musta upgrade!

[xSauronx]

i did this in gen hardware, and then after looking at the replies, remembered most people in there....know a few general things about hardware.

maybe ill get some bettah advice in here, dont let me down video forum!

my brother has:

asus a7n8x deluxe
1700+ @1.8ghz or....something like that
1 gig pc3200 DDR (corsair extreme, i think, anyways, its staying for now)
and a 9700 pro

he has 400 bucks, give or take, and wants to upgrade. he will keep the ram, and add another gig later.

so i need a mobo, cpu, psu, and a video card, he can go over 400, but not by too much, as he doesnt want to get carried away. if its something that can be upgraded in 6 months or a year (with better cpu/video) thatd be great.

reccomendations were for a socket 939 from gen hardware, but what else should i go for? ive been out of the hardware loop for a couple of years and dont know where to start

edit: his first game is going to be oblivion, if that will make a difference as far as video reccomendations go

 

[xSauronx]

beuller...beuller?

nobody :/

 

[coolpurplefan]

Well, I have a general idea too. I know I would like to choose minimum 3700+ in either socket 939 or 754. But, there are some great deals on the 3400+. Like at compusmart.ca there is the 3400+ socket 754 for $188 CDN. And there is the socket 754 3400+ at newegg.com for $148 US or $155 US. The socket 754 3400+ is more powerful than the socket 939 3500+. But, you cannot upgrade to dual core with a socket 754 although socket 939 uses DDR1 RAM anyway.

As far as graphic cards go, either minimum Geforce 6800 GS or the equivalent ATI card.

The RAM is OK except for maybe BF2 etc but then you need to choose a mobo. I would go with an Asus, Abit, DFI or MSI.

I know I made an odd choice when I bought my Clawhammer 3700+ (socket 754) but it was partly because of the price. I`d like to buy 2GB of OCZ Platinum RAM and I have an Asus K8N4-E Deluxe with a Zalman 7000 ALCU LED and installed a Zalman NB47J with a Coolermaster 40mm fan. My motherboard came with a non-GT 6600 which is only good for games like UT2004. But when UT2007 comes out, I will buy a new card anyway.

 

[KoolDrew]

AMD Athlon 64 3000+
ASRock 939Dual-SATA2
Fortron AX450-PN
X850XT

There are a lot of people in these forums that know a lot more about the latest video cards, but the X850XT is a good performer and is a good price. If there is something better at around the same price, somebody else will tell you.

The motherboard, CPU and PSU I chose above are all great though. The CPU is the cheapest and should overclock well. You could bump up to an Opteron 144 which should overclocke better and it has more cache. However, I chose the cheaper option in order to make more room in the budget for a better video card since that is most important. The motherboard cannot be beat for the price. It is a good overclocker and they are rumours that they will be released a Socket M2 adapter. So it is future-proof too. One disadvantage to the board though is that it will only let you select up to 1.45v for the CPU. However, with a very simple volt mod you can select up to 1.55v. You can see here. The PSU is only $50 and is very good. I have the 400w model.

 

[v8envy]

A total upgrade budget of $400 is a very tight fit. The problem is, grey market socket 939 cpus are gone, and a retail socket 939 cpu + mboard + decent PSU will be pushing $275-300 for the quality low end stuff. The left over $100 won't get you that much more than an R9700 in terms of CPU oomph -- 20-30% more with a 6600GT, X800 or 6800NU. Which is a lot relatively speaking, but not much in terms of what's required.

I don't recommend a socket 754 cpu simply because the selection of PCIe capable motherboards for sock754 is not great, and you absolutely don't want to be stuck in AGPland after a system upgrade. If you do decide to shave some money there, go for the sempron line of amd64 cpus. You could get one of those and the biostar PCIe board for around $150 total. Not great, but still about double over where you are now. Could be enough to run newish games.

Anyhoo, if you score one of those, that leaves about $250 for a video card. Still not enough for something that'll handle Oblivion in full glory. That'd be an X1900XT or two, and those alone are more than your total budget.

Your video choices after a bottom of the barrel system build are:

$85 MSI X800 for the absolute cheapest build -- this is a 'recommended' card by bethesda. which means, probably 800x600 with medium detail will be doable.
$160 6800GS or X850XT. The last one may even have a prayer of running Oblivion in 1024x768 in med detail.
$275 7800GT -- If you decide on this, get it fast. $20 more gets a much better 7900GT.

 

[Praxis1452]

ASRock 939SLI32-eSATA2 Socket 939 ULi M1697 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail $85 motherboard.

X850XT-Retail $165 w/ $15 rebate

Athlon 3000+ $135.

For the power supply a Fortron 450W will do at $50 going a bit over but the fortron should last you a while if you just plan to upgrade little bylittle. X850XT best card out there in that price range. Motherboard has tons of features anandtech just did a review on it too.

edit: wow I posted the EXACT same build as kooldrew =P

 

[KoolDrew]

edit: wow I posted the EXACT same build as kooldrew =P

LOL

While I was reading your post I was wondering why you didn't just say something along the lines of "I agree with KoolDrew," instead of listing everything out.

 

[xSauronx]

great

just what i was looking for, he knows it wont run oblivion at full-detail, and hes ok with it, but he wanted a decent box on a budget and you guys have been alot of help

he'll probalby go with kooldrews reccomendations, and i imagine he'll be pretty happy with the setup once we get him running

thanks again!