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Is this a good CPU ?
- Thread starter jamjar
- Start date
It depends what you mean by "good" and how low the price is. There aren't really any "bad" buys for the right price if what you buy does what you want it to do (and it is cheap enough to be worth it) 
It would be plenty decent for a mainly office PC that plays the odd game paired with say.. a 7600 GT/X1650 XT and will keep decent pace with either card in pretty much all recent games.
If you are looking to buy a low priced rig with a cheap Core 2 Duo compatible motherboard to upgrade later it isn't a bad choice for around £50 but you can also get a 939 or AM2 Athlon 64 3500+ for £50 or a 939 Athlon 64 3700+ for £60, both of which have superior gaming performance and will run cooler and eat less power.
For the sake of saving £50 or so though, I'd suggest saving up and going straight to the Core 2 Duo E6300 at around £100, you can build it around the same budget system as you might be planning to drop the P4 in (i.e. £40 - £50 or so LGA775 C2D compatible board such as the Asus P5ND2 SE or P5VD2-X).
It would be plenty decent for a mainly office PC that plays the odd game paired with say.. a 7600 GT/X1650 XT and will keep decent pace with either card in pretty much all recent games.
If you are looking to buy a low priced rig with a cheap Core 2 Duo compatible motherboard to upgrade later it isn't a bad choice for around £50 but you can also get a 939 or AM2 Athlon 64 3500+ for £50 or a 939 Athlon 64 3700+ for £60, both of which have superior gaming performance and will run cooler and eat less power.
For the sake of saving £50 or so though, I'd suggest saving up and going straight to the Core 2 Duo E6300 at around £100, you can build it around the same budget system as you might be planning to drop the P4 in (i.e. £40 - £50 or so LGA775 C2D compatible board such as the Asus P5ND2 SE or P5VD2-X).
thxs
Athlon 64 3800 box 2.4GHz AM2 940 pin as i have always had AMD & prefer them over Intel ,what is a good motherboard that this will work with ,plus Memory too ?
Thxs for the great reply ,i am loking at this CPUTetras said:It depends what you mean by "good" and how low the price is. There aren't really any "bad" buys for the right price if what you buy does what you want it to do (and it is cheap enough to be worth it)
It would be plenty decent for a mainly office PC that plays the odd game paired with say.. a 7600 GT/X1650 XT and will keep decent pace with either card in pretty much all recent games.
If you are looking to buy a low priced rig with a cheap Core 2 Duo compatible motherboard to upgrade later it isn't a bad choice for around £50 but you can also get a 939 or AM2 Athlon 64 3500+ for £50 or a 939 Athlon 64 3700+ for £60, both of which have superior gaming performance and will run cooler and eat less power.
For the sake of saving £50 or so though, I'd suggest saving up and going straight to the Core 2 Duo E6300 at around £100, you can build it around the same budget system as you might be planning to drop the P4 in (i.e. £40 - £50 or so LGA775 C2D compatible board such as the Asus P5ND2 SE or P5VD2-X).
Athlon 64 3800 box 2.4GHz AM2 940 pin as i have always had AMD & prefer them over Intel ,what is a good motherboard that this will work with ,plus Memory too ?
Don't spend too much over £50 or you might as well save up (I would anyway) and get a dual core X2 3800+ (£80+) or E6300 (£100+).
AM2 and LGA775 both (in theory) have a continued upgrade path, LGA775 will have quad core and 1333 FSB chips, AM2 65nm is both already out and still on way (though performance atm is nothing to write home about) but will hopefully have some new models in the future (despite AM2+/AM3/4x4 and who knows what other new sockets they are cooking up at AMD).
In keeping with your budget plan any of the nForce 550 or nForce 4 boards should be fine for stock (and are around £50), if you intend to overclock I don't have a clue about which AM2 boards are decent.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=5&subid=805
Memory wise for stock PC2-5300 (667 DDR) covers all the bases for either an LGA775 Core 2 Duo (and future 1333 FSB Core 2 CPUs) or AM2 Athlon 64/X2 rig and can be had as cheap as any of the DDR2 memories (don't bother with PC2-4200, the price is no different really). For overclocking I can't help you with AM2, for Core 2 Duo you'll want PC2-6400 (or higher depending on the overclock your going for and the CPU multiplier/max motherboard FSB).
