Forgive the long post, but I could do with some help in choosing the upgrade path for a couple of my home PCs. The two PCs under consideration are daughters' - AMD 1Ghz, 640Mb RAM and my - AMD 4200x2 skt 939, 2Gb RAM, PCI-E X800GTO2. I'm fairly experienced at swapping components out, but not at OCing, so not really that bothered about swapping parts around between these two machines and others on the network. So I have 2 choices, leave my machine alone and do a small upgrade on daughter's, probably a cheap AMDx2, 1Gb RAM, etc. OR I can upgrade mine (swapping the major components - MB, CPU, RAM, etc., with hers) and build mine from scratch. The question is, how much will it cost to get a significant uplift in performance from my 4200x2? I'll need a new MB, poss GFX card, although I don't play that many video intensive games and the X800 is ok for the time being. The rest of the house is an AMD shop, but I'm not adverse to Intels. My budget is around £200-300. I've tried to look on Tom's HG as they used to have a price/performance chart, but that's disappeared, so I'm unsure of the potential gain? Any help, pointers, gratefully received. Oh, and this isn't needed until mid-Dec, is it worth waiting? I.E. are there any potential CPU price reductions in the works? Thanks in advance! Stu
Relegate your own system to your daughter and get yourself a new one. I'm assuming your 4200X2 is 939 - no new motherboards are made using that socket any more, and there are no 939 CPUs either. You'll have to go down the AM2 route at least, which means new motherboard, new memory, new CPU so you might as well get an Intel system instead The X800 has no SM3 support so it won't play ANYTHING (IE: a fair few new and recent PC games) that are based on the UT3 engine. There will be no new CPU price reductions scheduled - not with the "holiday season" upon us because it's the best time of year for them to make money. £65 motherboard, £55 2GB DDR2 Memory and ~£80 for CPU leaves you a bit of change for a new graphics card.
isn't phenom meant to be coming out soon....at which point prices for everything below quad core will most likely drop again for AMD, and intel might drop prices to compete... what's the daughters PC and your PC used for? and what OS is it running? I'd always recommend at least a gig, preferably 2gig ram for the pc. if it's just everyday stuff like web and email and videos etc. then a few cheap upgrades should be sufficient. if you're not playing games then theres really not much point upgrading the gpu unless you have good reason to. my opinion? get a few small upgrades and save the cash for xmas prezzies! they'll bring a much better sense of satisfaction!
Doubt it with Intel's 45nm out in Jan, it won't care how Phenom does because AMD can't get enough stock out anyway. 2GB DDR2 is so cheap it's silly not to now.
Thanks for the replies! Just what I was thinking, but I was wondering if the difference between buying a cheap AM2 system for daughter (about £150) and keeping my system as is versus the cost of a new system £300ish was worth it. Obviously, with the prices below coming in at £200 I'm thinking it may well be Yup, skt 939, so nothing available faster than the 4200x2 that isn't secondhand. So an £80 Intel CPU (According to the BitTech Shopping site) would be something like the E4400. What's the speed comparison like with the 4200? worth stretching the next £20 to the E6550 (£100)?
Already have the cash put away for pressies! - This is sort of my present Daughters is not used for much other than web browsing and music playing, but with all the spyware protection, anti-virus, etc. that it needs to run, it's dragging it's feet a little. Plus replacing gives me a chance to build a new PC...
Get her a Mac then An E6550 will be far better - you're talking 800MHz FSB for the E44 versus 1333MHz FSB for E65. However the E44 will be better for overclocking because of the lower FSB - more overhead headroom available.
agreed with the mac business. they're much simpler and less hassle. If you're financially sorted then I guess you may as well just pick up all the components for a new PC! budget PCs can be built nowadays for very little, and they provide a surprising ammount of bang per buck Bindi, i woulda thought that intel bringing out new processors is even more reason to drop prices?
Yeah, problem with a mac is A) cost, B) lack of support (ie. Me) C) can't stand them. Great, I'll keep an eye on the prices and read up on some MBs now
Not until next year at the earliest and only when there's competition to make it worth it, otherwise it'll just increase the prices of the new ones.
After a bit of research, I've settled on these components: Intel Core2Duo E6750 - £112.51 Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R - £69.99 Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500 - £65.21 Total £250 I was thinking that I might add one of the new ATI Radeons (HD3850/3870) when they come out. Is the RAM the correct speed for the FSB? It's 266Mhz and the FSB of the C2D is 1333Mhz? That's a multiple of the RAM so is that correct?
