CPU, Mobo & Case - £150

Gimpymoo

Gimpymoo

Gimpymoo

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Nottingham
Is for a second computer in the home.

Will generally be used for web access and maybe the odd game of Sims 3 (Not me, the Mrs, honest).

A motherboard with a semi decent onboard VGA would help keep costs down.

I allready have 2 x 1GB DDR3 RAM and a PSU.

My random selection:

AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 640 3.00GHz (Socket AM3)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-268-AM
£76.36

OcUK Athena Tower Case - Black
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-019-OP
£19.99

Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H AMD 880G (Socket AM3)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-278-GI
£69.99

Has an AMD 4200 onboard which aint too shabby IMO and the best onboard VGA I have seen in that price bracket although it would eat into System RAM and I only have 2GB.

I am open to a different motherboard and a VGA card combo if it falls within budget.

Thoughts?

Thanks all for any input.
 
TBH if any gaming whatsoever is considered and you have only 2GB of system ram obg's simply will not cut it. All obg's are about two levels below their discrete equivalent so even HD 4200 obg's are very low on go.

I would say a 4650 card is the least you will need to fit in and obviously that will free up system ram too. This being so, I'd say the lowest I can get it is this.

AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 630
Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black
XFX ATI Radeon HD 4650 1024MB
ASRock N68C-S UCC GeForce 7025 (Socket AM3/AM2+) DDR2/DDR3

That comes to approx. £171 inc vat but ex-shipping. I assume you have free shipping anyway.

The Asrock mobo has a very oc friendly bios. So no problem with the 630 versus the 640. 3.4Ghz would be easy peasy with either and fine even with the stock cooler.

The requirements for Sims 3 are:

Minimal system requirements: The Sims 3

Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (PC)
• CPU: Pentium 4 2.0 GHz / Athlon XP 2000+
• RAM: 1 GiByte
• Graphics card: Geforce FX 5900 / Radeon 9500
• VRAM: 128 MiByte

Windows Vista with service Pack 1 (PC)
• CPU: Pentium 4 2.4 GHz / Athlon 2400+
• RAM: 1.5 GiByte
• Graphics card: Geforce FX 5900 / Radeon 9500
• VRAM: 128 MiByte

And truly ob HD 4200 graphics are not up to Radeon 9500 power levels which are the minimal requirements for Sims 3.

Cheers,
vfm
 
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4200 not up to 9500 power lvls?

You sure u're not mixing it up with GF 9500GT?

Radeon is 9500 is as follows behind current tech:

4xxx series > 3xxx series > 2xxx series > 1xxx series > x8xx series > 9xxx series.

That GPU is nearly 9yrs OLD and even when released back then was only a low end card to start with.

I've played COD4, WAR and SC2 on low res with that integrated GPU, I'm sure it will be fine for SIMS ? Yet last time I had a play with radeon 9600 ( 2x rops and so on of 9500 ) it was struggling with CS at higher res.
 
I'd suggest lower spec mobo if you don't need the new SATA 6GB, maybe even 2nd hand one as you've got access to MM, you should be able to pick a very nice mid/high end 785G mobo for 20-35quid.


I'd also swap out the CPU for x3 435/440 (can be had for around 50-55elsewhere).
This would be plenty enough for you and you save 20quid.

Give integrated GPU a shot and see how it works for you, GPU is always something you can add later, 2days difference won't kill you and I'll have a look at 2nd hand GPU as well. Best would be 4850, plenty of power for super low price.
 
No need for a quad if you ask me. But ropey RAM-eating onboard GPU can be improved upon...

Asus M4A78LT-M 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £48.99
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £46.99
HIS ATI Radeon HD 5450 512MB GDDR3 SILENT Low Profile PCI-Express Graphics Card (H545HR512) £29.36
Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £26.99
Sub Total : £152.33

Tri or quad if you want to spend a little more for the hell of it.
 
x3 is best value atm for around 55quid.

I wouldn't buy cheapest possible GPU just for the sake of freeing 300-500mb of ram, better buy 4gb ram instead for that money.
 
@pheonixuk

I bow to your personal experience of gaming with obg HD4200 graphics. Nothing beats experience. If it works it works. But I do feel that I must comment on your hierarchy list as it simply does not follow and might mislead some folk.

