£250 CPU, motherboard & RAM upgrade

Vicky

Vicky

Vicky

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Joined
4 Mar 2009
Posts
14
Hi there,

I'm about to upgrade the processor, motherboard and RAM in my current system, and was wondering if anyone could help me decide what to buy.

I'll be using it for gaming, but am not fussed about getting the 'best of the best', just something that will play the games well enough and wont need a major upgrade for a while.

I have no experience of OC'ing (and don't have the cooling capability at the minute) and wouldn't really want to at the moment, although I've read on the board that more can be gotten out of the Phenom BE's by just changing the multiplier (i think?) which I'd probably be willing to do.

Unfortunately the budget is only around £250.

My current graphics card (not planning on upgrading) is MSI Nvidia 8500 GTS if this helps any decisions.

At the moment I'm thinking of this:

AMD Phenom Quad 9950 2.6GHz (Retail AM2+) Black Edition £137.94 inc.
VAT

MSI K9A2 Neo-F AMD 770 AM2+ Motherboard £57.44 inc. VAT

Geil Black Dragon DDR2 4.0GB PC8500 Dual Channel memory kit (2 x 2GB)1066MHz (5-5-5-15) £44.76 inc. VAT


but the following are also available from stores near me:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz 95W G0 Stepping (Retail 775) £156.00 inc. VAT

AMD Phenom II X4 920 8MB (Retail, AM2+) - Note not Black edition £160.94 inc. VAT


What do you think? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Vicky.
 
maybe have a look at the following, is £270 but includes a better cooler than the retail one, if you need it closer to £250 just leave the cooler out.

AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.8GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £124.19 (£107.99)

Asus M3A78 Pro AMD 780G (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £80.49 (£69.99)

Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) £39.09 (£33.99)

Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro PWM CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2) £17.24 (£14.99)

Sub Total : £226.96
Shipping : £8.49
VAT : £35.32
Total : £270.77
 
Thanks for the welcome and the comments!:)

From looking around it seems most people go for more expensive motherboards than I have. I'm not really sure what to go for tho. Is there a minimum chipset you'd go for with the processors suggested so far? Are there any other significant needs for it (without going massively over budget)?

For any specific recommendations I forgot to mention I need IDE.

Thanks,
Vicky.
 
no prob :p im not very clued up on amd set ups but id say the minimum chipset you would want to go for on a intel system is p35.

i think you will find most modern motherboards still have at least one ide port on :)

as for the ram, the geil stuff seems a good way to go
 
Vicky said:
Thanks for the welcome and the comments!:)

From looking around it seems most people go for more expensive motherboards than I have. I'm not really sure what to go for tho. Is there a minimum chipset you'd go for with the processors suggested so far? Are there any other significant needs for it (without going massively over budget)?

For any specific recommendations I forgot to mention I need IDE.

Thanks,
Vicky.
Click to expand...

not if there on a budget they dont :D

for another £80 or so you could move to AM3 mobo and ddr3 motherboard, but its not really necessary if your on a tight budget.

how many ide devices do you have ?
 
mp260767 said:
maybe have a look at the following, is £270 but includes a better cooler than the retail one, if you need it closer to £250 just leave the cooler out.

AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.8GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £124.19 (£107.99)

Asus M3A78 Pro AMD 780G (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £80.49 (£69.99)

Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) £39.09 (£33.99)

Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro PWM CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2) £17.24 (£14.99)

Sub Total : £226.96
Shipping : £8.49
VAT : £35.32
Total : £270.77
Click to expand...

If you can stretch the budget a little, then this is the one to go for, it's a newer phenom II, performs better than the older phenoms and again has an unlocked multiplier, so easy overclcoking.

You can get the faster kingston ram for a little bit extra

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-039-KS
 
Thank you all for your comments/suggestions! :D
I have 4 ide devices but can cope with just 2 of them until I save up for SATA.

Think I'm going to go for this

mp260767 said:
maybe have a look at the following, is £270 but includes a better cooler than the retail one, if you need it closer to £250 just leave the cooler out.

AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.8GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £124.19 (£107.99)

Asus M3A78 Pro AMD 780G (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £80.49 (£69.99)

Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) £39.09 (£33.99)

Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro PWM CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2) £17.24 (£14.99)

Sub Total : £226.96
Shipping : £8.49
VAT : £35.32
Total : £270.77
Click to expand...

but with the geil RAM instead (as I can get the motherboard a bit cheaper). Gonna get the better cooler so that I can have a go at this OC'ing lark, it sounds fun and well worth it!

Thanks again,
Vicky.
 
Good start for the systems but beware of the M3A78 Pro as we have had a couple of reports of them needing a BIOS update to post with the AM3 chips. M4A series resolves this.

Have you considered the left wing Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3, they offer great performance at an even lower price. Having a huge uptake of these with the 720 chip on orders placed with us.

It still uses DDR2 memory with support for the fastest speeds and they post instantly with the AM3 chips.

Bit of spare cash for a new mouse or keyboard maybe. :D
 
Yewen said:
Good start for the systems but beware of the M3A78 Pro as we have had a couple of reports of them needing a BIOS update to post with the AM3 chips. M4A series resolves this.

Have you considered the left wing Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3, they offer great performance at an even lower price. Having a huge uptake of these with the 720 chip on orders placed with us.

It still uses DDR2 memory with support for the fastest speeds and they post instantly with the AM3 chips.

Bit of spare cash for a new mouse or keyboard maybe. :D
Click to expand...

Thanks for the warning ... I'm considering upgrade from 939 processor so an MB that needed a BIOS update would be bad news for me!
 
Yewen said:
Good start for the systems but beware of the M3A78 Pro as we have had a couple of reports of them needing a BIOS update to post with the AM3 chips. M4A series resolves this.

Have you considered the left wing Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3, they offer great performance at an even lower price. Having a huge uptake of these with the 720 chip on orders placed with us.

It still uses DDR2 memory with support for the fastest speeds and they post instantly with the AM3 chips.

Bit of spare cash for a new mouse or keyboard maybe. :D
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, I dont think the BIOS upgrade would be a good idea for me. Will probably go for the M4A78PRO instead.

Thanks,
Vicky.
 
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