£250 Spec Me

Decmancity · 21 Sep 2009 at 18:09

Hey Guys,I am looking for a new pc after recently going to a laptop and missing the performance i used to have in games.
What I Have:
22'' LCD Monitor
Logitech Wave
Microsoft Habu
Thermaltake TR2 550W Power Supply
Seagate SATA 250GB
Samsung DVD Drive
What I Will Need:
Cpu
Ram
Motherboard
I havent added a gfx card to the budget so leave that for now because i will wait for the price drop in 4890s e.t.c.
It Will Be Strictly Gaming PC With A Bit Of PhotoShop And Solidworks so i am looking along the lines of Quad (Athlon 620 E.T.C)
Please try to save money were possible so i can have more to spend on a gfx card.

5abr3 · 21 Sep 2009 at 18:31

For just a CPU/mobo/RAM in that budget I would get this:

AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £97.99
(£85.21)
Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £76.99
(£66.95)
OCZ Reaper 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C6 1333MHz Dual Channel (OCZ3RPR13334GKK) £60.00
(£52.17)
Sub Total : £204.33
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £32.07
Total : £245.90

I would pick up if you're near the store too, will save you £9.50!

Decmancity · 21 Sep 2009 at 19:34

Thanks for that mate,Would i not be better off going with a Quad like the Athlon 620?

PermaBanned · 21 Sep 2009 at 19:38

It is possible to unlock the 720, or the 550 BE (or indeed the Sempron 140) to a quad if necasary... and if you're lucky. Besides, Athlon X4s are great mainstream chips but the L3 Cache on the 720 pretty much makes up the difference.

Decmancity · 21 Sep 2009 at 20:05

Ok but its cheaper than the 720 so to me it makes more sense to go with the quad even if it does suffer a bit with no l3 cache,Also is it worth me going ddr3 for my needs or not?

5abr3 · 21 Sep 2009 at 20:29

720 BE should outstrip the Athlon, that lack L3 cache really hurts it for some applications. I would get DDR3 as the prices between the 2 are quite close so you might aswell have the more future-proof and faster stuff in my opinion. Also the 720 clocks very happily if you're into that kind of thing

95thrifles · 21 Sep 2009 at 20:33

The 720 is better for gaming, have a read of this article form anandtech if you want, if you were doing any sort of encoding/rendering then the lower powered quad may help, but for gaming the 720 is the way to go, theres still very few games that use more than 2 cores (less than 1%)

Decmancity · 21 Sep 2009 at 21:26

Having looked at that review i think i will go with the 720 albeit a bit more expensive its usually 'This Week Only'. Thanks for posting that up 95therifles
I think i will be best off getting a 785g motherboard which ones do you guys reccommend atm the asus ones are looking good but as always i would like other opinions.

Audigex · 21 Sep 2009 at 21:51

The 720 is definitely faster in most apps. The 860 might help with heavy multitasking, but for any individual task the x3 is better.

5abr3 · 22 Sep 2009 at 11:26

Decmancity said:
Having looked at that review i think i will go with the 720 albeit a bit more expensive its usually 'This Week Only'. Thanks for posting that up 95therifles
I think i will be best off getting a 785g motherboard which ones do you guys reccommend atm the asus ones are looking good but as always i would like other opinions.

I still recommend the Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard at £73.99 inc VAT board I posted originally