Quick spec advice please: AMD micro-ATX system

Ksanti

Ksanti

Ksanti

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Hey guys, my 14 year old cousin is looking at getting a desktop. He's got his eyes pretty much set on a Bitfenix Prodigy system (he doesn't mind so much that he drops a little bit in the spec department to that end compared to cheaper cases). Budget of around £400, maybe a little more, not including OS or any peripherals. I'm giving him my old 5870 card so no GPU needed, just a psu that will support the whole thing.

I'm thinking AMD over Intel at this price point (and the new mATX prodigy cases help here) but I'm not too fussed either way. A small bit of gaming but mostly general schoolwork and browsing so would sooner drop the spec and save money than stump up for say a 7950 just squeezed within budget.

So criteria:
Bitfenix Prodigy (either m-itx or m-atx, doesn't matter too much as long as mobo's etc. are compatible)
Already have a 5870 as gpu
c. £400 for the rest of the build exc. peripherals
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x BitFenix Prodigy M MATX Cube Case - Midnight Black £74.95
1 x Gigabyte F2A85XM-D3H AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 micro ATX Motherboard £61.99
1 x AMD Athlon X4 750K Black Edition 3.40GHz (Socket FM2) Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD750KWOHJBOX) £59.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £53.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV38G160C9K) £53.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £43.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler £26.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £406.98 (includes shipping : £11.75).



You can overclock the CPU for better performance.

Alternatively, look for a second hand 2500K/3570K and board.
 
FX over athlon all day long

i used a 6 core CPU but if the budget must be £400 and not £414 drop to a 4 core FX chip. ever way do get an Athlon.


EDIT: mismatch board new spec below
 
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Definitely wouldn't put an 8320 in that board. You'd be lucky to get it to run at stock clocks, let alone boosted. There aren't any decent ATX options for FX CPUs.
 
teppic said:
Definitely wouldn't put an 8320 in that board. You'd be lucky to get it to run at stock clocks, let alone boosted. There aren't any decent ATX options for FX CPUs.
Click to expand...

your right there is no good AM3+ M-atx board but still would not go athlon. get an i3 that will crush athlon

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £91.99
1 x MSI Z77MA-G45 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro-ATX Motherboard £79.99
1 x BitFenix Prodigy M MATX Cube Case - Midnight Black £74.95
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £49.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) HDD £43.99
1 x OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £43.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £416.00 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
The X4 750K runs basically just short of the FX4350 in games (it's the same CPU minus some cache). It can be overclocked to push up the performance a fair bit.

The i3 is very poor in recent games like Crysis 3, Far Cry 3 - the X4 would beat it.

The best option is a 2nd hand i5.
 
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