APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: This fortnight probably
BUDGET: £100 ($165)
SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming (but titles from a couple years back, not the latest), surfing the net, music.
PARTS REQUIRED: CPU, motherboard and RAM.
PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: Ebuyer.co.uk, ebay or any others you could recommend.
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: UK
PARTS PREFERENCES: Considering my budget I think I should stick with AMD, going by what I've read.
OVERCLOCKING: Maybe
SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe but unlikely.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I run XP.
Alright folks. My motherboard died nearly two months ago. I don't know why. The mourning process has been long and hard, as I needed to save some money. I have decided to take this opportunity to upgrade not just my motherboard, but also my CPU and RAM. The reason for this is because my old motherboard (and I do mean old) was a socket 754 with a pretty below par Athlon 64 3200 processor and a craptacular 2x256mb amount of RAM.
Unfortunately, money is a real issue for me at the moment, so I'm trying to strike a balance between making the upgrade worthwhile and having money to live in real life. After abit of research this is what I've come up with, what do you think? My knowledge of components nowadays is pretty poor.
Option 1
Athlon II X2 Socket AM3 250 - £51
MSI K9N6PGM2-V Socket AM2+ - £32
1x2GB DDR2 667Mhz RAM - £26
Total - £109 ($180)
Option 2
Athlon II X3 Socket AM3 425 CPU - £58
MSI 770-C45 AM3 motherboard - £51
1x2GB DDR3 1066Mhz RAM - £26
Total - £135 ($223)
The second option is £35 more than I was originally willing to spend, how worth it is it in the long run?
As for my graphics card, it's very bad (NVidia 8500 GT series) but upgrading this now would spread the money I have too thinly, so I'm waiting till Feb next year. Right decision? At least I will know for sure where the bottleneck is!
BUDGET: £100 ($165)
SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming (but titles from a couple years back, not the latest), surfing the net, music.
PARTS REQUIRED: CPU, motherboard and RAM.
PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: Ebuyer.co.uk, ebay or any others you could recommend.
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: UK
PARTS PREFERENCES: Considering my budget I think I should stick with AMD, going by what I've read.
OVERCLOCKING: Maybe
SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe but unlikely.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I run XP.
Alright folks. My motherboard died nearly two months ago. I don't know why. The mourning process has been long and hard, as I needed to save some money. I have decided to take this opportunity to upgrade not just my motherboard, but also my CPU and RAM. The reason for this is because my old motherboard (and I do mean old) was a socket 754 with a pretty below par Athlon 64 3200 processor and a craptacular 2x256mb amount of RAM.
Unfortunately, money is a real issue for me at the moment, so I'm trying to strike a balance between making the upgrade worthwhile and having money to live in real life. After abit of research this is what I've come up with, what do you think? My knowledge of components nowadays is pretty poor.
Option 1
Athlon II X2 Socket AM3 250 - £51
MSI K9N6PGM2-V Socket AM2+ - £32
1x2GB DDR2 667Mhz RAM - £26
Total - £109 ($180)
Option 2
Athlon II X3 Socket AM3 425 CPU - £58
MSI 770-C45 AM3 motherboard - £51
1x2GB DDR3 1066Mhz RAM - £26
Total - £135 ($223)
The second option is £35 more than I was originally willing to spend, how worth it is it in the long run?
As for my graphics card, it's very bad (NVidia 8500 GT series) but upgrading this now would spread the money I have too thinly, so I'm waiting till Feb next year. Right decision? At least I will know for sure where the bottleneck is!