Best upgrade options!

Right it s time for an upgrade. Now the main reason for this is to play
flight Sim X current config is (old):

AMD 2500+ Athlon Barton O/C 3200+
radeon 9700pro
Abit AN7 mb
1.5GB ram (generic)

Right as you can see quite old. Now My budget is :

CPU upto £100
MB upto £120
Graphics Card £200
Memory £150 (if poss 2GB)
And i think i will be watercooling.

Obviously i will be going for AMD but my preference on the other components
will not matter so much. (good quality though). I also would like to have a
go at overclocking the mb and cpu so i would like the best CPU for doing
this.

Ok thanks in advance.

The VerticalSTAB wrote:

> Right it s time for an upgrade. Now the main reason for this is to play
> flight Sim X current config is (old):
>
> AMD 2500+ Athlon Barton O/C 3200+
> radeon 9700pro
> Abit AN7 mb
> 1.5GB ram (generic)
>
> Right as you can see quite old. Now My budget is :
>
> CPU upto £100
> MB upto £120
> Graphics Card £200
> Memory £150 (if poss 2GB)
> And i think i will be watercooling.
>
> Obviously i will be going for AMD but my preference on the other components
> will not matter so much. (good quality though). I also would like to have a
> go at overclocking the mb and cpu so i would like the best CPU for doing
> this.
>
> Ok thanks in advance.


Hi Rudder,

A few suggestions based on personal experience I have almost the exact
system you currently have with some minor differences. My O/C'ed Barton
ran over 50C under load. Ath 64s will run considerably cooler than a
Barton under load.

CPU = Opteron 175. A little over budget, but you can make up for it
elsewhere. Great overclocker.

MB = Asus A8N VM CSM. Very stable, 4 mem slots, 4 SATA II, 2 x IDE
channels, plenty of USB. Built in video as a fallback can easily be
disabled in favor of a better video card (plug in video card and onboard
is auto-disabled). Reasonable overclocker. Should be able to get an
Opty 175 to 2.6ghz without any problem (that's what I used to run).

Graphics = nVidia 7600GT or 7800GS. Great cards for the $$ and offsets
the cost of the CPU.

Memory = Corsair Value RAM CAS2.5. 2 gig comes in just about at budget.
Depending on the speed of your existing memory, it might be usable in
the new system. YMMV. BUT if you've got that Barton 2500 running as a
3200, you probably are using DDR400 / PC3200 memory. That'll work OK
with this MB / Proc combination.

No need for water. Air works fine. I'm running an A64 4200X2 (dummied
down Toledo core) o/c'ed to 2.5ghz on air in a system very similar to
above w/ temps in the low 20's C idle, 49C is the highest I've seen
under extended full load. YMMV depending on the ventilation in the case.