Need help with a low budget spec

[Substance]

Hi,

My motherboard has just popped it's clogs, for a few months it has been playing up with certain ram slots not working etc, but tonight I went to turn it on and got to the bios but it locks up every time and won't go any further,

So, I'm in the market for some replacements but I am getting married next year and trying to convince the future mrs that a few hunderd pounds is needed on a new pc isn't going to happen at the moment,

The main problem I'm having is that my current build is starting to age so replacement parts arent as easy to come by as they used to be, I'm currently running :-

PSU - corsair 520HX (hoping to keep)
MOBO - Biostar tpower I45 (this is what I believe is causing me the problems)
RAM - 4x1GB corsair xms3 DDR2 pc6400 (new mobo means new ram)
CPU - Intel q6600 (again, with a new mobo I will need to replace this)
GPU - ATI radeon 4870 (hoping to keep)

Everything else like optical drives should be fine to switch over and my case (antec p45 if I remember correctly) is fine,


To me it looks as if the best value would be a pretty cheap quad core AMD AM3 setup with 4GB of DDR3, It probably comes in at around £220, which sounds much more reasonable than the £550 I first quoted to her

What do you guys think, Is the AM3 setup the way to go? I'm pretty worried about just getting a new lga775 mobo as I'm not 100% sure that's the problem?

Thanks for your time, Mike

 

[stulid]

Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor with FREE Operation Flashpoint Red River Game £161.99
(£134.99) £161.99
(£134.99)
MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £99.98
(£83.32) £99.98
(£83.32)
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £39.98
(£33.32) £39.98
(£33.32)
Sub Total : £251.63
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £52.23
Total : £313.36

You get free delivery, so the total is closer to £300

Sandybridge i5 rocks, that all there is to say

 

[gamesaregood]

If you decide to go the AM3 route make sure you pick a motherboard which will support the upcoming 8 Core AM3+ Bulldozer CPUs as this would give you a nice upgrade path.

The other consideration would be 775 DDR3 motherboard and some DDR3 ram, then overclock the Q6600. This of course presumes your CPU is ok but your issues sound most likely to be motherboard or memory related and CPUs rarely fail...

 

[Substance]

Sandybridge i5 rocks, that all there is to say

Thanks for the quick spec, will keep it in mind if I do end up buying new

If you decide to go the AM3 route make sure you pick a motherboard which will support the upcoming 8 Core AM3+ Bulldozer CPUs as this would give you a nice upgrade path.

The other consideration would be 775 DDR3 motherboard and some DDR3 ram, then overclock the Q6600. This of course presumes your CPU is ok but your issues sound most likely to be motherboard or memory related and CPUs rarely fail...

I am pretty sure it is my motherboard, the ram all passes memtest fine when I test 1 stick at a time but putting in 2 sticks causes errors to crop up and more than 2 sticks and it just won't boot

With this in mind do you think that an old 775 motherboard would solve my problems or is it just time to upgrade?

Thanks again