Best bang for the buck - CPU/Mobo combo

I dont know about that.. July will be conroe and it wouldnt be a hard decision..

all the reviews Ive seen that say that A64 is better then Pressler didnt have maxium OC's.. and seeing the max OC's here tell me if you look at the results pressler eeks out DC A64 with top clocks..

your PSU will be hurting with pressler though

I would think the intel system would be a bit smoother to run day to day personaly.. Ive worked on AMD and Intel systems.. If I liked the rough feel I would go for the AMD DC personaly.. (I am hyper sensitive to how a machine runs... so if your not ignore this statement)

I think the 8XX DC's just Peed too many people off, that and other factors like NV not playing nice with no decent OCed SLI with your intel is also a factor for some..
CF is the other way around though..
this is big budget desicions I think though..

I think people may be getting ahead of themselves.

I'm looking to build a new rig for basic use, internet, CAD, photo editing, maybe some video down the road, DVD burning and some light gaming. Just looking for some recommendations on a CPU, Mobo combo to look towards... I'd like to keep it at or around $300 if possible, but wouldn't have a hard time spending more.

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A few people were talking about high HTT and overclocking and such. He/she hasn't said if thats one of the aims (of course, its a possibility given that this is the OC Forums). If you're looking for a basic, stable system thats not meant to push the limits of the hardware installed, grab an Asus, Epox, or ASRock S754 or S939 board and an entry level CPU. On the Intel side I believe that Epox and Gigabyte make fairly good economy boards. You may not set a world record if you choose to overclock the system but you won't be upset if you're just looking for a nice machine that *can possibly* be tuned or just left alone until its outdated. That will run you between 150-230. You can spend the rest of the money on a nicer video card or plenty of good memory.

I've been very impressed with the performance of the 805 system I put together at work. Does great in Photoshop.

killerbobjr said:

Hands down, best combo going right now:

CPU: Opteron 146 $143
Motherboard: ASRock 939SLI32-eSATA2 $81
Video: eVga 7600GS with active cooling [url="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130011]$99[/url]

Total: $345

The ASRock ULi based board can overclock higher than nVidia nForce boards. It also has gigabit ethernet and firewire while the Epox board doesn't. The 7600GS is overclocked beyond 7600GT speeds and performs much better than a stock 7600GT. Two of them in SLI will give you better than 7900GT performance. Throw in some cheap memory (for AMD CPUs, memory performance is nowhere near as critical as CPU MHz) and you got yourself a smoking budget system.

- kbj

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I second killerbobjr's recommendation. This hardware combo is probably the best bang-for-the-buck right now. I used the ASRock board for my father-in-law's computer and it is rock solid and easy to overclock.

I don't think you should wait around for "the next best thing". There will always be something better on the horizon, and when it finally arrives there is usually a price premium along with some kinks that need to be worked out. The socket 939 platform and chipsets are very mature now and can be had for very cheap. Despite what greenmaji says, there are some excellent cheap S939 boards like the aforementioned ASRock board. To me it seems like clear cut decision.

I dont have anything against the 805D, even if you want to OC it for some reason its doing very well for being a 8XX.. Im not too wild about DC prices on AMD's side of things right now though..

killerbobjr's suggestion is a good route to single core..
and a 805 system would be a good route to dual core.. the 805 results thread has plenty of suggestions for mobo's and PSU's that will get you great results without spending big $$$.. mobo's start out around $100 and the CPU can be nabed up at $126 on sale, PSU will cost a little more (you need some good 12V rail voltage if you ever want to OC..) so the cost is about the same... I would think this would be the better bottom line bang for the buck system right now.
bottom line bang/buck looks that way