Mobo and CPU, bang for buck

mfb3000 · 29 Jul 2008 at 18:17

Hi,
My PC had it's mobo fried, and since it's getting a bit old now, I was wondering where the best bang for the buck is in terms of motherboards, and where the age old AMD vs Intel debate stands these days. If anyone could recommend some hardware that costs less than 200 quid combined I would be grateful.
Memory also confuses me - is the standard memory that I bought 2 years ago DDR, DDR2, or what, and will a DDR3 board be able to handle whatever it is that I've got?

As you can see it's been a couple of years since I've been up to speed with hardware!

Thanks!

YoungBlood · 29 Jul 2008 at 18:23

What was the board the got fried then we will know if it was DDR/2. If it was DDR it wont be any use to you in a new system but memory is so cheap now it dont really matter.

I would reccomend the Intel E8500, but someone else will have to spec you a board as im way out of date, should easily get a board/cpu and memory for £200 do you need a graphics card at all?

mfb3000 · 29 Jul 2008 at 18:46

The board was an ASUS A8N SLI.

Don't need a graphics card - the one we have is fine for the purposes it serves (no hardcore gaming!)

pastymuncher · 29 Jul 2008 at 19:08

mfb3000 said:
The board was an ASUS A8N SLI.

Don't need a graphics card - the one we have is fine for the purposes it serves (no hardcore gaming!)

Socket 939 with DDR ram. Totally new rig then. Well mobo/cpu and ram anyway.

For a brilliant budget rig which does'nt cost a lot of money at all i can reccommend the following:-

Gigabyte P31 DS3L - £46.99.

Intel Pentium dual core E2180 2.0Ghz - £45.81.

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 - £25.84.

That lot all works together and i have had that combination up to 3.6Ghz prime stable. If you are going to clock it that high though i would suggest getting a half decent cooler.

TheRedZealot · 29 Jul 2008 at 19:49

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-058-GL&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813&name=GeIL%202GB%20(2x1GB)%20PC2-6400C4%20800MHz%20Ultra%20Low%20Latency%20DDR2%20Dual%20Channel%20Kit%20(GX22GB6400UDC)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-192-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=793&name=Intel%20Core%202%20Duo%20E8400%20LGA775%20%27Wolfdale%27%20%203.00GHz%20(1333FSB)%20-%20Retail

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-235-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=913&name=Asus%20P5K%20Intel%20P35%20(Socket%20775)%20PCI-Express%20DDR2%20Motherboard

Should come to just under £200.

mfb3000 · 29 Jul 2008 at 20:43

I'm not going to be overclocking any of this stuff, so is there anywhere where I would be able to skimp to save a few £££?

PhoenixUK · 30 Jul 2008 at 00:01

pastymuncher said:
Socket 939 with DDR ram. Totally new rig then. Well mobo/cpu and ram anyway.

For a brilliant budget rig which does'nt cost a lot of money at all i can reccommend the following:-

Gigabyte P31 DS3L - £46.99.

Intel Pentium dual core E2180 2.0Ghz - £45.81.

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 - £25.84.

That lot all works together and i have had that combination up to 3.6Ghz prime stable. If you are going to clock it that high though i would suggest getting a half decent cooler.

You've been lucky to have this @ 3.6 24/7 stable on sensible temps.
Most of them won't do over 2.8-3.0 with good temps even with good cooler.

mfb3000 said:
I'm not going to be overclocking any of this stuff, so is there anywhere where I would be able to skimp to save a few £££?

If you aint going to upgrade any soon (2-6months) to something more expensive, then I would grab AMD 6000+x2, decent mobo for it depending on your needs, you can grab good one for about 50 quid, and 4gb of GeiL Black Dragon.

That leaves you with a price of about ~160 and will most likely beat any E2xxx series setup. 3ghz straight out of box with, runs cool, no need for aftermarket cooler or OC anything ( on which you will have to spend at least 35quid ).

Also what is your current GPU ?
And what games do you play mostly or willing to play soon?
It might be better to get bit slower CPU and grab better GPU sometimes.

mfb3000 · 30 Jul 2008 at 01:09

PhoenixUK said:
If you aint going to upgrade any soon (2-6months) to something more expensive, then I would grab AMD 6000+x2, decent mobo for it depending on your needs, you can grab good one for about 50 quid, and 4gb of GeiL Black Dragon.

That leaves you with a price of about ~160 and will most likely beat any E2xxx series setup. 3ghz straight out of box with, runs cool, no need for aftermarket cooler or OC anything ( on which you will have to spend at least 35quid ).

Also what is your current GPU ?
And what games do you play mostly or willing to play soon?
It might be better to get bit slower CPU and grab better GPU sometimes.

Not upgrading soon, no.
I won't be playing many games on there, and if I od then they will be older games that don't require a decent GPU. Certainly nothing that needs a current gen card anyway (I'll leave that for my personal rig, not the family computer!)

Thanks for the advice everyone, it's really helpful!