Current Budget CPU/Mobo Flavour of the Month?

[DampCat]

Hey guys,

Running an E2140 on a P5K @ 375fsb giving 3.01ghz with load temps of 60 ish under a Freezer 7 Pro.

There's nothing wrong with it at all, per se, but a few incompatablitiy issues and Asus' lack of driver support for the aging P5K has put me on the road to considering other options.

As you can see, i'm not one for hugely expensive bits of kit so i'm curious as to the current budget favourite? Someone mentioned the Athlon II's are excellent for the money?

Ideally less than £100 for CPU/Mobo, I've got 4gb PC6400 DDR2 i'd like to re-use so nothing tri-channel (for less than £100? Unlikely, but still...). Also using a GTX260, although i'm unlikely to ever SLi, it might be an idea to avoid crossfire boards.

What do you reckon?

 

[Big.Wayne]

As you can see, i'm not one for hugely expensive bits of kit so i'm curious as to the current budget favourite? Someone mentioned the Athlon II's are excellent for the money?

Someone? . . heh that would be me banging on about them the past few weeks!

There are Tremendous value for money, both the processors and the supporting chipsets!

Ideally less than £100 for CPU/Mobo, I've got 4gb PC6400 DDR2 i'd like to re-use

If you already have 4GB of good DDR2 then you can pickup an ASUS M4A785D-M PRO with an Athlon II for that budget, will probably be dual-core varient unless you up the budget by £5.00 and grab a Tri-Core Athlon II x3 425

AMD Athlon™ II Processor Model Numbers and Comparisons

Also using a GTX260, although i'm unlikely to ever SLi, it might be an idea to avoid crossfire boards.

Well your nVidia Geforce card will be happy sitting in the PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot on the 785G chipset . . . . should you decided to sell on your nVidia card you have one of the best IGP parts built into the motherboard to fall back on!

 

[DampCat]

Your posts are consistently excellent.

OCUK are listing that board as DDR3, forgive my ignorance but will the DDR2 work fine in there?
Edit: I see now the Pro is DDR2 and the EVO is DDR3. Ocuk aren't selling the Pro, hence my confusion!

Is it worth the extra fiver for the Tri-Core? my AMD knowledge is zilch (since the days of my XP2500+ M!) But for £5 would take the better option if i could.

Also, is there any overclocking room on these? Not hugely important, i can't imagine needing to go much over 3ghz at this stage in gaming but it's always nice to have a fiddle eh?

 

[Big.Wayne]

Ocuk aren't selling the Pro, hence my confusion!

Sorry I should have linked it up for you, listed under AM2+ boards and not AM3 although OcUk are sold out today!

Asus M4A785D-M Pro

£58.98 inc.

Is it worth the extra fiver for the Tri-Core?

Well I've been a happy dual-core user for the past three years but thought I'd see how a Tri-Core compared, the price was indentical to the Dual Cores at the time so there was almost no disadvantage to buying one except maybe the higher TDP and possibly hotter running . . the latter concern proved unfounded as these things run chilly!

The upside is you have an extra core kicking about for any multi-threaded apps/games you may have, also if your super dooper lucky the Athlon II Tri-Core *may* be manufactured from the same die as an Phenom II (deneb) and you may be able to unlock an extra core (3 >> 4) and possibly the 6MB level 3 cache . . . this unlocking business is to be viewed as a bonus only!

Also, is there any overclocking room on these? Not hugely important, i can't imagine needing to go much over 3ghz at this stage in gaming but it's always nice to have a fiddle eh?

Yes, they have some headroom for overclocking and the BIOS on that board is loaded with a plethora of overclocking adjustments/options, you will be suprised how much technology AMD are giving you for the asking price!

 

[DampCat]

heh.

Looks like i've got this scheduled in for next weekend! Figured i'd finish the old christmas shopping first!

Thanks for your time, very helpful

 

[Big.Wayne]

Looks like i've got this scheduled in for next weekend!

Excellent!

I would hope you get a good price for your older

• Intel® Pentium® Dual Core E2140
• ASUS P5K/Intel® P35 Express Chipset
• Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro

That lot sold should reduce your final expenditure to around the £50 mark, so worth it!