Help me buy an upgradable system

[Ja'chyra]

So my computer is on its last legs but I cant quite afford the cool supercomputer that I want, my cunning plan is to buy a lower spec computer with easily upgradeable parts and add to it every month or so.

I was thinking about:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (Would Athalon x2 be better?)
1 Gig of Ram (Easy to upgrade later)
2 x 7600GT 256 Graphics cards (Easy to upgrade later)
2 x 250 Gb Hard drives
Soundblaster SE 7.1 soundcard
550W PSU
2x DVD rewriters
Vista Home Premium

I'm hoping that would allow me to pay most games like MTW2 and I would upgrade the RAM to at least 2 Gig and the graphics cards to 2x 8800 GTS 320 Mb later. The whole system comes in at just over £800 and that is the most I would like to pay atm.

My main questions are am I better going with the Core 2 Duo E6600 or the Athalon x2 5200+ and is it easy enough to upgrade a processor later if I went with the E6300 and upgraded to the E6600, is a 550W PSU enough and the obvious question of Vista.

Any comments are welcome

Thanks

[Xiahou]

I wouldn't get Vista yet. The early testing I've seen actually shows current games run somewhat slower on Vista than XP.


Here's the system that I should be getting delivered tomorrow.

I went with the 4400+ because it's much better than my current single core 3200+ and as long as I have an AM2 board, I can easily upgrade to faster processors when the prices fall.

Also, if I were you, I'd get the 8800 now- it should stomp 2x7600's in performance and I think it's priced reasonably for what you'd be getting.

[Ja'chyra]

Also, if I were you, I'd get the 8800 now- it should stomp 2x7600's in performance and I think it's priced reasonably for what you'd be getting

the main reason for that is that I want to go to 2 cards at some point and I'm not sure how easy it is to add another one later, if it's just a case of dropping the card into the slot then I'll go for the 8800, if not I'll take the lower card and upgrade it in a couple of months.

[sapi]

Don't get 2x[any old card] when you can get 1x[a new one] and drop in a second later if you so wish.

Core 2 > AM2 btw ;)

[BDC]

Also the Core 2 socket has scope for upgrading in the future as Intel role out faster chips and more cores. I'd suggest an E6300 though, and buy a better one in a few years or something.

Don't bother with SLI, just get one faster card. Better performance, less power drain, easier to upgrade, probably cheaper.

I'd probably stick with a single hard drive for the time being, then stick a 1tb one in later down the road for the same price as a 250gb one now.

[Ja'chyra]

Had a look at pricing up components to build myself an upgradeable system and for another £200 I can get this

A bit more than I was wanting to pay atm but with interest free credit for 9 months seems I would be daft not to.

[Xiahou]

I wouldn't get Vista yet. The early testing I've seen actually shows current games run somewhat slower on Vista than XP.


Here's the system that I should be getting delivered tomorrow.

I went with the 4400+ because it's much better than my current single core 3200+ and as long as I have an AM2 board, I can easily upgrade to faster processors when the prices fall.

Also, if I were you, I'd get the 8800 now- it should stomp 2x7600's in performance and I think it's priced reasonably for what you'd be getting.

Well, my new upgrade has gone horribly.... I got it yesterday, unboxed it, added DVD-R, SATA HD, vid card ect. Booted my XP install disk and everything seemed to go fine. When I tried to apply SP2- it failed. I looked in the event log and it was full of errors. Eventually, I try to reinstall and things just seem to get worse... random restarts during XP install, blue screens, corrupt files all in an almost seemingly random fashion.

I tried a new HD, new RAM, vid card, different CD-Rom, different XP CD... pretty much everything I can think of. The only thing left is the mobo/CPU. So I call the vendor's support and have to jump through hoops for them so they can conclude it's probably something on the mobo. So now I have to RMA the mobo, CPU and RAM for testing and will get to spend the evening tearing the guts out of my new system and boxing them up and then reconstituting my old system so I'll have something to use until this is sorted out.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

I was thinking about:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (Would Athalon x2 be better?)
1 Gig of Ram (Easy to upgrade later)
2 x 7600GT 256 Graphics cards (Easy to upgrade later)
2 x 250 Gb Hard drives
Soundblaster SE 7.1 soundcard
550W PSU
2x DVD rewriters
Vista Home Premium

I dont think you should go with the dual graphics cards. I just got an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 with 2 gig of ram a 7950gt512 graphics card, 600W PSU and built in soundblaster 7.1 and can play MTW online at max settings with no lag as long as all others have good pcs and connections. I think one really good graphics card is better than two good ones. Id stay away from the vista as well. I got my whole pc custom built for around 1100 bucks with all new name brand parts. Id go with the two gig of memory from the start.

