the bank, you need to not do anything or maybe add another 1G of RAM and wait until your financial situation improves. Just sayin'...