Build check me please! Limited budget.

munchie400

munchie400

munchie400

Associate
Joined
25 Aug 2011
Posts
7
Need a CPU Mobo and Ram upgrade on a fairly limited budget.


AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £85.99

Gigabyte GA-MA78LMT-US2H 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £53.99

OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3G1333LV4GK) £23.99

Arctic Cooling MX-4 Thermal Compound (4g)
£7.99


180£ is the real top end of my budget.

Using a 5770 and a Corsair TX650 with a couple of SATA drives. Anything better for a similar price? Cheers.
 
Can you recommend a thermal paste for the fan aswell? By the way I'm using this build generally for video editing and gaming. Does the i3's less cache not make a difference there? Is there any reason for that particular ram also?

Thanks a lot for your help.
 
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/88?vs=289

You can use that link to compare your current CPU to the i3. For the money you are spending out it isnt a massive improvement, albeit the intel CPU uses less power to operate.

Your current mobo is a low end chipset. What overclocking options does it have, if any?

If i was you I would probably look to upgrade to an AM3+ mobo and add an aftermarket heatsink if you dont own one already. This will allow you to easily overclock your AMD CPU to 3.8Ghz and will allow you to drop in a bulldozer CPU as an upgrade when they are released.

Go back to the link i posted and change the phenom 955 to the 980 and that will give you an idea of how your CPU overclocked will fair against the i3
 
honosuseri said:
If i was you I would probably look to upgrade to an AM3+ mobo and add an aftermarket heatsink if you dont own one already. This will allow you to easily overclock your AMD CPU to 3.8Ghz and will allow you to drop in a bulldozer CPU as an upgrade when they are released.

Go back to the link i posted and change the phenom 955 to the 980 and that will give you an idea of how your CPU overclocked will fair against the i3
Click to expand...

Think you may of misread. I was actually looking at getting the Phenom as an upgrade to what I have now, rather than upgrading the Phenom. An AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ is what I have currently.

I was deadset on getting the Phenom but now I'm unsure. That Anandtech comparison shows that in a lot of tasks the i3 is slightly faster, besides video editing which is slower (which is one of the big reasons I want to upgrade). Also on http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html it shows the Phenom as being very slightly quicker and it's around £10 less on overclockers at the moment.
 
well if your deadset on getting the phenom for it being slightly quicker in what your doing(video editing) then atleast get a AM3+ motherboard to ive you some upgrade path in the future.
and about the thermal paste, you wont need one, the stock heatsink already comes with thermal paste pre-applied.
 
Ahhh i'm with you now. I thought you were showing your current spec, sorry.

That is why i posted the link so you could compare the CPUs.

The AMD CPU is cheaper but you are pairing it with a lowend chipset. Most budget builds suggested now are using the i3 CPU. If you feel the AMD is still better suited for your needs pair it with an AM3+ which supports overclocking. The 955 is a black edition so to overclock you simply up the multiplier in the bios. With an aftermarket heatsink you will get 980 performance from the 955 for no extra cost (apart from the extra power it's consuming doing so)

Avoid the OCZ RAM and use the corsair xms3 or kingston RAM. I don't know why you have thermal paste on your list unless you are putting on a heatsink you already own for the AM3 socket.
 
I had thermal paste due to thinking about getting a non stock fan for the aforementioned overclockability of the BE's. After the advice with the i3 2100 I've seen comparisons in Starcraft 2 (hooked on it) between the 980 BE and the i3, with the i3 actually beating it quite resoundingly, so I'm probably going to go for the i3.

One last thing does the motherboard Jony suggested leave any room for overclocking / future upgrading? And should that processor be enough for BF3 with a 5770 or would the extra cores on the Phenom be advantageous there? Not really bothered about maxxing the graphics obviously.
 
Last edited:
Any aftermarket heatsink you buy will come with paste or have it already applied.

You can't really overclock the i3 as it's locked. The H61 mobos are the entry level boards that said you can still put an i5 or i7 in them as an upgrade.

When it comes to gaming it gets complicated as it will depend on the resolution and the detail levels you are using. Also some games favour intel over AMD, WOW for example. Either CPU you will run the games fine.
 
honosuseri said:
Any aftermarket heatsink you buy will come with paste or have it already applied.

You can't really overclock the i3 as it's locked. The H61 mobos are the entry level boards that said you can still put an i5 or i7 in them as an upgrade.

When it comes to gaming it gets complicated as it will depend on the resolution and the detail levels you are using. Also some games favour intel over AMD, WOW for example. Either CPU you will run the games fine.
Click to expand...

Ok I'm buying the i3, you shouldn't need any thermal paste with it should you?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom