PurpleSuperman

Nothing's ever easy, is it? As for the board, it looks ideal. I won't be buying anything until Monday now, but I'll look into the 3 here and see what one is best. I come from a pretty tech-savvy family, so I'll ask around. Motherboards are one of the few things I've delved into, but I know may way around most other parts. Thanks for the help, both of you. I'll be sure to update after I've made a purchase and then once it's up and running. But in the meantime, if you find anything else I'll be sure to check back. Cheers.

If it helps, it's unlikely that I'll be overclocking at all in the foreseeable future. Provided I can get good visuals with steady FPS then I'm happy. It likely won't be overclocked until some time passes by and graphics become even more demanding, so for now that shouldn't be a problem.

I'm more than prepared to spend the extra £40 if it will guarantee better performance and stability. But if the Gigabyte board will definitely do me well, then I'm happy to go with that. If money was less of an issue, would getting a better Gigabyte model be a good idea? Or is that unnecessary?

A budget boost isn't entirely out of the question, so that's fine. If that is the case, would you say stick with the AsRock, or go with something slightly better? As for the RAM, that can always wait, or I can stick with a single 4GB stick for now and get a second later. Is that possible? Of course before I buy anything, I'll shop around, but thanks for the help I'll look into it more tomorrow.

Hey guys. I'm looking to upgrade a couple of parts in my current build, but don't know enough about motherboards to know what's suitable. Right now I'm using a Foxconn G31MX Series, which I know that it doesn't support DDR3 or have a VGA 1155 socket (sorry if I'm not being clear, this is slightly beyond my knowledge of components) which I know I'll need for my desired CPU. Right now I'm running an Intel 2.13 gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo with an AMD Radeon HD 6850 and 2gb of DDR2 RAM. I'm looking to keep that GPU, but install an Intel Sandybridge i5-2500K with 4-8GB of DDR3 RAM. None of this is purchased yet, so other recommendations won't be ignored. My one issue right now is that beyond having the VGA 1155 socket, and DDR3 slots, I'm not sure what else to look for. If I'm being too vague, and more information is required, just ask. As for a budget, I'm looking to spend around £250 in total. That's for the CPU (~£160), RAM and motherboard. Thanks a lot, in advance.

Lol. Half Life and the number 3 never go well together.

HWMonitor worked, thanks. According to this, I'm working at: "SYSTIN - 47°C CPUTIN - 40°C VTIN - 12"°C Graphics card - 51°C" And to be honest, I don't know the ideal system temperature

Huh, thanks for that. I can cut a few things out, such as the speakers, mouse, keyboard and OS (And possibly the monitor) to get it down a slight bit.

Yeah, that didn't work either D: And Minecraft only lags out if I play it in browser. Downloaded it's fine, as long as the server isn't having problems.

Right now I'm playing TF2, CS:S, Garry's Mod and Minecraft. They all run flawlessly on minimum graphical settings, so I'm happy with that. But recently in the Steam Sale I wanted Battlefield: Bad Company 2, but didn't even have the minimum requirements D: And also "This intel processor is not supported" The CoreTemp programme doesn't like me D:

A bigger hard drive is definitely what I need. I have alot of music and pictures also D: So I guess it's clear I should just save and build from scratch. That's initially what I planned, but not being from the wealthiest of families has it's downsides

Ohai =D I've taken a read through the "How To Successfully Build A Computer" thread and taken some notes from there, but I'd like a few mixed opinions on where I should go from my current build to one that can play games in higher quality. To start I guess I should note that I'm in the UK, this PC would be used primarily for gaming. I'm planning on expanding my games library to some more recent games that require better graphics to actually get anywhere. And I'm looking at as low a budget as possible. £200-£300 would be ideal, but I'll go further should I need to. My current specs (as provided by Xfire) are: Manufacturer: Compaq Presario 061 Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU 2.80GHz Memory: 2048MB RAM Hard Drive: 80 GB Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor (17") Sound Card: Realtek AC97 Audio Speakers/Headphones: TEC^Sound CPT - 200SX Subwoofer Keyboard: Logitech USB Root Hub Mouse: Cheetah High Precision Optical Gaming Mouse Mouse Surface: Wooden Desk Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.100216-1514) I honestly can't make much sense out of all of that But I know that it's just enough to allow me to play Team Fortress 2 on minimal settings without any lag or crashing. From the other thread, I read that my first priority is cooling, so should I start off by looking at a power supply/fans and then other hardware, or straight to hardware? I should mention that my room gets pretty warm, anything upto 25 degrees (Celsius) Is there a way of determining the temperature of my PC, just to know what I'm dealing with? If you need to know anything else I guess asking would be the best bet. I've been planning on getting this piece of junk upgraded for a while now, so it's about time I find out what to do >.< Thanks guys =D

It wasn't quite recent, but I finally watched the room. It was.. Yeah, don't watch it.

*wonders what my IRL kill to death ratio would be*