Just about to press the purchase button

Monkey muppet

Golden Member
Sep 28, 2004
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After several months of umm....should I.......should I not....

I finaly got around to purchasing Doom3 & Half Life 2, then started to play them on them following specs:


AMD 1.7Ghz (Palomino core 180nm) @ 11x 133mhz with a Volcano 12 HSF
1x 512 double bank 2700
1x 512 double bank 3200 (@ 333mhz to match the lower stick)
MSI KT4v board
Gforce 4 4400 Ti AGPx4 (Hardware DX8.0)
+ the usual 7,200 HDD's and DVD-RW opticals.

I can't appriciate why people are raving on about these games, untill I saw them run on a nice system, so it's my turn to have some appriciation.

I have a budget of £400 (no I can't go higher at all - that is all I have)

I need a core upgrade

which includes:

1) 939 Nforce 4 motherboard (don't need SLI)
2) 939 A64
3) 512mb RAM
4) ATX v2.0 PSU
5) new generation graphics card.

I've managed to get what I want from this site for £401 but can you guys recommend parts needed to meet the five criteria and the budget mentioned??

I can buy parts from either:

Ebuyer
Scan
Overclockers
PC World
Maplins

obvioulsy puchasing from only one site would reduce the money spent on shipping - time to put you all to the challenge.

can you put together a core upgrade for less than £400????????????
 

Monkey muppet

Golden Member
Sep 28, 2004
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Akasa Ultra Quiet 400W Paxpower Active PFC ATX2.0 PSU - Black Nickel £34.95

Gigabyte K8NF-9 nForce4 (Socket 939) PCI Express Motherboard (MB-032-GI) £64.95

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail £89.95

MSI NX6600GT-TD128E GeForce PCX6600 GT 128MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) £108.95

Corsair 512MB DDR Value Select PC3200 CAS3.0 (VS512MB400C3) £42.50
 

Uncle Bob

Senior member
Oct 24, 2004
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seems quite good and just over budget, just the following comments

you're buying a single stick of 512MB ram, perhaps with the idea of adding another 512 when funds allow (XP loves extra ram :)) - otherwise you'll get some extra performance by buying 2x256MB sticks and running dual channel

the akasa psu seems good value, and has twin 12V rails rated at 14a and 15a but the specs on the akasa web site between the 400W and the 460W are hardly different. I'm not saying don't touch it, but I'd do a bit more research before splashing the cash....


 

raanemaan

Golden Member
Feb 14, 2004
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For the amount of money you have to spend it looks like a good combination to me. Don't know much about the motherboard but it looks pretty good. You could try to match up with your current stick of pc3200 ram to run dual channel.
 

Monkey muppet

Golden Member
Sep 28, 2004
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Originally posted by: Uncle Bob
seems quite good and just over budget, just the following comments

you're buying a single stick of 512MB ram, perhaps with the idea of adding another 512 when funds allow (XP loves extra ram :)) - otherwise you'll get some extra performance by buying 2x256MB sticks and running dual channel

the akasa psu seems good value, and has twin 12V rails rated at 14a and 15a but the specs on the akasa web site between the 400W and the 460W are hardly different. I'm not saying don't touch it, but I'd do a bit more research before splashing the cash....

I was going to take the 512mb PC3200 out of the my old system to make 1GB in this new one.

I went for the 400w Akasa as the 460w is an extra £12 (tight budget again - I was really pissed that I couldn't use my Antec true silent 380w).

My line of thinking was when I get some more money to spend - probably next year :( - I could get a good HSF and 1GB of PC4000 then OC by only spending £100-ish
 

Uncle Bob

Senior member
Oct 24, 2004
380
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Yeah, you might be able to run dual channel with your old stick, but worse case scenario is that you have 1GB ram in single channel mode.

The point I was making was that I can't see where the extra 60W is from the specs on the website (400W vs 460W model) and that makes me slightly nervous. Overclockers have a good reputation though and the price is very competitive for a PSU with those specs. The 400W should do you if it can handle over 200W on the dual 12V rails.