Can't work out the exchange rate. Its telling me 1000 Lei is 0.02GBP which is obviously wrong.


Anyway, you need to check your power supply for us - just post up all the relevant info off the label on the side of it if possible. If there's nothing on it we'll have to change it as a precaution.

I'd advise ebay for your cpu - look for an E6420, E6600 or Q6600. Guesstimate £50-£80.

Buy yourself a half decent tower style cpu cooler - spend around £15-£20 for peace of mind.

For your psu - stay with a known brand. Antec, Gigabyte, OCZ and Corsair all have good quality 450 to 600w power supplies for between £35 and £50.

You also need a memory upgrade - 2 x 2gb PC6400 or PC8500 would be advisable. Timings won't really matter, just get the cheapest branded(Geil, G.Skill, Kingston, Crucial, Corsair, OCZ) memory you can find. Guess around £80-£100.

That just leaves you your graphics card - spend the rest of your budget on it and get as good a card as you can. In order of performance slowest to fastest....

GTS240 < GTS250 < 4870 1gb < 5770 1gb < 4890 1GB < GTX260 896mb < GTX275 896mb < 5850 1GB < GTX285 1gb < 5890 1gb.

See what you can find.... I suspect your hardeest component to find will be a good cheap power supply. Post back with updates .

I want to keep my hdd (250 gb), my psu (450) and my 2 rams (512 each). I'll just buy two more.

Bad mistake.

Your psu is not enough and you shouldnt run ram chips of mixed density or manufacturers. You're asking for trouble. That is unless you plan to get another 2 x 512mb, in which case why bother as 2gb isnt enough these days anyway! I remember when 32k of ram was huge :p. No problem keeping the HDD though...

Best thing to do is to take the advice offered or you're asking for trouble .

Thanks. I still need your opinion on the Athlon II x3 435 tho'

intel is a way safer bet m8, also, pilsy is god, heed his words to the letter and you just cant go wrong

New GPU and CPU ideas:

ATI Radeon HD 5770: 150 euros

Intel Core i5-750: 160 euros

I wouldnt nessecerily rule out amd cpus, they aint all bad and are cheap enough too.
That said i dont know that Lei existed nevermind what the rates are

4890 is faster than 5770 but doesnt have DirectX 11 support. 4870 and 5770 are roughly equal in performance but again 4870 lacks DirectX 11 support (but can be found super cheap in the UK now - don't know about local to you though?).

i5-750 is a great choice, damn good price too compared to the UK.

remember an i5 setup needs a whole new build exc hdd's and opticals

I chose the 5770 because of the directx 11 support.

EDIT:

Cheaper solution for the CPU: Intel Core2 Quad Q8400 2.66 GHz;

MotherBoard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR