Yeah, sorry, another thread about pc upgrades. How original.

Anyways, I'm beginning to think about doing some upgrades to my Athlon-powered pc which is beginning to feel distinctly vintage. I'm not totally decided yet as I really want to save up for a new camera lens like a Sony 70-200 SSM, but think I might benefit more from a short-term upgrade so that I can actually process the pictures I take with any kind of speed.

I used to be fairly up to date with PC hardware, but haven't kept track of it much for the past 18 months. I won't be buying cutting edge stuff, I'll be shopping with one eye firmly on the price. I'd actually much rather have a new lens, but gawd this thing takes forever to process RAW pictures, can't cope with 32 car grids in LFS, and laughs at me at 5fps if I go near an airport in FSX with anything more than a control tower and a Cessna parked up.

So bearing that in mind, there's a few things I'm wondering which never seem to be covered in product reviews...

1. I have a Tagan 480W PSU which doesn't have modular cables but is quiet and wasn't cheap when I bought it. Without me checking the ratings for the individual rails printed on the side of the PSU, does anyone know roughly what this can power? Isn't it the 12V rail that's always in increasing demand with each generation of hardware? And what power connectors do gfx cards have these days? And motherboards, for that matter?

2. Speaking of gfx cards, where's the sweet spot (in terms of price/performance) at the moment? Bearing in mind I'm planning on running XP for at least another year, DX10 performance isn't a priority for me right now. I can't decide whether it makes more sense to forget about DX10 now, on the basis that by the time I grudgingly get Vista, the card will be obsolete anyway; or whether I should buy now with the future in mind. Btw I'm an nVidia user, and would prefer to stay with nVidia. Any cards in this sweet spot available with noteably quiet cooling?

3. When are the 45nm processors expected from Intel? Just looking at the prices on Scan, the pre-order price for a 2.66GHz, 6MB cache, 45nm Core 2 Duo E8200 is £115.78. The price of a 2.66GHz, 4MB cache, 65nm Core 2 Duo E6750 is £122.19. So the new 45nm chips are going to be cheaper, and also cooler? And you can get the 3GHz 45nm E8400 for only £14 more than the E8200!

4. Any mobo suggestions? I don't know anything about which ones are highly rated at the moment. I like Asus, I've found them to be ultra-stable and generally well featured. I'm not obsessed with overclocking as I use the computer for work and photography more than gaming these days, and demand perfect stability (although I may be tempted to have a fiddle considering the overclockability of the Core2Duos!). I want plenty ports of all descriptions (although mainly USB and SATA, just need the one PATA connector for optical drives and a floppy port for installing SATA drivers during the XP install process), and things like controlling the cpu fan speed is good. I'll probably get an Antec P182 to put it in, so it'll be staying the right way up, meaning that heatpipe solutions are an option (and certainly preferable to fans on the north/south bridges).

5. Obviously this is determined by the choice of mobo, but in the current market - DDR2 or DDR3?

Phew, that's a lot, I know. Many thanks in advance for any pointers.

Quote from STROBE :

Yeah, sorry, another thread about pc upgrades. How original.

That's what this section is for!

Quote from STROBE :

2. Speaking of gfx cards, where's the sweet spot (in terms of price/performance) at the moment? Bearing in mind I'm planning on running XP for at least another year, DX10 performance isn't a priority for me right now. I can't decide whether it makes more sense to forget about DX10 now, on the basis that by the time I grudgingly get Vista, the card will be obsolete anyway; or whether I should buy now with the future in mind. Btw I'm an nVidia user, and would prefer to stay with nVidia. Any cards in this sweet spot available with noteably quiet cooling?

The sweet spot right now really is the nVidia 8800GT. It's not the cheapest card on the market, but it's reasonably priced and DOES have DX10 support AND is future proof for the next few years. All in one, and not going to completely break the bank.

Quote from STROBE :

I like Asus, I've found them to be ultra-stable and generally well featured. I'm not obsessed with overclocking as I use the computer for work and photography more than gaming these days, and demand perfect stability (although I may be tempted to have a fiddle considering the overclockability of the Core2Duos!). I want plenty ports of all descriptions (although mainly USB and SATA, just need the one PATA connector for optical drives and a floppy port for installing SATA drivers during the XP install process), and things like controlling the cpu fan speed is good. I'll probably get an Antec P182 to put it in, so it'll be staying the right way up, meaning that heatpipe solutions are an option (and certainly preferable to fans on the north/south bridges).

