PC Upgrade, advice and review needed.

[fangs2000]

Hey all,

After about 6 months of planning and research I have decided to go ahead and order parts to overhaul my comp. I will probably order the parts some point in the next 2 weeks, hopefully less.

Budget is around £550 although I am flexible with that. I would put more money into the parts if I see I will get a big improvement. I will not go over £650 no matter what though. I do not intend to do any heavy overclocking, although hearing about how easy it is to get an extra 500mhz out of the E6300, I may just do that.

I am upgrading for gaming purposes. I would like to play all modern games with good graphic settings, and have this PC last for a good few years before games struggle to run.

Also, if your going to link to an alternative product, be aware I do live in the UK, and New Egg is not an option.

Gigabyte DS3 -£99.21

Core 2 Duo E6300 - £115.48

Hiper 530W Type R PSU - £ 54.10

GeIL 2gb PC5300 memory - £152.74

OCUK 7900GS - £117.49

Total - £539.02 Minus Delivery

Three parts I am wondering about upgrading further:

Memory - I can get the PC 6400 Version of that Ram for an extra £20. Is there any huge difference?

Graphics Card - That is the cheapest 7900 I can get. However I have noticed the EVGA version has a Step-up program for an extra £23. If I went for that, I may upgrade to a DX 10 card, as long as I don't have to spend an extra 100 quid. Any chance the DX10 cards will be around £240 within 90 days? There is also the Sapphire X1950 Pro for £135.11, is there a significant increase of the 1950 over the 7900?

Power Supply - Extra £10 gets the 580W version. Would that be worth doing? Keeping in mind I may end up adding another Hard drive at some point and If I go for the EVGA Graphics card, might step up to a DX10 card.

I am feeling a bit reluctant of spending that much money, so if anyone has any tips to cut costs, or parts I can downgrade without losing too much performance, then I am all ears.

I am really giving the EVGA graphics card a good think, just to upgrade to a DX10 card, but if they are still going to be in the £300+ region in 3 months, then there is no point.

Thanks for any input you can give me.

 

[fangs2000]

no input?

 

[maroon1]

Your build is good and you should play latest games on high setting

And for the video card 7900GS is very good, and you will not see a big difference between it and X1950pro.

X1950pro perform little better than 7900GS, and little worser than 7900GT

So, it is between 7900GS and 7900GT

 

[baronvongogo]

I have the EVGA card I bought it from OCUK, but I doubt the DX10 cards will hit £250-£300. It is believed that Nvidia are bringing out some more mid ranged cards around february so so you could get an EVGA and hope and pray its released in your 90 day step up .

As for everything else it looks good I have that mobo works fine its surprisingly small,and lack of on board LEDs to indicate power but apart from that it works fine.

 

[fangs2000]

ok, after reading the Post on PSUs, I have decided to stick with the 530W varient for relaiblity and because it is Modula.

Also, Ebuyer have dropped the price of the DS3 by around £13 which I am happy about. May order in the next week in case they raise the price again.

As for Overclockers.co.uk I will wait until one of the parts goes on an offer and order.

I am probably going to go for the EVGA version of the 7900.

Any more input would be greatly appricated.