Righto, I think its about time for a computer upgrade with the release of Quake 4 and the impending release of AoE III, I need help. I dont want to spend a lot of money and I need:

x1 40 or 80 GB hard-drive.
x1 mother board
x1 CPU
x1 ram (512mb?)

Is that all i need?
Whats good?
How much will it cost me?
Best bang for buck?

Best bang for buck right now is a 250 gig hard drive.

Check www.pricespy.co.nz for all the cheapest shit.

I would imagine that some of the upcoming games require atleast 1Gb of RAM. If Q4 comes out as a DVD, then you better not make the same mistake I did with MOHPA. The CPU maybe need to be beyond 3GHz and don't forget a graphics card that's compatible with the games.

I'd never need anything that excessive. I only need a new HDD as I have 20gb of music (which is 1/2 of my whole comp) and steam + HL2 mods take up about 10gb

/edit: I already have a rad video card, and sound card. I also have a dvd burner. (ahmed check out Iron Age, good metal band)

If you can be bothered driving to the shore I could sell you my 80gb drive (Seagate 7200 RPM), it would give me an excuse to buy a new one, and you won't suffer from the 'diseconomies of scale' pricing of first hand hard drives. I'll install it for free if you bring your computer around, and it comes with the free 'crapload of games/movies/series' that I have available.

As Adolf says, you'll need at least 1gb of RAM, unless you want to be upgrading again in a few months. More would be better, but you could make do with 1gb for now, just make sure that you have at least one RAM slot left over if you want to put more in later (this may mean buying a 1gb stick of RAM if your mobo only has 2 slots).

Isnt 1 Gb excessive?
How much u want for ur harddrive and how old is it?

No, and if it weren't for the fact my mobo has only two slots for RAM I'd probably buy another 512. You could scrape by on 512, but you'll feel the difference.

Well here they have new 80gb drives for about $80, so we'll say... $40. The drive is about 4 years old, I've never had any problems with it.

If you are interested, I'll give you a list of the stuff I can put on it before you pick it up for you to choose from. Since you'll have two hard drives (I assume you're keeping the old one) you'll be able to back up your important stuff on the other hard drive, I can show you how to do this.

Ive got 1 40gb atm, so ill pm you later. (i have an exam tomorrow)

Oh wait come to think of it my 80gb HD is newer than that, I'm thinking of my old computer. It'd be around 3 years old I think.

sounds rad, done deal. I dont care for movies/tv series. What games do u have?

[moved to GTFO forum out of paranoia]

Righto, this brings me to my next point.

CPU + Motherboard.

Im thinking a AMD 3200+ 64 apparently this is best "bang for buck" value

Well first of all what is your current system? Post as much info as you can...

Also a gig'o'ram isn't at all excessive, especially considering current prices. But we'll come to that in due time

ok current computer:

Athlon XP 1700+
384mb ram (SD)
Geforce 4 Ti4200 (128mb ram)
40G HDD (sorted out that)
MSI motherboard
Creative Soundblaster card
DVD Writer

What's the fastest commerical PC processor in the current market?

It's called mass parallel processing.

Consumer wise its probably one of the Athlon64 X2 processors though.

yes yes, very nice. But what processor should I get?

Oob? Mrt? anyone!

Ehh, I'm not too hot on processors, I'll let someone else field this question. I would recommend AMD above Intel though, probably better value.

Yeah thats what I thought. Come on theres got to be someone! I cant even find any decent hardware sites to read up on some stuff.

Depends on how much you want to spend I guess. I would reccomend an Athlon64 socket 939 processor, perhaps a 3000+ or a 3200+ (though a 2800+ would probably still do you good) and a socket 939 motherboard to go along with it.

I have a 3000+ with an MSI Neo2-fx, and it seems to be stable and performs well. That set me back um, about $450-500 I think. A gig of RAM would be another $100-200 on top of that, depending on how expensive you go.

That should give you a bit of lasting grunt, and sticking in a newer graphics card a year down the track will keep it up to date for all the flashy new games.

Whats the difference in the 2 difference sockets. Whats a good motherboard? I think ill go 3200+ 64 bit

I'm not quite sure why there are the two 64bit sockets - 754 and 939, but my understanding is that the socket 939 has more upgrade potential in the future, as it will become the new standard socket (as socket A was for the 32bit AMD processors). I could be very, very wrong here though.

I've had no problems with my MSI motherboard - the Neo2-FX. Has onboard LAN and sound (though since you have a seperate sound card you can just disable this).

Other good motherboard manufacturers that come to mind are Asus, Abit, Epox and Gigabyte. I can't remember the models I was looking at before I chose the MSI board right now though :(.

Dont get a Soltek board. They are awful.

If you want to keep your ti4200 you either have to get a socket 754 nforce 3 motherboard and socket 754 CPU, or the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2, which is probably a better idea because it lets you use socket 939 cpus and both old and new video cards.

Also quake 4 is going to suck on a ti4200.

Quality first post.

Agreed! Welcome, allio. This is my first and last post in this thread since I know bugger all about tech. :(

You need to be more specific in your question. Fast is far too broad a catergory. The best CPU for games for example is the Athlon 64 FX57. It costs something like $1.5k

The numbers refer to the number of pins on the CPU. Socket 754 uses a single channel to access RAM while 939 uses dual channels (which is better).