One cannot simply quote generation numbers and assume superior performance. Were this so then a 9400GT or even an 8200 would thrash a 7900GS, when in reality the later is well over twice as fast as even the 9400GT. Equally one cannot compare obg numbering to discrete card numbering. For example an X1950GT discrete card would trounce ob HD 4200 graphics by a very considerable margin despite it being a full three generations older.

In reality HD4200 obg's benchmark about on a par with a discrete Nvidia 6600. So it is true to say they just about meet the minimum requirements of Sims3 (Nvidia 5900 or greater). But in my experience minimum requirements are always marginal at best. My feelings were simply that the upg I suggested using a 4650 is worth the extra £20 in that it extends the playable spectrum of games very, very significantly and would make Sims3 a far more pleasurable experience whereas with obg HD4200's playability would be at best marginal.

BTW Your experience with the 9600 was not surprising. The 9600 series was less powerful than the 9500 and 9500Pro that it replaced. You may also like to look at the rankings at Passmark Software you'll see the discrete Radeon 9500 up at 174 while the 880G with obg HD4200 is down at 147. I suspect that you were thinking of the Radeon 9550 cards which were really low-end 9600 cards, while the 9500 was really previous sub-generation and was a mid-range card more powerful than the 9600 series that replaced it.

Passmark Link -http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?cpu=AMD+880G+with+Radeon+HD+4200

Cheers,
vfm
 
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Liampope said:
Asus M4A78LT-M 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £48.99
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £46.99
HIS ATI Radeon HD 5450 512MB GDDR3 SILENT Low Profile PCI-Express Graphics Card (H545HR512) £29.36
Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £26.99
Sub Total : £152.33
Click to expand...

+1 to this build. Probably the best you're going to get with that bugdet.
 
VFM Addict said:
@PheonixUK

One cannot simply quote generation numbers and assume superior performance. Were this so then a 9400GT or even an 8200 would thrash a 7900GS, when in reality the later is well over twice as fast as even the 9400GT. Equally one cannot compare obg numbering to discrete card numbering. For example an X1950GT discrete card would trounce ob HD 4200 graphics by a very considerable margin despite it being a full three generations older.
Click to expand...

9400GT and 8200 vs 7900 is just 1/2 gens behind and it's lowest end cards vs top model.

What I was pointing out is that there is whole 5 generation difference and on top of that 9500 was never a high end card anyways.

Sure 1900/1950XT will trash the onboard but it's totally different lvl of GPUs.

So yeh, I agree that you cannot just compare stuff by names but at this many generations difference I wouldn't be suprised at all if the 4200 was much better than 9500 at new titles.

Also I have some doubt in this passmark bench, I don't think it reflects real performance well for the simple fact that the old cards can't even use DX9, not to mention 10 so you can't really compare the performance here.
-----------------------------------

Anyways, back on topic.
I'd strongly advise not to buy lowest end cards just for the sake of having them, they can't play any games at high res or high details and they're not much better than onboard.

If you want something cheap, get 2nd hand 4850 / 8800GT or wait for ATI refresh and then hopefully u could get something like 5750 2nd hand for ¬50quid.
 
Orcvader said:
Does she really need anything more than a 5450? ;)
Click to expand...

LOL

The only games she plays are that, and only every now and then along with Sim City 3000.

It will be running on Vista as that is the only spare license I have and in all honesty, I think the 2GB RAM I have would be best not to be used on the VGA.
 
Ok... back to the drawing board...

How about:

AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £46.99
Gigabyte GA-MA74GMT-S2 740G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £39.99
HIS ATI Radeon HD 5450 1024MB GDDR3 SILENT £37.59
Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £26.99

Subtotal - £151.55

An extra 512MB of VGA RAM with a lower spec mainboard. Only has 2 RAM slots though... Mmmmm
 
I'd still stick to onboard and see how it does first or just hold with it untill u can get something better.

5450 is not any better than the onboard gpu and freed ram or not, 200-300 mem extra isnt going to help for this kind of usage.

I'm quite sure she doesnt open 40 FF tabs, play game, listen to music, msn and do spreadsheets at same time, so yeh, 300mb diff won't really be seen anyways.

Get at least something like 3850 if you dont wanna spend cash, they're like 20-25quid nowadays.
 
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