Corsair value is pretty reliable and has a lifetime warranty, latencies (or clock speed for that matter) don't make a big difference to performance and especially if your staying at stock there is no need to consider anything more expensive than about £150 for 2GB. I'd strongly suggest you get 2GB now though (if you are a gamer), budget or not, because compatibility is a big issue with Athlon 64/X2 rigs and they just aren't happy with mismatched memory (that includes what is apparently the same model and that isn't in a dual channel pair) and you *will* need it sooner or later (if not now, many games have already made 2GB pretty much a requirement for smooth gameplay at high settings).
AM2 and LGA775 both (in theory) have a continued upgrade path, LGA775 will have quad core and 1333 FSB chips, AM2 65nm is both already out and still on way (though performance atm is nothing to write home about) but will hopefully have some new models in the future (despite AM2+/AM3/4x4 and who knows what other new sockets they are cooking up at AMD
).In keeping with your budget plan any of the nForce 550 or nForce 4 boards should be fine for stock (and are around £50), if you intend to overclock I don't have a clue about which AM2 boards are decent.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=5&subid=805
Memory wise for stock PC2-5300 (667 DDR) covers all the bases for either an LGA775 Core 2 Duo (and future 1333 FSB Core 2 CPUs) or AM2 Athlon 64/X2 rig and can be had as cheap as any of the DDR2 memories (don't bother with PC2-4200, the price is no different really). For overclocking I can't help you with AM2, for Core 2 Duo you'll want PC2-6400 (or higher depending on the overclock your going for and the CPU multiplier/max motherboard FSB).
Corsair value is pretty reliable and has a lifetime warranty, latencies (or clock speed for that matter) don't make a big difference to performance and especially if your staying at stock there is no need to consider anything more expensive than about £150 for 2GB. I'd strongly suggest you get 2GB now though (if you are a gamer), budget or not, because compatibility is a big issue with Athlon 64/X2 rigs and they just aren't happy with mismatched memory (that includes what is apparently the same model and that isn't in a dual channel pair) and you *will* need it sooner or later (if not now, many games have already made 2GB pretty much a requirement for smooth gameplay at high settings).
Thxs
Thanks for this great bit of info ,just wanted to know do these boards have AGP sockets ?Tetras said:Don't spend too much over £50 or you might as well save up (I would anyway) and get a dual core X2 3800+ (£80+) or E6300 (£100+).
AM2 and LGA775 both (in theory) have a continued upgrade path, LGA775 will have quad core and 1333 FSB chips, AM2 65nm is both already out and still on way (though performance atm is nothing to write home about) but will hopefully have some new models in the future (despite AM2+/AM3/4x4 and who knows what other new sockets they are cooking up at AMD
In keeping with your budget plan any of the nForce 550 or nForce 4 boards should be fine for stock (and are around £50), if you intend to overclock I don't have a clue about which AM2 boards are decent.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=5&subid=805
Memory wise for stock PC2-5300 (667 DDR) covers all the bases for either an LGA775 Core 2 Duo (and future 1333 FSB Core 2 CPUs) or AM2 Athlon 64/X2 rig and can be had as cheap as any of the DDR2 memories (don't bother with PC2-4200, the price is no different really). For overclocking I can't help you with AM2, for Core 2 Duo you'll want PC2-6400 (or higher depending on the overclock your going for and the CPU multiplier/max motherboard FSB).
Corsair value is pretty reliable and has a lifetime warranty, latencies (or clock speed for that matter) don't make a big difference to performance and especially if your staying at stock there is no need to consider anything more expensive than about £150 for 2GB. I'd strongly suggest you get 2GB now though (if you are a gamer), budget or not, because compatibility is a big issue with Athlon 64/X2 rigs and they just aren't happy with mismatched memory (that includes what is apparently the same model and that isn't in a dual channel pair) and you *will* need it sooner or later (if not now, many games have already made 2GB pretty much a requirement for smooth gameplay at high settings).
No, nForce 550 and nForce 4 boards are all PCI-Express.
If you want an AGP board you have very limited options.
The Asrock AM2NF3-VSTA is an AM2 AGP board and the only AGP AM2 OCUK sell.
The Asrock 775-DualVSTA is a Core 2 Duo LGA775 AGP 8X board with a PCI-Express 16X slot (but the PCI-E only actually works at 4X speed).
There are others, mostly Asrocks.
If you want an AGP board you have very limited options.
The Asrock AM2NF3-VSTA is an AM2 AGP board and the only AGP AM2 OCUK sell.
The Asrock 775-DualVSTA is a Core 2 Duo LGA775 AGP 8X board with a PCI-Express 16X slot (but the PCI-E only actually works at 4X speed).
There are others, mostly Asrocks.