OK some bad news. That graphics card is not kick ass - it's actually 3 generations out of date. You will still be able to play current games with it though, just with less eye-candy.

One option you have is upgrading your existing machine. Without knowing your make of motherboard I can't be sure, but you should be able to get a processor at about 2600+ level in there. Replacing the RAM with a gigabyte should also be possible. This would provide you with a nicely balanced system. (Actually we'd need to know a bit more about your current system, by SD do you mean SDR SDRAM? Or DDR SDRAM? If it's the former upgrading is really the only option.)

If you want to buy new stuff I'd say the 3200+ is a good CPU choice, even though it will be overkill for your current graphics card. Make sure you get the newer Venice core, I can go into reasons for this if you wish. Get the socket 939 version for upgradeability purposes.
As for the motherboard you will need to get one with an AGP plug/socket thing for the graphics card if you intend to use your current one. The other option is PCI express which is what the newer cards are using.
Get a gig of RAM, because this motherboard will be dual channel you will need 2x512MB sticks. Make sure the motherboard has slots for another 2x512MB sticks so you can go to 2gigs in the future.

I could rant for hours but you're probably best off asking me stuff.

As for places to read about stuff, I would suggest googling stuff you don't understand, then reading multiple explanations.

I should pay attention since I have roughly the same compy as steve and am think about upgrading soon. But i'll probably just get a bigger hard drive, and new case and 19" philips flatscreen and pretend my computer is cool.

19" phillips flatscreens are cool!

You can easily get a socket 939 based nforce3 board with an AGP slot, the MSI board I have is a prime example. If you have a a wad of cash to spend, it would make sense to upgrade your graphics card and get a board with PCI Express and a new PCI Express graphics card (A Geforce 6600 or an ATI equivalent would go perfect there), but that will push the cost way up.

The Ti 4200 will still be alright, although some newer games such as Battlefield 2 WILL NOT work at all (pure genius from EA, considering the Geforce4 Ti series are still in widespread use).

Ok, i'd rather stick with x2 512mb DDR (i currently have sd sdram as in single SD = single)

I cannot afford to buy a new graphics card as I have to buy a car in the holidays too and tahts setting me back about $8,000->$9,000.

Is it worth waiting till after xmas and just splashing out on a good graphics card too? I def want socket 939. So I cant run the ti4200 with a Nforce 4 chipset? If I got a new graphics card it would be an ATI, what prices are we looking at people? (p.s thanks Allio, that is a quality first post :P)

edit: the other option is spend less on the car, but thats not an option :P
car > computer.

/edit 2: would http://www.pp.co.nz/ProductsH.php?pp_id=VC00366 be ok? Or can I go cheaper?

I haev a Ti4200, and apart from the stated problem with Battlefield 2, it's an awesome card that cranks very well in my opinion, and will continue to do some for a little bit more time hopefully.

Just to clear one thing up: SDR SDRAM stands for single data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory. Don't you love acronyms?

Seems like you want new stuff. Go with the 3200+ socket 939 combo with 2x512MB RAM - just make sure the motherboard can fit another 2x512 to give you 2 gigs sometime in the (not too distant) future. This is why you want the venice core.

Now you need to decide on the graphics issue (and hence motherboard). I would seriously consider replacing the ti4200 and going pci express. Waiting till after christmas is a good idea because ATI and nvidia are currently bringing out a new range of cards which will shift the market considerably. Don't rule out nvidia, the 6600gt is the best value for money card on the market today. Get that over the x700pro you mentioned.

Nforce4 is pci express only. If you get Nforce3 (AGP) make sure you get the 250 revision.

A good site for prices is pricespy

That ASRock motherboard looks interesting!

Ok, can I get a motherboard that does both kinds of cards, ie one that has a pc express card and one that has an agp. Also whats a good motherboard? Any recommendations?

AGP cards will be around for some time, getting an nforce3-250 chipset is definitely a viable option. You can get AGP flavours of all the latest and greatest video cards still, and a cheaper option could be a slightly older one (such as a Radeon 9800 or Geforce Fx5700/5900) off tradme.

I would think about a graphics card upgrade in the near future, but for now, the Geforce4 will do you fine.

It seems the latest and greatest graphics cards (x1800, 7800) are not coming out in agp, although it is early days yet.

The ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 mentioned earlier looks like a solid agp + pci-e motherboard although there's only one on pricespy.

If you want to keep the ti4200 then I would suggest going with nForce3. There will be decent enough agp cards around for the next few years to keep a 3200+ on its toes. As for the exact model I'd say go with a nice cheap one, the Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3 Ultra (I just pulled that off pricespy) should be fine. Do a thorough search before buying anything though, hopefully you will find a forum dedicated to the motherboard in question which will alert you to any issues.

One other thing to consider - what case are you putting all this in? One issue that is often overlooked is the quality of the PSU (power supply unit). Newer hardware needs more power. MORE POWER!!!

Yea I need to upgrade me PSU at some stage...I think I'm only running 250 on this...I think I'll add some more fans and boost it to about 400.

Yeah make sure you have a decent PSU. From what I've heard, while the ASRock boards are decent, some of their cheapness comes from skimping on the power side of things, and so without a decent PSU they can be unpredicatable.

Duno what the powersupply is, my case is 1 or 2 years old