Asus has always served me well - and most other people will say the same. I have an Asus GFX card, sound card and motherboard. As for the case, the P182 is a great case. I had the P180 and it was fantastic.

Quote from STROBE :

5. Obviously this is determined by the choice of mobo, but in the current market - DDR2 or DDR3?

DDR2. DDR3 is prohibitively expensive at this point. Too expensive to be worth buying. 2 Gb of DDR2-800 RAM will be perfectly fine (4 Gb would actually be better if you're going to be working with a lot of high-res photos at the same time - and for Flight Simulator X. I use X-Plane and that sucks up 2 Gb all by itself!)

If your PSU is an older model its probably got the old 20-pin connector. New mobos need a 24-pin connector (similar, but with a few more 12V inputs). Also, the new PCI-E cards need a special 12V connector. Modular design isn't neccesary, just more convenient.

480W should be enough to power pretty much anything though if you're not intending to run two graphics cards.

graphics - 8800GT has no competition atm - first choice!

cpu - q6600 is still sweet and goes to at least 3GHz oc'ed. You wont see much advantage in lfs of the four cores, though.

motherboard - anything that allows you a very high fsb, in order to take you c2-something to the max.

power supply - you current should do just fine, power-wise


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I have a c2d e6320 oc'ed to 3,5GHz, 8800gts, three harddrives and two optical. My generic cheap 420w supply does just fine and I have measured actual usage to max. 297w doing 3dmark, encoding movie and encoding rar file at the same time. 8800gt will use less power.

Ok Graphics you can get an ATI 3870 cheap you can get one for around 130£ or the 8800GT they have both pretty much the same performance but the ATI is just a lil bit cheaper

Motherboard, RAM: Well atm DDR3 is just far too expensive so just stick to DDR2 and them sticks are damn cheap now as well a 1Gb stick will cost you around 12£
I'd say for a motherboard you can use an Asus P5k they are quite nice boards and overclock friendly as well

CPU: Well the new E8*** chips are already in sale in Japan and a few other places. So it should not take too long anymore for them to arrive in Europe

Quote from Stang70Fastback :

The sweet spot right now really is the nVidia 8800GT. It's not the cheapest card on the market, but it's reasonably priced and DOES have DX10 support AND is future proof for the next few years. All in one, and not going to completely break the bank.

Cheers for that. It's certainly a little more than I was planning on spending, but now that I've done a little more research I see people recommending it everywhere - and many brands & variants appear to be rather sought after in the UK.

So, follow-up questions - how noisy are 8800GT cards? I'm aiming to keep the noise down and don't want a gfx card that sounds like a turbine (like my current GeForceFX 5900 did until I ripped off the standard cooler and fitted a Zalman unit). Or are there any 8800GT cards that come pre-equipped with a quieter/larger cooler to reduce the noise? This card looks tempting but not until I can get an idea of how noisy they are (looks like it's a fairly standard reference design?).

Quote from Stang70Fastback :

DDR2. DDR3 is prohibitively expensive at this point. Too expensive to be worth buying. 2 Gb of DDR2-800 RAM will be perfectly fine (4 Gb would actually be better if you're going to be working with a lot of high-res photos at the same time - and for Flight Simulator X. I use X-Plane and that sucks up 2 Gb all by itself!)

Cheers. However I've been an AMD guy for the past four or five years and I'm not quite sure of what speeds go with what on the Intel platform. If I get an E8400 Core2Duo (Wolfdale 45nm), it has an FSB of 1333Mhz. But I can't get DDR2 RAM that runs at 1333Mhz - PC6400 is 800Mhz and PC8500 is 1066Mhz. And do I need to choose a mobo that runs at 1333FSB to take advantage of the Wolfdale's FSB?

Quote from Crashgate3 :

If your PSU is an older model its probably got the old 20-pin connector. New mobos need a 24-pin connector (similar, but with a few more 12V inputs). Also, the new PCI-E cards need a special 12V connector.

I think mine has a 24 pin main connector (4 of the pins in a detachable block for use on older mobos), with a single separate 4 pin 12V connector.

What are the special connectors that current gfx cards use then? When I got my GeForce 5900, gfx cards were needing a standard 4-pin molex connector. My PSU has (I think) a 6-pin gfx card connector. But I remember seeing some cards that took an even larger 8-pin connector.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

480W should be enough to power pretty much anything though if you're not intending to run two graphics cards.

It's not about the wattage though, it's about the amps on each rail. I checked the side of my Tagan and it says 28A on the 12V rail. According to the BFG website, this is borderline for an 8800GT with a current typical Intel setup. Fortunately the new 45nm Core2Duos are presumably more efficient and draw less power.

Quote from MZWiZard :

cpu - q6600 is still sweet

I think you missed the bit where I said I was shopping with a budget. Dual cores are cheaper than quad cores.

Quote from MZWiZard :

motherboard - anything that allows you a very high fsb, in order to take you c2-something to the max.

I think you missed the bit where I said I wasn't going to overclock the hell out of it.

Quote from MZWiZard :

I have a c2d e6320 oc'ed to 3,5GHz, 8800gts, three harddrives and two optical. My generic cheap 420w supply does just fine and I have measured actual usage to max. 297w doing 3dmark, encoding movie and encoding rar file at the same time. 8800gt will use less power.

Well that's good to know, as I'll also be running three hard drives, two optical and a non-overclocked Wolfdale and 8800GT. Cheers.

Quote from Ziil :

I'd say for a motherboard you can use an Asus P5k they are quite nice boards and overclock friendly as well

CPU: Well the new E8*** chips are already in sale in Japan and a few other places. So it should not take too long anymore for them to arrive in Europe

Yes, I'm quite interested in the Asus P5K Pro (all the features I want with none of the OTT stuff I don't want), but can't find anywhere in the UK that stocks it yet - except for the (alleged) cowboys at OcUK and they're not getting a penny of mine.

E8400s just arrived in stock the past day or two at Scan.

Quote from STROBE :

How noisy are 8800GT cards? I'm aiming to keep the noise down and don't want a gfx card that sounds like a turbine (like my current GeForceFX 5900 did until I ripped off the standard cooler and fitted a Zalman unit). Or are there any 8800GT cards that come pre-equipped with a quieter/larger cooler to reduce the noise? This card looks tempting but not until I can get an idea of how noisy they are (looks like it's a fairly standard reference design?).

I could not give you a first hand opinion of how noisy they are. My friend just got one of the new 8800GTS cards and he says it's not that loud (though we're in a my-computer-is-better-than-yours war so he's probably just saying that so that I can't use it against him later.)
From what I've heard, the card can get very loud at full speed, however, I've also heard from those same people that the fan never needs to go higher than 50-60% unless you force it (and by force I mean manually set the fan speed at 100%) and that at that 60% speed it's not terribly loud at all. Not enough to merit complaint.

Quote from STROBE :

I've been an AMD guy for the past four or five years and I'm not quite sure of what speeds go with what on the Intel platform. If I get an E8400 Core2Duo (Wolfdale 45nm), it has an FSB of 1333Mhz. But I can't get DDR2 RAM that runs at 1333Mhz - PC6400 is 800Mhz and PC8500 is 1066Mhz. And do I need to choose a mobo that runs at 1333FSB to take advantage of the Wolfdale's FSB?

Well, if you were going to invest that much into RAM, and go for something rated at 1333Mhz, you may as well invest in DDR3 RAM. However, as stated before, DDR3 is terribly expensive and IMO it's not worth the price at the moment. You could just get some DDR2-800 RAM with fast timings at this point at then get DDR3 later for a little boost in performance when the price comes down. However, if you've got a couple extra hundred $$$ to burn, by all means, go for it!

Quote from STROBE :

What are the special connectors that current gfx cards use then? When I got my GeForce 5900, gfx cards were needing a standard 4-pin molex connector. My PSU has (I think) a 6-pin gfx card connector. But I remember seeing some cards that took an even larger 8-pin connector.

6-pin power connectors are what are used, so you'd be fine.

Quote from STROBE :

It's not about the wattage though, it's about the amps on each rail. I checked the side of my Tagan and it says 28A on the 12V rail. According to the BFG website, this is borderline for an 8800GT with a current typical Intel setup. Fortunately the new 45nm Core2Duos are presumably more efficient and draw less power.

I think, with a new system like this, it would be prudent to get a new, slightly more powerful, power supply. I would try to get something of at least 500 Watts, as you state below that you will be running 3 hard drives and a bunch of other components. The Corsair 520W has done wonders for me, but it's whatever you want. But I would just play it safe and get something newer. You don't want all your new components fried because you didn't upgrade the PSU. I know Crashgate-3 stated that his 420Watt PSU works just fine, but - and this is just my opinion - I would be a bit uncomfortable running that kind of setup on that kind of power supply.