Cheap AM3 bundle help

lazer46 · 20 May 2010 at 10:04

My mate wants a very cheap AM3 bundle. He doesn't game so only need onboard GPU. He has everything else so is this bundle ok guys:

ASUS M4A78LT-M LE AMD 760G Socket AM3 DVI VGA Out 8 CHannel Audio MATX Motherboard

AMD Athlon X2 240 2.8GHz Socket AM3 2MB Cache Retail Box Processor

Kingston 2GB DDR3 1066MHz i5 Memory Module CL7 1.5V

Total = £155.33

Redmint · 20 May 2010 at 11:39

Looks fine, just had a look and I don't think you can really do an AM3 bundle any cheaper than that.

FoxEye · 20 May 2010 at 12:41

Built a rig almost identical to that a couple months ago. Don't think I'd use the M4A78LT-M LE again.

For a week or two it would keep crashing on boot, then mysteriously it cleared up and hasn't done it since. RAM checked out fine (memtest), so I'd bet the instability was the motherboard's fault. Also I had to replace the IDE HDD with a SATA, because the mobo had big problems with both an IDE HDD and a CDROM on the same cable. Tried cable select/ master/ slave settings and in each case it caused a 30s delay in the boot process.

Overall, it's a cheap mobo with a lot of legacy ports and I wouldn't recommend it, really.

Big.Wayne · 20 May 2010 at 13:36

lazer46 said:
Total = £155.33

It's an extra £12.96 but you get a triple-core and a much better motherboard, you could also double up the memory size (2GB > 4GB) by finding a used set of DDR2-1066 for as close to £50 as poss . . . DDR2 will perform almost identically to DDR3 . . .

Asus M4A785D-M PRO 785G Socket AM2+
AMD Athlon II X3 435 2.9GHz Socket AM3
Kingston 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Hyperx Memory CL5

£168.29

ASUS Product Page

mymorph · 20 May 2010 at 13:46

like the spec big wayne and the mobo looks good

Big.Wayne · 20 May 2010 at 14:20

FoxEye said:
a lot of legacy ports

I think your talking about the ASUS M4A78L-M LE and not the ASUS M4A78LT-M LE

mymorph said:
the mobo looks good

I think for the £60 asking price it's too good to pass up!

. . . AMD 785G/SB710, Radeon HD4200 IGP, 4XDDR2 slots, eSATA, HDMI, great overclocker/tweaker friendly BIOS . . . some people may miss it because they don't realise you can plug an AM3 chip into an AM2+ mobo, some other people may really want DDR3 because it's "The Latest Thing!" but marketing terms aside I don't see any compelling reason to go DDR3 yet? . . The performance difference between the two is negligible and I'm pretty sure as an investment DDR2 will *increase* in value compared to DDR3! :cool:

Jae-So · 20 May 2010 at 14:41

yeh +1 for Big Wayne's build

lazer46 · 20 May 2010 at 17:40

FoxEye said:
Built a rig almost identical to that a couple months ago. Don't think I'd use the M4A78LT-M LE again.

For a week or two it would keep crashing on boot, then mysteriously it cleared up and hasn't done it since. RAM checked out fine (memtest), so I'd bet the instability was the motherboard's fault. Also I had to replace the IDE HDD with a SATA, because the mobo had big problems with both an IDE HDD and a CDROM on the same cable. Tried cable select/ master/ slave settings and in each case it caused a 30s delay in the boot process.

Overall, it's a cheap mobo with a lot of legacy ports and I wouldn't recommend it, really.

You sure it was the mobo?