Persil Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 Some Nforce 2 boards do have onboard graphics but tbh there pants (mx420/440) and if it breaks then you have the mobo to change etc.. I try and avoid all in 1 solutions (although shuttles are good ) just due to the fact if summit fails its pop it out and replace it...rather than replace whole mobo or whatever. And yes Kal the fan on the Heatsink can be abit loud on full but comes with a variable pot and fron and back mounted plates so hopefully due to the better heatsink he can run it at mid speed or on its lowest setting as i do .. I think for the money there a great product . Also when fitting them its well worth rotating the fan to point out the rear of the case ... removed another 3-4 degrees in case temps which in return lowers cpu temps .. Im sure Major Stare will be along soon to instill the advantages of good case cooling Persil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilwillis Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 A question for those of you familiar with the sort of processing power you get for your buck these days..... My machine is 4 years old now, and as I do play some power hungry games on it, I could do with dragging it into the 21st century. Without going too overboard, what sort of processor would you recommend to power an all round PC. Looking at current games, 2.5 Ghz looks the norm at present, so what, in an AMD processor would you suggest? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Persil Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 Hi Neil Xp2500 is great value and performs very well compared to the p4 . Really depends on how deep yer pockets are . The AMD64 are trully great chips (even on a 32 bit OS) and great for gaming . But if you on a budget then a xp2500 Barton some decent dual channel memory and a Radeon 9800 pro makes a good cheap gaming rig What spec do you have atm? Regards Persil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnyBoy Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 i'd have to say that my buddies amd 64 3200 doesnt seem that much quicker that my xp2500. an xp2500 on an nforce2 ultra 400 with some dual channel 400 ram (thats 2 matched sticks) will be fine for a few years yet. Spend more and get a sata, ddr2, xp64, pci express system... but then are you really goning to notice teh difference...except when your credit card statement arrives !!?? Actually.. sata hdd's are a worthwhile consideration.. supposedly faster than ultra ata hdd's and less cables to worry about so better airflow in the case. same price too ish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karlgurney Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 I have the XP2800 and i couldn't really notice much difference between it and the XP2500, i agree an excellent cpu for the price. Persil, I agree with the principle of the aero 7 fans, that the airflow is directed to the center of the heatsink unlike normal fans. But i don't really fancy having a big chunky fan like that hanging off the mother board It doesn't seem right to me, it would be fine in a none tower case IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Persil Posted July 16, 2004 Share Posted July 16, 2004 Yes i agree Karl that its bigger than the norm but the fan is actually quite light (550g for fan and heatsink) it also has 3 tab rentention bracket (both sides) so is pretty secure. Compared to some of the more heavyweight beasts from coolermaster and thermalight which require you to mount them through the motherboard for support . You are looking at 800+ g for one of these and more for some others ..Also its price is amazing given the performance .. Atm mine is set at its lowest setting (totally silent) and idle temps are 36 with load temps of 43 ish .. The standard fan/heatsink would never get temps like that ..(more like 45-50 idle 55+ load ) . Given the temps that modern graphics cards/hard drives etc give out now people really need to consider better quality cases/coolers and fitting proper case cooling It does not add much to the initial build and can be taken from 1 upgrade to another so its money well spent. Persil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Posted July 17, 2004 Author Share Posted July 17, 2004 Sorry guys, but please educate an ignoramus a little more. How do I fit case fans and where do I pick up the power supply for them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilwillis Posted July 17, 2004 Share Posted July 17, 2004 My current setup is an AMD Athlon 650, and yes, I do have a limited budget. What I was thinking though was getting an upgrade now that would last for another couple of years before I have to do it again. I like driving games and flight sims, both of which are graphics hungry. A new tower sounds like a must it seems, is there anything I need to look for in the way of PSU outputs etc to drive all these extra fans? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Persil Posted July 17, 2004 Share Posted July 17, 2004 Stuart most fans come with double molex connection (male/female) so you just plug them into a spare molex (A molex is the power plug that feeds your cd-roms/hard drives) Some fans come with the small white 3 pin fitting which fit onto the mother board but i find alot of fans put to much load on the headers and blow them so best get molex type ones. There should be at lease 1 80mm fan slot in the front and rear of the case.. The better the case the more slots you tend to have . The case Major stare just bought has a 92 mm at front and a 120mm at rear which is perfect for the job but 2 x 80mm is fine. Neil you may be able to use your old case if it takes a normal size psu and has room to fit fans (if it does not already have some) if not then its a new case im afraid. Spec wise i would go for what i listed above for Stuart but with the radeon 9800 pro graphics card.. With Ati just having realeased there latest cards the 9800 pro has dropped from over £300 to £150 ish . The spec i recently changed to my self was Xp2500 DFI Ultra Infininty Nforce 2 Mobo Radeon 9800 Pro 1 gig dddr400 (2 sticks of 512mb in dual channel mode) and 2 Maxtor SATA 160mb hard drives Runs very well and plays 90% of games at max ress and quality . And was not overly expensive . Chip £45 Mobo £55 ram £120 Graphics £150 Hard drives £120 the pair Get a semi decent case and a couple of fans and a decent cpu cooler and jobs a good un Yell if you want more details Regards Persil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilwillis Posted July 17, 2004 Share Posted July 17, 2004 Sounds just the job. Where did you source the bits, ebuyer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enterpryse Posted July 17, 2004 Share Posted July 17, 2004 Well just to upset the applecart my main machine is an AMD chip runnng at 900MHz with 512MB Ram and a Radeo 64MB card and I can 'hand on heart' say that the difference between that and my 3Ghz laptop is very small Needless to say I am disappointed with the laptop. Upshot is I can't see the point in upgrading until the perceptual speed is 2 or 3 x quicker than the PC I am currently using. Luckily I do a lot of IT/Networking work 'on the side' and get to use a lot of machines to make judgements. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilwillis Posted July 17, 2004 Share Posted July 17, 2004 Yes, my machine is a mere Athlon 650, and it is starting to creak a bit. I haven't really been worried about it until now, just settling for memory expansions etc to keep it going as long as possible, but I think the architecture has changed on mother boards too, so I reckon it'll be a visible improvement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Persil Posted July 17, 2004 Share Posted July 17, 2004 Most came from www.overclockers.co.uk And Enterpryse im sorry i have to disagree I work with everything from PII233 upto 4x Zeon machines and everything inbetween but laptops are not comparible with desktops. I have a 2.4 P4 Compaq Laptop with 1 gig of ram etc etc...and tbh i loath it ...its soooooooooooooo slow .. Basic mobo slow ram dreadfull 4200 rpm hard drives ..You just cant compare the 2 even for those that are classed as desktop replacements. A well setup machine with the right parts can really be a joy to use ... But fit the wrong graphics card or the old hard drive from yer last machine and watch yer £400 of new parts be dragged back to its performance. Tbh there is nothing in an old machine that can now be realistically be brought forward into a new machine (maybe a network card/tv card etc) And its false economy to skimp £60 just because you have a 40 gig hard drive from yer old machine when for that £60 you can get a 7200 rpm 160gb sata 150 drive . Persil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enterpryse Posted July 17, 2004 Share Posted July 17, 2004 Yep, agreed. What I was tryng to do was make people think first before lashing out lotsa squids on a 3gig machine that could be perceptually slower than say my 900Meg box. Not particularly comparing the laptop to a desktop. Conversly a good graphics card, HDD and lotsa decent RAM can transform an aging board very cheaply Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilwillis Posted July 17, 2004 Share Posted July 17, 2004 good graphics card and cheap are not normally seen in the same sentence Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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