System SPEC AM2 or Conroe?

Sp00n · 28 Sep 2006 at 00:27

In two minds about what i want to move on to next, heard good things about the conroe's but i'm an AMD fanboy at heart so i'm not sure what to do.

I have about £300 for a cpu/mobo/memory/psu, mobo would preferably have onboard graphics, however i don't know how they would compare to my 9500 radeon, i'm not really up to speed with the latest offerings.

Anyone care to offer some suggestions?

Goodeh · 28 Sep 2006 at 00:45

Sp00n said:
In two minds about what i want to move on to next, heard good things about the conroe's but i'm an AMD fanboy at heart so i'm not sure what to do.

I have about £300 for a cpu/mobo/memory/psu, mobo would preferably have onboard graphics, however i don't know how they would compare to my 9500 radeon, i'm not really up to speed with the latest offerings.

Anyone care to offer some suggestions?

I've gone over budget, but the price/peformance ratio over an am2 equivalent is immense.

CP-126-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN) 1
£114.99 £114.99
MB-064-GI Gigabyte GA_945PL_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-064-GI) 1
£57.99 £57.99
MY-030-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB5300DC) (MY-030-GL) 1
£69.99 £69.99
CA-016-OC OCZ ModStream 450w ATX2.2 Power Supply (CA-016-OC) 1
£37.99 £37.99
Subtotal £280.96
VAT £49.17
Total £330.13

Virdi · 28 Sep 2006 at 07:34

Def' buy a Core 2 Duo..!!

semi-pro waster · 28 Sep 2006 at 07:38

I'd change the motherboard in Goodeh's specification to the Asrock Conroe945G-DVI if you want something with onboard graphics, only mATX motherboards appear to come with onboard graphics now. Other than that it is about as cheap and effectively as you can upgrade.

wizardmaxx · 28 Sep 2006 at 07:52

semi-pro waster said:
I'd change the motherboard in Goodeh's specification to the Asrock Conroe945G-DVI if you want something with onboard graphics, only mATX motherboards appear to come with onboard graphics now. Other than that it is about as cheap and effectively as you can upgrade.

The graphics would do the job until you can afford a descent pci-e card. Your 9500 is still going to faster that the GMA card that comes with the mb though.

You also stated that u needed a psu - Did u mean a psu or case as well?

Sp00n · 28 Sep 2006 at 08:58

Just the PSU, i have a SLK2600 case and i'm pretty happy with that but i only have an ATX 300watt truepower PSU in it, so i'll need to upgrade for the extra ATX connector no?

wizardmaxx · 28 Sep 2006 at 09:01

If u mean the 4pin/8pin then yes definately.

Sp00n · 28 Sep 2006 at 09:06

Yea this one is just the normal old ATX style hooked up to my sckt A motherboard.

So that system will stomp on a similarly priced AM2 system? Didn't realise AMD had fallen behind intel!

wizardmaxx · 28 Sep 2006 at 09:11

This is only my second intel build. Been an amd fan all these years, so yup amd needs to release something spectacular from here.

semi-pro waster · 28 Sep 2006 at 09:11

Sp00n said:
So that system will stomp on a similarly priced AM2 system? Didn't realise AMD had fallen behind intel!

The 6300 is roughly on a par with an X2 4400/4600 give or take and most overclock very nicely as well.

Sp00n · 28 Sep 2006 at 09:23

How will it clock with the oem heatsink?

wizardmaxx · 28 Sep 2006 at 09:27

Not too bad id guess, but u cant beat aftermarket heatsinks. Check at the sootout in the Overclocking section.

Sp00n · 28 Sep 2006 at 10:00

CONROE945G-DVI, does that come with a vga connector as well as the dvi connector?

wizardmaxx · 28 Sep 2006 at 10:01

DVI only afaik, why only got analogue?

Sp00n · 28 Sep 2006 at 10:04

Yea

Had a look on the asrock site and:

"Dual VGA Output: support DVI-D and D-Sub ports with DVI Graphics-SI card by independent display controllers"

So looks like its got a vga port, how good is the onboard graphics on that?

wizardmaxx · 28 Sep 2006 at 10:07

About half a 9500 128mb.

If u lucky of course

Sp00n · 28 Sep 2006 at 10:54

what advantages does the gigabyte GA946PL-S3 have over the ASRock Conroe945G-DVI?

wizardmaxx · 28 Sep 2006 at 10:58

Prob quality and mabye guarantee. Check also what the graphics differences are

Sp00n · 28 Sep 2006 at 11:10

E6300 Core 2 Duo *OEM* 1.86GHz 1066FSB 2MB Cache
Gigabyte Intel SKT775 945PL PCI-E SATAII 8 Channel Audio ATX
Kingston Value Ram 533MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL4 DIMM (Kit of 2)
Antec TruePower II 480W PSU

£305 total inc shipping.

What about that?

wizardmaxx · 28 Sep 2006 at 11:13

Looks good, dont forget HSF for oem cpu