CPU/Mobo/RAM... Whats the best combo?

AsaTDi

AsaTDi

AsaTDi

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Hey!

Im building myself a new PC, haven't built one in a few years but im still fairly confident.

Anyway, im collecting components together and im ready to buy my mobo/cpu and ram.

I have about £250 put a side for these. Obviously this wont be a gaming PC, but i would like it to be ok for viewing DVD's and browsing the net and other general stuff.

The only requirement is that the on board video had a HDMI output so i can hook it up to my 40" sammy LCD. (Or will i have to purchase a separate gfx card?

Oh and i will be running Win7 32bit


Fire away with your sugestions guys :)
 
Considering your only running a 32bit OS, it's pointless us speccing 4GB of RAM as not all of it will be utilised. Unfortunately OCUK don't sell 2GB Kits atm, but the following spec should be a great little workhorse.

AMD Sempron 140
Asus M4A785TD-V Evo - Has an IGPU, the HD 4200 & also the HDMI port you were looking for.
2GB DDR3 OCZ or Ballistix
 
what advantage would i get going 64bit, if any? Is it more focused for gamers? Sorry ive just been out the game for too long! things change so quick! :-(
 
32bit can address a maximum of 3.5gb of memory. Its a physical limitation. If you're using an IGP, that will also allocate itself some system RAM as well, so with a 785G, you're looking at 3.2ish gigs usable RAM out of 4 (pretty much all new AMD IGPs use 256megs of system ram, although you can lower this in the bios).

i have 4gigs of ram and an IGP on a 32bit OS, and i never use anywhere near the amount of RAM availiable (max i think was 2.5gigs once). If you already have the 32bit, then stick with it, if you're buying a new windows7, go with 64bit - it lets you use all your RAM, and programs coded in 64bit should be faster (i think). Beware though, theres no 64bit flash support, so you still need a 32bit browser to see most websites.

In terms of specs, i think a dual core athlon II would feel generally snappier than a sempron (OC do a 290 for 52 quid, but if you look around, you should fine a 280 for £40-45). THe motherboard suggested above looks fine to me, and its upto you whether you want 2 or 4 gigs of ram (i would say 4, but i dont think you'd notice that much difference using 2 if you want to save money)
 
Guys How can you tell how much ram ur pc is using say while playing crysis. Is there any software program that I can use to determine Ram use?
 
OK, so basicly want i want is the Asus board (Out of stock :( ) a dual core Athlon II 2800 or 2900mhz and 4gb DDR3 memory (What mhz?)

And are the 64bit processors backwards compatible to 32bit?
 
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Hello AsaTDi,

£16 over budget but this will hardware will rock your world! :)

266h.jpg


If you really must cap the budget at £250 then you can reduce the spend by £20 if you pick up an AMD® Athlon™ II X3 435
 
Another option:
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Don't think Tri/Quad cores is gonna benefit you in any way since I don't you'd be using any application that runs in more than two threads, so a much faster Dual-Core CPU is probably the better choice than a slower Quad Core for what you using the PC for.
 
Thanks guys :)

So what benefit would a quad core be over a dual core? What applications would use the advantage?
 
AsaTDi said:
Thanks guys :)

So what benefit would a quad core be over a dual core? What applications would use the advantage?
Click to expand...
Mainly for people that using their PC for video encoding, also few games that optimised for Quad, where people got high end cards such as 5850/5870/GTX470/GTX480. But a Athlon II Quad is weaker if comparing to the better Quads.
 
Hey AsaTDi,

the real gains from additional cores is to be had in very processor intensive tasks such as Video-Encoding, 3D-Rendering and the latest games, DualCore is still very capable though but with TripleCores priced similarly it makes sense to grab the third core for an extra few quid! . . . you mentioned you won't really be gaming so what is the most intensive task you intend running now and guessing what you will be running in 6-12months?

If you really don't need the extra processing power and want to keep the budget as strict as possible then the build below is pretty good value! :D

229kx.jpg

TripleCore upgrade add £8.01 (£237.56 inc)
 
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Thanks for explaining that guys :)

Yeah i'm not really into gaming, might have a blast on Live For Speed every now and again, but i'm not going to base my purchases off that lol!

The most intensive task i will be doing is photo editing. I do a lot of downloading, so the PC will have a lot of uptime (More like... 24/7 :-) ) I will do the occasional video edit, but nothing major (Just mobile phone vid's)

Going to order the components you recommend Big.Wayne :-)
 
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