Quick spec check please

PapaLazaru · 4 Jan 2010 at 17:48

My rig started dying the other day and it appears that my mobo has taken the the CPU with it, as well as the GPU which failed first.

The RAM is fine as well as everything else but I have decided on an upgrade. Will flog the RAM.

My current bits to be kept -

Corsair TX750W PSU

2 x Seagate HD's

Brand New HIS ATI 5770 GPU I already bought, as that fried itself first.

Still running XP so time to change to Win7 methinks.

I am looking at -

AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3) - £71.99.

Asus M4A785TD-M Evo AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard - £69.99.

OCZ Obsidian 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 Dual Channel - £85.99.

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium - Retail (Upgrade Version) - £66.99.

This comes in at £300 or thereabout and I really cannot afford to go higher,
but may stretch a little if people think I will see a marked improvement.

I game mainly. L4D2, BF2 and BC2 when it comes out in March.

1. Would you change anything?

2. Does that mobo allow me to try and unlock the further cores in the CPU?

3. Will it all work with each other?

Thanks in advance

**edit** Will need a CPU cooler as well so any advice on a cheapish one would be great!

jms198 · 4 Jan 2010 at 17:56

1) The tri/quad athlonII are another budget option. You could downgrade the mobo to something a bit cheaper. Otherwise it looks fine. Chepaer slower ram with lower CAS may perform as well if not slightly worse; there is some kicking around on special for about 73.

If you can wait for the i3 to go mainstream it may be another option as they seem to overclock very well on stock cooler.

2)The MB will allow unlocking but do not rely on it as there is only a slim chance. The catch 22 is also if you do unlock the stock cooler for the 550 will not cope.

3) can't see why not.

PhoenixUK · 4 Jan 2010 at 18:13

jms198 said:
1) The tri/quad athlonII are another budget option. You could downgrade the mobo to something a bit cheaper. Otherwise it looks fine. Chepaer slower ram with lower CAS may perform as well if not slightly worse; there is some kicking around on special for about 73.

If you can wait for the i3 to go mainstream it may be another option as they seem to overclock very well on stock cooler.

2)The MB will allow unlocking but do not rely on it as there is only a slim chance. The catch 22 is also if you do unlock the stock cooler for the 550 will not cope.

3) can't see why not.

Good setup, however I think it were only the 790 chipsets that could unlock the extra cores.

The chance is not that slight, most of them were fine but it's all about luck.

And the stock cooler will be fine with unlocking it and a slight OC as well.
Had those with 4 cores @ 3.4ghz on stock easily. Not like you'll need it tho, any quad above 2.6ghz is plenty enough for any game up to date.

PapaLazaru · 4 Jan 2010 at 18:23

Cheers for the advise so far. I think you are right with the RAM will save a few pennies and go for -

OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Dual Channel - £72.99

Now let's say I bottle doing any overclocking / unlocking. I can save a little on the cooler then. Both my original choice and jms198's choice of CPU are about the same price, and I could stretch to the extra of the quad Athlion, as I have saved a tenner on the RAM. Is the quad Athlion much better than the dual Phenom?

PapaLazaru · 4 Jan 2010 at 19:52

Anymore for anymore?

Could just buy this and be done with it. Seems quicker than my spec -

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-029-OE&tool=3

PhoenixUK · 5 Jan 2010 at 01:34

PapaLazaru said:
Anymore for anymore?

Could just buy this and be done with it. Seems quicker than my spec -

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-029-OE&tool=3

Not quicker at all : ). And 775 is dead slot.

I'd go for your first setup apart from the fact that I'd stretch for extra 20-30quid and get 790fx mobo, that will last you for few years and u'll have the possibility of getting faster/OC ram, good OC options for CPU and upgrade later without problems to new AMD cpus (6core 2011) when they come out if you'll need and might unlock the extra cores too saving you 60quid on CPU : ).

PapaLazaru · 5 Jan 2010 at 09:54

PhoenixUK said:
Not quicker at all : ). And 775 is dead slot.

I'd go for your first setup apart from the fact that I'd stretch for extra 20-30quid and get 790fx mobo, that will last you for few years and u'll have the possibility of getting faster/OC ram, good OC options for CPU and upgrade later without problems to new AMD cpus (6core 2011) when they come out if you'll need and might unlock the extra cores too saving you 60quid on CPU : ).

Cool I did relook at it and realise

I have now decided to keep XP for the time being as I really just want to get it up and running and working first and I am scared doing a fresh install of Win7 with all my current programmes and new bits all at once. Will worry about that at a leter date.

I always thought that you have to fresh install your OS when you get a new mobo, but a friend of mine reckons he has the technology to repair and upgrade the XP in my C drive. I have a C drive which should just have OS on it and a D drive with everything else, though some non-OS stuff may have sneaked onto the C drive. Is this true or is he talking porkies?

PhoenixUK · 5 Jan 2010 at 10:27

PapaLazaru said:
Cool I did relook at it and realise

I have now decided to keep XP for the time being as I really just want to get it up and running and working first and I am scared doing a fresh install of Win7 with all my current programmes and new bits all at once. Will worry about that at a leter date.

I always thought that you have to fresh install your OS when you get a new mobo, but a friend of mine reckons he has the technology to repair and upgrade the XP in my C drive. I have a C drive which should just have OS on it and a D drive with everything else, though some non-OS stuff may have sneaked onto the C drive. Is this true or is he talking porkies?

You'll have to reinstall unfortunately, your system probably just won't boot up and if it will there will be tons of issues with it due to new mobo+cpu+mem but if you have partitions on your HDD or external HDD you can run back up everything before changing and then do a fresh install after that : ).

I don't think there is any kind of technology like that, he might however do an image of the system and restore it later to new hardware but there still might be some issues with particular software. As said before, he might manage to do a repair and boot up but I don't guarantee that this will be 100% stable so fresh install is still recommended.

PapaLazaru · 5 Jan 2010 at 10:30

Cheers Pheonix.

I suppose the best thing to do is check what is on the C drive first, move all non-OS stuff to the D drive, then just format the C drive and fresh reinstall XP. No partitions on either methinks.