• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+

SiriusZen

SiriusZen

SiriusZen

Associate
Joined
19 Jun 2009
Posts
115
Been reading around and heard that if I had an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+, a 9600GT and 2-4GB RAM then I'd be able to get decent fps on most games including crysis on high settings at a native res of about 1280*800.

So I'm wondering it it'd be worth picking one up.

With an Abit A-N68SV MoBo.
 
As the 9600GT is an ok card, and it isn't rediculosuly expensive, I might even try two of them in Sli.

If the MoBo could take them I guess, either that or go for an 9800GT...
 
I was running an AMD 4200+ X2 with an 8800GTX for a good 2 years or so before upgrading to my i7 rig, and it was solid IMO...

I still have it on the go actually, my fiancee uses it for the time being until I complete her i7 build and it's still going strong!

Though, I personally would go for the PhenomII X2 550 if you are on a budget, they are nice and cheap, and with certain mobos some people have been able to unlock the extra 2 cores on the CPU to make them quad cores!!!
 
True, I'm now thinking of going for an 4800+ with a 9800GT.

Just something fairly cheap that I can throw together quickly and play games with until I can be bothered too upgrade it (Or I'm forced too).

As I'm only using a 20" monitor it should be fine at 1280*800.
 
Mate, that system will be just fine for gaming @ that resolution..

Is that the native res for a 20" monitor?

I had an old 19", and the native res for that was 1440x900, I thought 20" screens had a native res of 1600x900???

Like I said though, instead of going for the Athlon X2 and 9800GT, why don't you get a more future proof rig and go for the PhenomII 550 X2 and the GTS250??

The GTS250 I have in mind is about the same price as a 9800GT but has much higher clock speeds...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-121-OK&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1402

GTS250 is basically the 9800GTX+ rebranded, it should eat a 9800GT for breakfast because the clock frequency is a lot higher...

And if you go for the Dual Core PII550 you can upgrade at a later date to a better processor, and like I said, you also have a chance of being able to unlock the disabled cores on the CPU to make it into a quad core PhenomII...
 
What all do you need for this build?

Do you need everything, or is this just going to be an upgrade to your existing rig?
 
Well I have a rig but it's ancient, so pretty much from scratch.

All I'm going to use of my old rig is the optical drive maybe and the HDD...

Possibly the PSU, depending on how good it is, i have no clue as to what wattage it is.

And yeah your right lol, native res is that for a 20" screen, but I'd take it down abit to 1280*800, either that or just use my 17" screen for time being...
 
Last edited:
If you go for the GTS250 it will handle your 20" monitors native resolution no problem...

I just specced two rigs for you, 1 unit is based on the Athlon 5200+ X2, and the other one uses the Dual Core Phenom II... check them out to see what you think...

Athlon based rig comes in @ £435.65:

athlonspec.jpg


Phenom II rig £500.66:

pii550spec.jpg


For only £65.01 extra, I would definitely choose the PII rig, it is more future proof, and also would give you a lot better performance as well...
 
Ty for the speccs DavyBoy.

I'm currently gaming on my Laptop and I think that the spare screen i have lying around might not be any bigger than 19"... Infact I think it's more like 17"...

What I'm looking into doing is getting a rig set up that I can just play on for mean time and gradually upgrade as time goes by... I really dont think I'd need the GTS250 atm... But I'd upgrade that before upgrading to a 20" screen for sure.

I did write down some parts and managed to spec myself the rig at around somewhere between £250 - £350.
 
CPU: Athlon 64 X2 4800+
MoBo: Abit A-N69SV
RAM: OCZ Platinum AM3
GFX: 9800GT
HDD: The one of the old rig, afaik it's clean.
OPTICAL: Just use old one until can be bothered to upgrade.
CASE: Antec 300
PSU: See what the old ones like or use Corsair VX 550.
Monitor: Use my old 17" one for time being.

I think that came to around £300-ish.

And it's a start that I can play games on.

I'll chop and change the bits though as now that PhenomII rig looks nice.
 
if you plan on upgrading it as you go then pay special attention to what motherboard you choose, you will always be fine getting better gpu/more ram etc.... but cpu is totally limited to the socket choice.
 
D13 said:
if you plan on upgrading it as you go then pay special attention to what motherboard you choose, you will always be fine getting better gpu/more ram etc.... but cpu is totally limited to the socket choice.
Click to expand...

Thats true, but theres still a fair amount of headway that I can take with AM2 and if I start brickwalling I'll just get an AM2+ MoBo, I can still use my AM2 CPU in that and I can then upgrade the CPU if need be.

or just switch to Intel if I want later down the line.
 
It's such a small premium to get an AM2+ motherboard which will be good for upgrading to all AM3 chips too (so far), I really would consider doing it at the beginning.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom