where 2 now

[richarded]

hey guys

im wandering if u have any suggestions on possible upgrades to my system im running

.intel e5500(not overclocked)
.forsa nvidia gts250
.2 gbs ddr2 ram
.biostar g31 m7 te motherboard

i was originally thinking of upgrading the motherboard to a Asus M4A88T-V EVO and making the move over to a AMD Athlon II X3 445 and obviously about 4-6 gb of ddr3 ram.any suggestions would be appreciated thanks

[Ron2K]

As always (and people always forget to mention this) - it's highly dependent on what budget you have to play around with.

Welcome to the forum!

[StarBound]

Let me 1 up Jamin.
Geforce 590GTX ...SLI
Z68 board
Intel i7 2600k
16GB 2133mhz ddr3

Should set you back an arm, a leg and R25000.

But a decent system:
i5 2400
4gb ddr3 1600
P67
Geforce 560GTX should set you back R5500 or so.

Remember the Rand/Dollar saw its behind so you can add 30% to prices.

[richarded]

o ya of course sorry im looking at about R1750 - R2000 on a graphics card and R2000 on a motherboard processor combination
would running sli on my gts250 on a new mobo workout any better? thanks

[StarBound]

From experience I prefer a single card. Sadly your budget doesn't allow for a proper gaming system. The cheapest P67 board is R1400, an i3 sets you back R1k, an i5 2400 sets you back R1700, ram of 4gb ddr3 is R400 and then your stuck between choosing a 560gtx for R1700 or a radeon 5770 for R1200. All prices are based on rebeltechs pricing (www.rebeltech.co.za) . What are you current system specs?

[richarded]

ive laid down some of my system specs in the original question. my budget doesn't open many doors but that's why i was wandering about perhaps moving over to a amd processor and appropriate motherboard(they do seam to b abit cheaper any opinions of weather this is a good move or not) .im not looking for the most hardcore upgrades just having some fun at the odd lan.sorry if any of these questions seam abit stupid

[THE_STIG]

Well you will be able to get an AMD athlon 2 x4 640, Asus M5A78L-M LX and 4gb DDR3 for just under R2000. That should do what you want it to do but the wise choice would be to spend a little more on an Intel i5 setup.

[D3PART3D]

Nothing stupid about your questions, but a seam is what you find in clothing. "Seem" is the word you're looking for here I'd say go for a cheap Intel build so you can upgrade easily later on. You can get 4gb of RAM for R250, an i3 2100 for around R1100, I'm sure you could get a decent mobo for R800 and the 560GTX StarBound mentioned isn't bad at all. What PSU do you have? That should be able to run everything coming out in the foreseeable future.

proper gaming system

What's that?

[Slimshaedy]

I'm afriad R2000 doesn't leave you with a big choice of mobo/cpu combo but you could get a good gpu with R2000. AMD is generally cheaper than Intel, so I'd go for an AMD cpu. AMD gpus tend to perform better with the AMD cpu, so I'd suggest getting something like a Radeon 5850

[Bladerunner]

Don't buy Athlon, buy Phenom. Prophecy charges < 1100 for an AMD Phenom II X4 @ 3.2GHz now. And you should be able to get a budget ASUS motherboard for R900.

I'm not sure what AMD/ATI GFX you could get for R2000, maybe a mid range 6 series?

[xDODGERx]

Rather go Intel than AMD. If you go with an i3 you could upgrade to an i5 at a later stage if you wish. I read that the Athlon X4s bottleneck mid to top range graphics cards, so that would become a problem in upgrading your system in the future. I went with an i3-2100 (R1150) and an Asus P8H67-M LE (R1050) in my budget build.

[THE_STIG]

Well in the October edition of PCF they put an AMD A8 rig together and it seems to go quite well just make sure you use and AMD/ATI gfx card or you wont get the benefits of using the integrated gfx card in hybrid crossfire mode(you gain up to 33% in performance apparently). They also say this is better then an i3 but I am not sure about that one.

[xDODGERx]

Yeah. I disagreed with that. An i3 build is very upgradeable for i5 or i7 and I have read about many people happy with their i3 cpus for gaming

[THE_STIG]

Yea the i3 is not bad at all, I would just like to see some benchmarks that compare the AMD A8 to the i3