£450 to spend on gaming

[jondy]

After a couple gigs over the weekend, I've managed to scrape together 400 to spend on some new hardware - I've been sharing a computer for gaming for a shitload time and the time has come to get me a new setup.

I've a hardrive, monitor, PSU, mouse and keyboard that I can use, and a recording studio for sound along with my m-audio card. So I need to spend 450pound, give or take fifty or so, on a new mobo, a gig of RAM to go with it, a new processor and a new graphics card.

I spend so much time trying to keep up with music hardware I'm well out of my league on new tech. on anything outside of graphics cards, so any help would be appreciated.

Cheers, jond

 

[NeptuneUK]

ebay would be a good place to snap up some bargains! thats what i did when i upgraded!

so what ya might want:
DDR2
PCI-express graphics slot
make sure power supply and case is adequate for the mobo!
get suitable cooling for your cpu, or if you want to overclock get a really nice cooler for it and you can get amazing performance!
not sure about monitor
not sure about hard drive, if its 7200rpm and its big enough it shouldnt mattter
graphics depends on personal prefference (isnt everything?) get the best model you can with the money left over from your preffered manufacturer
if you dont have enough money right away for something remember you can always get something cheaper to last til you can get some more money! for example i ordered an ATI X700 pro til i can get a geforce 6800GT

but most of all: ignore me im a fool!

 

[jondy]

ebay would be a good place to snap up some bargains! thats what i did when i upgraded!

so what ya might want:
DDR2
PCI-express graphics slot
make sure power supply and case is adequate for the mobo!
get suitable cooling for your cpu, or if you want to overclock get a really nice cooler for it and you can get amazing performance!
not sure about monitor
not sure about hard drive, if its 7200rpm and its big enough it shouldnt mattter
graphics depends on personal prefference (isnt everything?) get the best model you can with the money left over from your preffered manufacturer
if you dont have enough money right away for something remember you can always get something cheaper to last til you can get some more money! for example i ordered an ATI X700 pro til i can get a geforce 6800GT

but most of all: ignore me im a fool!

Everything's adequate apart from the four I've mentioned

I was thinking about snapping up a 3000+ venice core- they overclock nicely and don't run too hot neither, which is neat. I was also considering the X800 GT as a budget card.

Really no clue as to motherboards or RAM, though, so any clue as to those would be appreciated.

 

[holydeadpenguins]

What i'm wondering is, what do you have now.

 

[jondy]

What i'm wondering is, what do you have now.

1.8ghz P4
Radeon 9600
512MB DDR266
Gigabyte K8 Mobo
120gigs 7200rpm storage
All the essentials, CD/DVD keyboard mouse monitor audio

Seems to me the most sensible thing to do would be to gut the cpu/gpu/mobo.

 

[NeptuneUK]

right just find a motherboard that meets your desired specifications and work around it
remember, the mobo IS the pc!
smells like another motherboard hunt!

 

[JellyWorld]

Everything's adequate apart from the four I've mentioned

I was thinking about snapping up a 3000+ venice core- they overclock nicely and don't run too hot neither, which is neat. I was also considering the X800 GT as a budget card.

Really no clue as to motherboards or RAM, though, so any clue as to those would be appreciated.

Isn't the X800GT a mid-range card?