Official "Upgrade Help" Thread

[Miz3r]

o if u interested theres a review by nag itself about the asus m4a79t deluxe mainboard in the april edition 2009 page 98 and i quote "one of the best ,if not best am3 motherboard currently available". states there also its memory support which is 4x ddr3, 1600mhz . take a lookie

[Miz3r]

dnt know if that gigabyte board is for sale here yet cause im getting it from the UK and they got lotsa stock over there, but havent even seen it here

[Ch@pS]

IMO, AMD can sit pretty for another year chewing on more and more desktop market share. Besides, while an i7 920 may be R3500, and a decent motherboard retails at R3k, you still have to run it with 6GB DDR3-1600 RAM because that's proved to be the i7's sweet spot. And, well, a decent 6GB DDR3 kit costs over R2.5k. If you think about it, I can get a PhenomII X4, 790FX motherboard, 4GB RAM, and an HD4870 for the same amount, and to top it all off, it will manage to keep up with the i7 in games ;-) Drastic and innovative? They've already done it XD

I'm runing with 3GB and its bloody fast as is, beats out older DDR2 4GB systems every time. You can build an i7 for :

i7 920 : R3300
X58 board : R3000
3GB RAM : R900

Which isnt so bad, its best in games(by a small margin admittedly) and completely dominates most other benchies. And with Turbo mode on (default) the 920 runs at just under 3GHZ anyway without ocing, and there is far more potential to be had.

Oh, and you forget, when i5 comes out, AMD need to rethink a ton of things, because being cheaper than i7, with the performance AMD has, the desktop market share will change in favour of Intel once again.

[Zen]

Oh, and you forget, when i5 comes out, AMD need to rethink a ton of things, because being cheaper than i7, with the performance AMD has, the desktop market share will change in favour of Intel once again.

But Intel already owns 80% of the Desktop market, so its still effectively in their favour, by a large margin. :/

[Ch@pS]

Oh right, I wasn't really clear there. True Intel owns 80%, but AMD is gaining market share, the point I was trying to make was, Intel will start regaining Market share when i5 is released, the gain will be in their favour. ;)

[Jacques18]

Okay so I bought the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 and WOW! my pc ran faster with this display card than ever before. It runs great! but I'm using still using XP and well not using it's full potenial. However since Windows 7 is coming out at the end of this year (in that area) will my pc need more juice? Rig below

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 (XFX)
2.8 ghz cpu (intel)
3 gb ram
160gb hdd
mother board is old but it's something along the lines of 690i (xfx) or something (can't remember)

[Ch@pS]

Your system isn't very balanced is it? What 2.8GHZ CPU do you have? Model makes a difference.

Then... Why are you using 3GB's of RAM??? Unless you're using a modern X58 board with a tri channel set, 3GB's of RAM is really retarded. 2GB's in dual channel will give far better performance.

Seems you went all out on the GFX, and now the rest of your PC will probably be lagging behind.

[Binnacle]

Keyboards!
Logitech G11 or CyberSnipa Warboard?
Comments and recommendations please.

[Chevron]

Keyboards!
Logitech G11 or CyberSnipa Warboard?
Comments and recommendations please.

If you're not getting the G15, take the CyberSnipa.

[Kharrak]

OKAY!

I'm looking to upgrade again after two years. Graphics Card wise, I think I'm sorted (looking at the HD 4870 x2). The real problem, is that I'm not sure which motherboard to get. It seems that the Rampage Extreme 2 is the best possible choice if you have the cash, but the processors I need for it (the C i7's) really frighten my wallet.

SO, I'm looking for some advice to a motherboard and processor that's not AS hellishly expensive in combination, but is still potent in what it does.

My current motherboard is an M2NE-SLI, with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+

Thanks in advance for any help :P

[Chevron]

OKAY!

I'm looking to upgrade again after two years. Graphics Card wise, I think I'm sorted (looking at the HD 4870 x2). The real problem, is that I'm not sure which motherboard to get. It seems that the Rampage Extreme 2 is the best possible choice if you have the cash, but the processors I need for it (the C i7's) really frighten my wallet.

SO, I'm looking for some advice to a motherboard and processor that's not AS hellishly expensive in combination, but is still potent in what it does.

My current motherboard is an M2NE-SLI, with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+

Thanks in advance for any help :P

Why don't you post your budget and let us know what you'll be using the pc for?

