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New kit (been out of the loop)

chakib

chakib

chakib

Associate
Joined
1 Dec 2008
Posts
78
Hello, Hopefully this will be a snappy question to clarify some things for me.

I have been asked to upgrade a system for a friend who is on a tight budget.
As are most people on this fine forum, am relatively tech happy and willing to learn.

The PC I'm upgrading is a P4 OC'd to 3.ghz. (I cannot believe we used to use that)
I was considering some good Intel kit then happened to see the AMD line up, which blew my mind. the Athlon II 425 is fantastic, but then I found a Phenom II 710 for £70!

The whole pricing overlap is confusing me greatly, as are the comparisons being thrown about. L2 cache on phenoms better then the Athlons, but the Althlons still performing!

The computer will be taxed quite a lot, Rendering, Multiple Screens with a fair few progs open, photoshop, After effects etc etc. Monetary struggle does not allow for anything more expensive I'm afraid.

Motherboard I will advise to purchase is the Asus M4A785D-M Pro

Any advise of which CPU he should Invest in? Budget is quite tight I'm afraid.

Thanks.
 
Trunks9486 said:
What is your budget exactly? And what do you need? Both motherboard and CPU and RAM? Does he have everything else?
Click to expand...

Budget is around £130 max. He's got 4gb ddr2 so ram and everything else, so that's all good; it's just the processing power and motherboard that's sub par.
 
Trunks9486 said:
Will he be overclocking the CPU or try to unlock extra cores?

Given the info i have and stock options then the Athlon X3s are probably the best option.

If you shop around you could get the Athlon X4, it has lower frequency but an extra core, if is going to overclock then this wont matter as the X4 should be fine until 3.4-3.6GHz. On the other hand the X3 could potentially unlock to an X4!

Safest bet with no overclocking is the X3 though. The mobo you mentioned is great. Shop around on best prices and your friend should be happy! Each core on the Athlon is better than the one pentium 4 core he has right now!
Click to expand...

I'll be messing about with it for sure. Overclocking and maybe even 4th core unlock.

I found a Phenom II 710 for £70. Does that make better sense then the Athlon considering the 6mb cache?
 
Trunks9486 said:
Well, i did suggest going for the the Phenom already.

It seems to perform better overally at stock. And the L3 helps when you go on to voerclock the processor. They are also good gaming processors compares to the L3-less Athlons.

If they are the same price then they make more sense.

Bad side is that they consume more power i think. Cant win em all.

Let us know what happens (if it unlocks and how far it overclocks)!
Click to expand...

Yeah I was leaning more towards what you recommended. Just the price battle in my head was raging! but going for the phenom for sure.

will post up results as soon as I get my hands dirty.
 
Ahh Big.Wayne finally replies!

To be honest, most of the posts I have been reading on AMD have been by you.

This computer will be used for most of the Adobe suit, Ripping, trans coding, some render with with maya, a zillion web tabs and some gaming (COD4, L4D2, GTR, Bioshock, etc etc)
So, what appeals to me about the PII 710 is the balance and possibilities is opens up. L3 cache when it is needed, and raw processing power then the MHZ are needed (overclocked ). The appeal of unlocking the fourth core is also incredibly tempting, However, the chip I found on sale for £70 is a newer 0609 chip and is totally locked. As for the reasoning behind the regular and not black edition is I don't mind overclocking the hard way, the unlocked multipliers Don't particularly tempt me (at the current time) and mainly..pricing..

anyway, the AII 425 was my second choice to be honest, but the prices suddenly seem to ave gone up to near phenom territory. From the many reviews I have read, that extra 100Mhz seems to have the effect of competing with the L3 cache of the PII. Again, I would love to tincker and see If I can unlock the fourth core with either CPU.

What do you think? will I lose any sleep If I don't plug a PII in there? Or will a AII satisfy the needs?
 
Wise words there Big.Wayne.

I think I'll just go for a 425 since It's triple core, cheap, and has potential for kick.

Thanks for the advise.
 
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