Upgrade time

stefan9

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Hi guys.

I am thinking of upgrade my mobo and cpu at the end of the month. but firstly I need some advice here.

The first issue is ram. Now seeing as I need 4 gigs of ram that means ddr 3 is too expensive at the moment. The question is will ddr3 prices drop to reasonable levels so that its worth waiting till October/November before doing my upgrade??

On the cpu I have decided on the e8400 unless someone wants to recommend something else.

Motherboard I need help with. My last two systems have all been nvidia chipset mobo's but I am thinking of changing this. The reason is too fold I have never used sli on either and the problem with both has been the north bridge gets very hot. They haven't been unstable but the heat I would presume limits overclocking capacity.

When it comes to brands I would prefer to stick with asus mainly due to the fact that the ez bios flash utility works so well. But if anybody has another recommendation I will listen.

I am looking to spend a max of R5000 for both cpu and motherboard.
 
Hi guys.

I am thinking of upgrade my mobo and cpu at the end of the month. but firstly I need some advice here.

The first issue is ram. Now seeing as I need 4 gigs of ram that means ddr 3 is too expensive at the moment. The question is will ddr3 prices drop to reasonable levels so that its worth waiting till October/November before doing my upgrade??

On the cpu I have decided on the e8400 unless someone wants to recommend something else.

Motherboard I need help with. My last two systems have all been nvidia chipset mobo's but I am thinking of changing this. The reason is too fold I have never used sli on either and the problem with both has been the north bridge gets very hot. They haven't been unstable but the heat I would presume limits overclocking capacity.

When it comes to brands I would prefer to stick with asus mainly due to the fact that the ez bios flash utility works so well. But if anybody has another recommendation I will listen.

I am looking to spend a max of R5000 for both cpu and motherboard.


I just bought the Asus P5N-D and I would recommend this mobo to anyone. This coupled with a Quad core or even a core 2 duo and you will be cooking! ;)
 
ddr3 pricing has already come down but not enough to want to buy it

i would recommend you check the price difference between the e8400 and q6600, on my suppliers list not much difference

stefan give us some pricing to work with man, in regards to your mobo etc
 
If I stick with ddr2 it means I have the ram.

The e8400 should cost about R2100 so that would leave me with about R3000 as a max to spend on the mobo.
 
If I stick with ddr2 it means I have the ram.

The e8400 should cost about R2100 so that would leave me with about R3000 as a max to spend on the mobo.

Keep your ram.
 
Why not look at a p45 based mobo?
Pretty good.

Look at Gigabyte, ASUS and MSI. These guys know motherboards.

XFX aswell, but they pretty expensive...
 
Why not look at a p45 based mobo?
Pretty good.

Look at Gigabyte, ASUS and MSI. These guys know motherboards.

XFX aswell, but they pretty expensive...

Yeah XFX FTW, I love them, but as you mentioned their Mobo's are way expensive....Thier GFX cards on the other hand are the business ;)

Personally I would stick with Asus, you cant go wrong with their mobo's.
 
i would rather spend the extra 200 bucks on this

http://www.digitaladdiction.co.za/index.php?cPath=1_2_3&&page=2

check out the asus p5q!!!!!!!!!!! ordered one today and for theprice its an amazing board

dont get the deluxe version

vista runs way faster on a quadcore, for 200 bucks i would go for a quadcore because its only a slight difference and quadcore is future proof so i keep hearing :), plus vista loves quaddies :)
 

I had a look at that mobo but the audio is inferior to my current mobo so I would prefer to get a board with good on board sound.

Looked round a bit on the asus site.

narrowed it down a bit to these boards but some I can't find pricing for in SA.

Maximus formula 2:

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=2166&l1=3&l2=117&l3=0&l4=0


P5E deluxe:

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=640&l4=0&model=2219&modelmenu=2

P5E

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=572&l4=0&model=1873&modelmenu=2


I really like the maximus but it might stretch the budget a bit. All of them have the supreme fx sound card.
 
I really like the maximus but it might stretch the budget a bit. All of them have the supreme fx sound card.

My Striker Extreme also has a SupremeFX sound riser, it offered inferior sound to my Creative SBLive! el cheapo sound card :eek:
 
I'd go for a DFI motherboard. (It's what 90% of the guys at Systemshock would recommend as well)

FAR superior to ASUS and all else when it comes to overclocking capabilities. Has millions of OC functions and settings. You can only get them from landmarkpc though.
 
I'd keep away from DFi for now If I were you.
Here's what you want
Biostar T-Power i45 DDR2 motherboard, cheap and fast, actually the fastest period :D
Run 534x 7.5 with yout RAM at 4-4-4-12. Gives you real bangin' rig with massive performance.
Or if you get a good stepping and give 1.4V (safe for 24/7 on air still) you can get 531x8 for 4.25GHz :)
Really fast setup :)

Either way Biostar board is the way to go.
 
your sayingt hat biostar can do a 534 FSB

what site did they do the review shock?

534 x 9 for my q6600 would be awesome
 
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