[Xiahou]

Interestingly, my problem seems to be SATA related. I got a successful install on an old 20gig IDE drive- but that wasn't really an acceptable outcome as the board only has 1 ide channel that is normally used up by two cd/dvd drives.

[Lemur]

I think one really good graphics card is better than two good ones. Id stay away from the vista as well.

Amen and hallelujah.

[Geezer57]

Interestingly, my problem seems to be SATA related. I got a successful install on an old 20gig IDE drive- but that wasn't really an acceptable outcome as the board only has 1 ide channel that is normally used up by two cd/dvd drives.

If you have an open PCI slot, stand-alone ATA-100/133 controller cards are fairly inexpensive. But if your motherboard's SATA controller is bad, it should be returned for a fix or exchange.

When you were attempting to install WinXP on the new SATA hard drive, did it prompt you for a SATA driver? Or is the mobo's BIOS so advanced it contains the code already?

[Xiahou]

If you have an open PCI slot, stand-alone ATA-100/133 controller cards are fairly inexpensive. But if your motherboard's SATA controller is bad, it should be returned for a fix or exchange.

The thought crossed my mind, but as you said, it's a brand new board- no reason to settle for a faulty one.

When you were attempting to install WinXP on the new SATA hard drive, did it prompt you for a SATA driver? Or is the mobo's BIOS so advanced it contains the code already?

I'm in unfamiliar waters with SATA, but I think I tried all my options- feel free to tell me otherwise:

First off, Windows setup detected the drive and partitioned/formatted it without incident. My understanding is that if it sees the drive, it doesn't need a special driver. However, later I tried to load a driver with the F6 option during setup using a floppy that I created from the MoBos driver CD. On the SP2 slipstreamed XP install, it made no difference whatsoever- still bluescreened on the first reboot after copying files. Using an XP SP1 CD, I got it to install completely once- but during reboots it constantly gave me errors about the registry claiming it had restored a corrupted file, then when I applied SP2, it rebooted to the all too familiar BSOD. Oddly, when I tried another SP1 install later is gave the BSOD on reboot after copying files. Sometimes I would get the same STOP errors, but sometimes it would be different- I guess depending on what I tried.

Sound like a bad onboard SATA controller to you? Also, my understanding was that most SATA drives would detect in Windows as an IDE drive. Is this the case? Regardless, I would've thought the fact that Windows setup detected the drive without needing a special driver would suggest I was in good shape.

[Geezer57]

Sound like a bad onboard SATA controller to you?

Could be, but it's hard to know for sure with Windows error messages.

Also, my understanding was that most SATA drives would detect in Windows as an IDE drive. Is this the case?

I really can't answer for the newest motherboards. On my newest (1 year-old) mobo, SATA drives aren't recognized at all by Windows setup without the F6 driver install. I suspect it has a lot to do with how advanced is the BIOS code.

Regardless, I would've thought the fact that Windows setup detected the drive without needing a special driver would suggest I was in good shape.

That's the impression I get also, but then we're dealing with Microsoft's products here, aren't we?

From you problem description, it seems you're not installing from a slipstreamed SP2 CD. There's a good guide here (http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1626), as long as you have access to another PC that's working. You can even add the current SATA drivers to the final CD.

[Xiahou]

Well, they got my mobo that I sent back to them an replaced it with another of the same (although now Im wishing I had ponied up for the Gigabyte SLI board). I spoke to the guy working on it and he claims to have loaded up XP on the new board with no problem and is going to leave it running benchmarks over night before sending it back to me if all is well.

Here's hoping... If it still doesn't work, I'll likely have a meltdown.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Hey is this a great deal or what?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130082

GeForce 8800 GTS

269 dollars. Is this as good a deal as I think. Thats less than I paid for my 7950gt.

[Xiahou]

Hey is this a great deal or what?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130082

GeForce 8800 GTS

269 dollars. Is this as good a deal as I think. Thats less than I paid for my 7950gt.

That's the exact one that I got for $10 more. I haven't played 'Dark Messiah' yet either, but it looks like a decent enough game for a pack-in.

[Judge]

yeh thats coz its a 320mb { which is more than enough}

the 512mb is costing more, but who needs it, good find Gawain, top man

[Gawain of Orkeny]

the 512mb is costing more, but who needs it, good find Gawain, top man

I dont believe there is a 512mb , only a 640mb(GTS) and a 768mb(GTX)

That's the exact one that I got for $10 more

Well its a brand new card and I wasnt aware that they made a 320. I was wondering how you were getting an 8800 so cheap. Now I know.

[Xiahou]

Well its a brand new card and I wasnt aware that they made a 320. I was wondering how you were getting an 8800 so cheap. Now I know.

Yup, my secret's out.

Seriously, this card is a steal compared to its 640MB brother. Under most circumstances the performance difference between the two is insignificant- and regardless, it blows away any other non-8800 card by a longshot. I think it even beats non-8800 SLI setups.