What do you think?

blop · 25 Feb 2009 at 14:59

Caught between taking advantage of this weeks deals or....a B grade board. What would you choose?

AMD Phenom II x3 720 BE
2 x 2gb of GSKILL DDR2
ASUS M3a79-T deluxe
For £284.97

or

AMD Phenom II X3 720
Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4p
Corsair 4gb DHZ of DDR3
for £312

And with that choice what Graphics card, monitor and cooler would you pair it with?

blop · 25 Feb 2009 at 15:45

help!! i want to buy

Kennysevenfold · 25 Feb 2009 at 15:45

i would go with option 1 mate

what budget are we looking at for a new graphics card, monitor and cooler.? :rolleyes:

blop · 25 Feb 2009 at 15:52

Im not sure on budget as i could afford more that i 'should' spend so id be intrested more in getting whatever the sweet spot is for the system....

I want to buy something that wont be bottle necked by my cpu but would give me the max amount of performance for £....doesnt help you does it!! Did consider a 4850x2 but want to know if that board(s) could support them

monitor i was wanting a reasonable one for around 250

ro55o · 25 Feb 2009 at 15:57

Option 1 will be just as quick for gaming. I'd pair it with the powercolor 4870 on offer

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-091-PC&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=939

Get a 24" monitor to make the most out of all this power, samsungs are a good bet

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-099-SA&groupid=17&catid=510&subcat=

If 24 is too big, then go for a 22" full HD monitor, offers a slightly lower resolution than the 24

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-013-AS&groupid=17&catid=949&subcat=

As for the cooler, again depends on budget

The cheaper side of it
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-000-AR&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

Mid range
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-002-SB&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

High end
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-002-NC&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

Kennysevenfold · 25 Feb 2009 at 16:00

Product Name Qty Price Line Total

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2048MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail (11139-00-40) £287.49
(£249.99) £287.49
(£249.99)

Samsung SM2443BW 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor £224.24
(£194.99) £224.24
(£194.99)

Zalman CNPS9300-AT CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £29.89
(£25.99) £29.89
(£25.99)

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £6.89
(£5.99) £6.89
(£5.99) Sub Total : £476.96 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DHL Select Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.99 VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £73.04 Total : £559.99

ro55o · 25 Feb 2009 at 16:01

blop said:
Im not sure on budget as i could afford more that i 'should' spend so id be intrested more in getting whatever the sweet spot is for the system....

I want to buy something that wont be bottle necked by my cpu but would give me the max amount of performance for £....doesnt help you does it!! Did consider a 4850x2 but want to know if that board(s) could support them

monitor i was wanting a reasonable one for around 250

The 4850x2 would work fine on that board, it has slightly better performance than the 1gb 4870, obviously at a higher cost. If I remember rightly from reviews it was beating the GTX280 in most games, though I'm sure that was the 2gb 4850x2.

The mobo you've shown is crossfire capable, so if you need a bit more GPU power down the line then you can add an additional 4870.

nubonamission · 25 Feb 2009 at 16:02

Swap the Arctic Silver 5 for some OCZ Freeze Extreme! Cheaper and better =]

blop · 25 Feb 2009 at 16:04

Ive just had a look and i cant decide between the gigabyte ddr3 board and the asus ddr 2 board. I really wanted e-sata...and the asus does not have it

Kennysevenfold · 25 Feb 2009 at 16:06

nubonamission said:
Swap the Arctic Silver 5 for some OCZ Freeze Extreme! Cheaper and better =]

everyones opinion

Kennysevenfold · 25 Feb 2009 at 16:06

blop said:
Ive just had a look and i cant decide between the gigabyte ddr3 board and the asus ddr 2 board. I really wanted e-sata...and the asus does not have it

then go for that....if it better suits your needs mate

blop · 25 Feb 2009 at 16:08

I got excited by the cheap Asus B grade board...im not sure im ready with my decision yet....im gonna hold off i think.

damn that was close...

are those Samsung monitors capable of having an xbox plugged in?

ro55o · 25 Feb 2009 at 16:20

blop said:
I got excited by the cheap Asus B grade board...im not sure im ready with my decision yet....im gonna hold off i think.

damn that was close...

are those Samsung monitors capable of having an xbox plugged in?

You can via a DVI cable, or else get a monitor that has a HDMI socket, the 22" asus I linked to has this and full HD capabilities.

blop · 25 Feb 2009 at 16:28

That asus 22" is nice! and i love the price...i never considered a 22 before thank you.

Can you tell me what i need to get in a mobo that will allow me to use to 2 4850x2 in crossfire?

ro55o · 25 Feb 2009 at 16:38

blop said:
That asus 22" is nice! and i love the price...i never considered a 22 before thank you.

Can you tell me what i need to get in a mobo that will allow me to use to 2 4850x2 in crossfire?

Yeah the new 22" monitors coming out have a higher resolution than before, offering full HD resolution. For the price the Asus does look good.

For 2 x 4850x2's you need a crossfire capable mobo. At the moment I don't think a lot of things support 4 GPU's and might cause a few problems with driver issues. One should do at the moment though (It's the third most powerful card out). Both mobo's you spec'd are crossfire capable, they will run both cards at x8, instead of the full x16, but shouldnt really show much of a difference. For the full x16, you either need an X48 or 58 board, which means going for intel.