[Wesley]

OKAY!

I'm looking to upgrade again after two years. Graphics Card wise, I think I'm sorted (looking at the HD 4870 x2). The real problem, is that I'm not sure which motherboard to get. It seems that the Rampage Extreme 2 is the best possible choice if you have the cash, but the processors I need for it (the C i7's) really frighten my wallet.

SO, I'm looking for some advice to a motherboard and processor that's not AS hellishly expensive in combination, but is still potent in what it does.

My current motherboard is an M2NE-SLI, with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+

Thanks in advance for any help :P

Aha, this makes things easier ^_^ So, you're willing to spend a decent amount of money on a good rig. This is what I recommend:

Intel Core i7 920 @ R3620
MSI Intel X58 Pro @ R2336
Corsair XMS3 DDR3-1333MHz 3GB (3 x 1GB) @ R814

Total: R6770

Edit: for a 64-bit capable rig, get this set of DDR3 memory.http://www.take2.co.za/electronics-p...b-4277590.html

[Kharrak]

Aha, this makes things easier ^_^ So, you're willing to spend a decent amount of money on a good rig. This is what I recommend:

Intel Core i7 920 @ R3620
MSI Intel X58 Pro @ R2336
Corsair XMS3 DDR3-1333MHz 3GB (3 x 1GB) @ R814

Total: R6770

Edit: for a 64-bit capable rig, get this set of DDR3 memory.http://www.take2.co.za/electronics-p...b-4277590.html

Thanks!

I'll be looking into these :D

[Wesley]

SO, I'm looking for some advice to a motherboard and processor that's not AS hellishly expensive in combination, but is still potent in what it does.

Those words also reminded me. A potent, but cheap, system:

AMD Phenom II 940 @ R3062
MSI AMD K9A2 CF-F @ R1076
Corsair XMS2 DHX DDR2-800MHz 4GB (2 x 2GB) @ R989

That should stay on par with the i7 920 in games, at the very least ;-) In everything else, the i7 leaves the PhenomII 940 choking on its dust.

[Miz3r]

ok amd phenom 2 x4 810 or amd phenom 2 x4 955 ? i know the 955 is better but ive heard issues with having too flash the bios because on the 955 it only registers like 1.6ghz or something like that so it means changing some settings in the bios which im not too familiar with , but the 810 there are no issues so any help would be great, and no i dnt want too hear abt i7 or i5 i want a phenom :)

[Chevron]

ok amd phenom 2 x4 810 or amd phenom 2 x4 955 ? i know the 955 is better but ive heard issues with having too flash the bios because on the 955 it only registers like 1.6ghz or something like that so it means changing some settings in the bios which im not too familiar with , but the 810 there are no issues so any help would be great, and no i dnt want too hear abt i7 or i5 i want a phenom :)

I haven't heard of any such issues. I'd take the 955.

[Wesley]

ok amd phenom 2 x4 810 or amd phenom 2 x4 955 ? i know the 955 is better but ive heard issues with having too flash the bios because on the 955 it only registers like 1.6ghz or something like that so it means changing some settings in the bios which im not too familiar with , but the 810 there are no issues so any help would be great, and no i dnt want too hear abt i7 or i5 i want a phenom :)

AMD Phenom II X4 810 @ R2381

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition @ R3741

There are very few differences:

• The 955 has a higher clockspeed
• The 955 has a higher total cache
• The 955 has an unlocked multiplier
• The 955 costs more
• The 955 sounds cooler :-P
• The 955 has higher memory bandwidth

[fakey_ak]

Hi fi corp has got a topview 19 inch for R1100. Any good?

[Azraphael]

From personal experience, avoid Hi-Fi Corp. Their prices are great but, and it's a massif but, their after-sales service is appalling. I know people who have waited 5 months for an lcd on a cell phone to be repaired. I myself had to wait 3 months for a new display on a hi-fi that died on me 1 month after I got it

[Wesley]

Hi fi corp has got a topview 19 inch for R1100. Any good?

On principle, I don't deal with Hi-Fi Corp, because they've been inn ineffectual and rather stupid and lazy in all the instances that I've dealt with them :-( Topview is a popular budget LCD maker, but I don't know about their quality or reliability. Google is your best friend here, use it.