Right, upgrade time; Budget £500/$900

[ilumos]

Right, I've got £500 to spend, and I need advice as to weather what I've specced so far is a good upgrade in terms of future upgradeability and current bang-for-buck performance. I'm going for an Intel LGA Skt775 setup, but I'll happily change to AMD if you guys think it's a better idea.

These are the bits I'm looking at:

Motherboard: Asus P5AD2-E £119 / $220
CPU: Pentium 4 530 £119 / $220
RAM: Corsair ValueSelect DDR2 1GB Kit £70 / $128
GFX Card: Sapphire X800GT 128MB £93 / $170
Case: Antec P180 £93 / $170

I'll be using my old PSU/hard drives/optical drives so yeah its just those components that I need to decide on. Musts on a motherboard are onboard LAN and onboard 6/7/8 channel audio.
I'll be using the PC to play games and also record multitrack music, so something with high throughput would be good.

Oh and I wouldnt really like to change the case, firstly because it's got great cooling, and secondly because the aesthetics appeal to me greatly.

So yeah, can you please advise as to what I can change on this spec to my advantage?

Thanks in advance, I know this forum has the expertice in it, far exeeding any other that ive been on.

[Don Carlos]

*shuns both Intel and ATi componants*

[Doombrain]

you should check out http://www.overclockers.co.uk

[SOAPboy]

Right, I've got £500 to spend, and I need advice as to weather what I've specced so far is a good upgrade in terms of future upgradeability and current bang-for-buck performance. I'm going for an Intel LGA Skt775 setup, but I'll happily change to AMD if you guys think it's a better idea.

These are the bits I'm looking at:

Motherboard: Asus P5AD2-E £119 / $220
CPU: Pentium 4 530 £119 / $220
RAM: Corsair ValueSelect DDR2 1GB Kit £70 / $128
GFX Card: Sapphire X800GT 128MB £93 / $170
Case: Antec P180 £93 / $170

I'll be using my old PSU/hard drives/optical drives so yeah its just those components that I need to decide on. Musts on a motherboard are onboard LAN and onboard 6/7/8 channel audio.
I'll be using the PC to play games and also record multitrack music, so something with high throughput would be good.

Oh and I wouldnt really like to change the case, firstly because it's got great cooling, and secondly because the aesthetics appeal to me greatly.

So yeah, can you please advise as to what I can change on this spec to my advantage?

Thanks in advance, I know this forum has the expertice in it, far exeeding any other that ive been on.

Record music... As in, from a outside input?

Get a fucking REAL audio card.. I love onboard, huge supporter, but for something like that, dont be a dumbass and get something WORTH using..

[ilumos]

Record music... As in, from a outside input?

Get a fucking REAL audio card.. I love onboard, huge supporter, but for something like that, dont be a dumbass and get something WORTH using..

I have as a matter of fact, but it doesn't support surround sound encoding/decoding, which is why I'd like onboard surround.

[ilumos]

*shuns both Intel and ATi componants*

Ok, can you reccomend which breed of AMD processor is the shit for gaming atm then? 939? 754?

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

[Don Carlos]

*shuns both Intel and ATi componants*

Ok, can you reccomend which breed of AMD processor is the shit for gaming atm then? 939? 754?

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

3500 AMD 939 are amazing for the price
But the M2 is coming out next year and is going to be a standard
for quite a while so its up 2 u really

[ilumos]

OK, cheers. I'm going for an Asus AN8 ultra, Athlon64 3500+, Sapphire X800GT 256MB and I'll use my old RAM.

Cheers for all the help guys!