Mobo, CPU and RAM Upgrade Needed Please Help!

John24

John24

John24

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Joined
25 Oct 2007
Posts
1,489
The time has come to retire my long serving Socket A rig, it just can't keep up with today's demands which, in my case are playing HD content, encoding in a reasonable amount of time and needing more than 2 SATA ports.

Here's a pic for those of you into antiques hehe.


So requirements:

A Mobo with onboard graphics/sound, HD is CPU heavy as I understand it so an onboard GC should be enough to playback HD?
A CPU, something that's capable of playing HD and can encode 30 mins of video in less than 75 mins.
A heat sink.
RAM, 2-3GB should be enough. (Got 2 atm and it's plenty)

I'll be getting a monitor and TV card, it'll all be going into a Cooler Master Praetorian (pictured) and I'm using XP 32-Bit atm but can upgrade to W7 if need be.

Not done a build since this socket a so not sure what I should be looking for, I want to keep the budget as low as possible but not compromise performance too much. Oh and I'd like to keep the noise down.

Willing to OC for the first time in my life as long as it's stable and doesn't add too much heat/noise.

Your help and comments very much needed and appreciated.

Thanks in advance
john
 
What sort of budget you looking at?
Id base build around an AMD 785G socket mobo and add a quad core cpu, either athlon for cheap or phenom if you can afford, then add your suitable RAM
 
is there not a guide on these sorta posts with whats your budget etc. quite annoying. anyway ye just show us ur budget and well take it from there.
 
SfnX said:
is there not a guide on these sorta posts with whats your budget etc. quite annoying. anyway ye just show us ur budget and well take it from there.
Click to expand...

Well theres one in my sig for new builds, which if people use a bit of common sense they can adapt for upgrades too, but it keeps slipping down the forum :confused:
 
Budget is flexible depending on the options and I've no idea what I could get for x amount which is why I didn't give a fixed figure.

If I have to say a budget I'd guess £150 but, please keep in mind what I said in the OP "I want to keep the budget as low as possible but not compromise performance too much" so it could be raised.

95thrifles, skimming that thread there's some good info, will give it a good read in a minuite. One thing I noticed is you say the intel is good for encoding but you suggested amd here, why is that?

btw don't worry about stock levels, if something is better than something else but is out of stock I'd rather wait for it or go elsewhere. ;)

Many thanks.
 
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Pfft going to be tight on that budget. I'd say one of the Quad core Athlon II's might be a good bet matched with a motherboard with any onboard GPU >= 8400 (NV) and HD playback should be not terrible.
 
The intels with hyperthreading are good for encoding as it effectively doubles the number of cores, however youre looking at aprox 450 quid for this sort of set up. Also for integrated gfx AMD has better solutions atm than Intel, given your budget end requirements Id definitely stick with the AMD set up and an athlon x4 620. In fact given the strict budget this is one of rare times Id recomend using DDR2 RAM still, given you can suffice with 2gig

AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 620 2.60GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £79.99 (£69.56)
Asus M4A785D-M Pro AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £57.99 (£50.43)
Corsair XMS2 2GB (1x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 Memory Module (CM2X2G6400C5B4) £27.98 (£24.33)
Total : £165.97
 
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ok, so how capable is that system then compared to what i have and is there any good reason to spend a little bit more?

Also could I carry on using XP 32-Bit for now?

Another thing I forgot about is power consumption, what would that be with the above spec? Currently I'm using about 90W idle not including the monitor.

Lots of questions sorry.

EDIT
Oh and does that spec have OC potential? Thanks. :)
 
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You havent said what you are using now???
Yeah no reason why not, especially if you only go for 2 gig of RAM, it'd be worth looking at going for 4 gig and getting w7 when you can afford it
Anandtechs test system with 4 gig of RAM and just a dual core idled at about 70W
 
oops sry, MSI KM4M-V, Athlon XP 3000+ (2.17GHz) and 2GB DDR PC2700.

Even with the extra performance I could be looking at a reduction in power consumption! that's a nice surprise.
 
How does that look then? I've added a few extras I need. Hopefully the stock fan isn't too loud.

2ia4qvt.jpg
 
Have you used it? The reviews on the product page are all good and I like the brush system.

Already got soem AS5 but it's years old so want some fresh and that brush system caught my eye.
 
I have used both but prefer the AS5 much smoother in my preference.

Yep, my last build i had some old stuff lying around but brought new paste just to be sure.
 
hmm, think I'll give it a try, see what it's like. If I don't like it can always get some more AS5. The brush system is very attractive to me so I have to give it a go.

Thanks for all your help everyone. :)
 
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