Need opinions please....

motherboard
okay so i am a complete and utter noob at building rigs so i thought ide have a go at it... i am very accomplished on a computer but not in one lol...
basically what i aim to achieve is an affordable gaming tower... Sub £500...
i have seen a combo available that includes:
AMD QUAD CORE PHENOM™ X4 9350 2000MHz
4GB DDR2 800MHz memory included ( 2x 2GB DDR2 800MHz)
MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 Motherboard with performance heatsink and fan
NVIDIA® GeForce MCP61P (6150SE) chipset
Fast PCI-Express X16 graphics port for future graphics expansion
AMD Cool''n''Quiet™ technology
The MSI Live Update online
Integrated 6-channel High Definition audio
Features 10/100 Ethernet for fast networking and broadband
Expansion slots: 1 x PCI-E X16, 1 x PCI Express X1, 2 x PCI slots
Integrated SATAII with RAID function
1x IDE port for 2 x Ultra DMA133 devices, 4 x USB 2.0 ports

This costs 160 pounds and judging from previous comments im attaining that the motherboard is poop?... i would like to know the value for money on this buy and any other suggestions for other parts of the rig.... The computer is going to be used for casual gaming... Ie. not complete high performance... jus something that will run modern fps games as medium to high settings smoothly and will also act as my system for browsing the web and some music playing.... i know its alot to ask but as i said im just trying to get into this as it really interests me so ur help will go a long way ha.. thanks x

Those components are all very dated, cheap and inadequate for a gaming computer. It doesn't even have a graphics card. The Nvidia Geforce MCP61P is the on-the-motherboard video. You would do much better for your money by selecting individual components rather than a package like that. What country are you in? Product availability and pricing and shipping costs varies tremendously from one area of the world to another and it is difficult to recmmend parts unless we know where you live and what kind of venors are available to you.

i understand i was just looking at these parts to base my build around... i am a uk resident... i would like to know the best combination of cpu motherboard and graphics card thats affordble that will still allow me to play current games at medium settings

We would be glad to help and suggest some components but we need to know your budget, in UK money and in US dollars (I'm too lazy to do the math).

By the way, welcome aboard!

about 500 pound... which is roughly 800 dollars... and thank you... hoping to start the build soonish jus need to find a descent place to get parts and need alot of advice obviously lolll x

You can build a pretty good computer for that amount.

Okay, here are some "general" recommendations that are in keeping with your expressed intention of building "an affordable gaming tower . . . not complete high performance... jus something that will run modern fps games as medium to high settings smoothly and will also act as my system for browsing the web and some music playing". By general I mean not specific manufacturers and models in every case but technology guidelines that will allow you to find things in your market that would be similar to what is available to me here, within your budget parameters.

1. Case: midtower at least 20.3 cm wide from outside to outside to accommodate a tall CPU heatsink. Narrower cases just won't do. This case needs to be able to mount 4-5 120 mm or larger fans. Check on the Antec 300. About $60 U.S.
2. AMD Phemon II X4 BE 955 CPU. About $140 U.S.
3. Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus CPU heatsink. About $30 U.S.
4. Socket AM3+ ATX motherboard with an AMD 880 chipset. Four memory slots. Choose a board made by Asus, ASRock, Gigabyte or Biostar. $80-$110 U.S.
5. DDR3 1600 memory. 2 sticks of 2 gb each for a total of 4 gb. Get memroy with a CAS Latency (CL) of less than 9. Prices are great right now! $60 U.S. Avoid the models with tall heatsinks. They create clearance problems with the CPU heatsink.
6. Power Supply. 600 watts or a little more even. Get a quality brand. Don't skimp on this one. Your brands are very different in the U.K. than here but in the U.S. I would go with either a Corsair or an Antec. $80 U.S.
7. 500 gb 5.25" 7200 rpm SATA hard drive with 16 or 32 mb of cache. $50 U.S.
8. AMD/ATI Radeon 5570 video card with at least 500 mb of DDR3 or better memory. PCIe 2.0-2.1 x16 bits. $75 U.S.
9. Windows 7 64-bit OS. $100 U.S.
10. DVD SATA drive $25 U.S.

That's approximately $725 U.S.

Now you go find some specific make/models from U.K. vendors that fit these parameters that we can comment on. Get back to us with links to the products.

Zalman Z9 Plus Black Tower Case
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/cases/cases/zalman/z9p.html

These are the phenom x4's available to me am unsure what one is best for me..
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/processors/amdphenomx4/

Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/cooling/cpucoolers/RR-B10-212P-GP.html

Asus M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 AMD 880G (Socket AM3) ATX DDR3 Motherboard
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/...ipsetmotherboards/90-MIBCZ5-G0EAY0WZ.html#top

Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/.../ddr3-pc3-12800/1600mhz/CMX4GX3M2A1600C9.html

I am aware this isnt the very best i can buy but if i need to upgrade slightly just let me know.. or it it will suffice then that kool too lol...
Corsair CX 600W ATX2.2 Power Supply
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/powersupplies/corsair/cmpsu-600cx.html

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB 16MB Cache Hard Drive SATA II 300MB/s 11ms 7200rpm - OEM
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/...ernal/sata500gbto1tb/seagate/st3500418as.html

ASUS ATI Radeon 5570 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/...cards/atihd5500series/90-C1CNY0-L0UAN0BZ.html

Sony AD-5260S-0B 24x DVD+/-RW SATA Black - OEM
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/...ives/satadvdwriters/sony/ad-5260s-0b.html#top


These are the finds i have so far....
Total Basket Value: £466.81 inc vat

brennang02 said:

These are the phenom x4's available to me am unsure what one is best for me..
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/processors/amdphenomx4/

Click to expand...

The 955BE BOX version would be great for a gamer if you want any kind of future proofing at all. Very odd that the OEM version is more expensive than the BOX version, though, since they're the same processor but the OEM doesn't have a heatsink included.

I think the Corsair PSU is a good, solid choice. You'd probably have to spend a whole lot more than that to get a better PSU and you could easily spend as much for something not nearly as good. No reason to question that decision or apologize for it.

These arent set in stone but i think the pricing is quite cheap.. cheaper than i thought it was going to be anyways lol.... any ideas for a decent screen and speaker combo??

I like Bose speakers because I think they're the best at making small speaker systems sound like big ones.

I have no company preference for monitors. I go by the specs and price at time of purchase.

My only hesitation might be with the choice of video card. The low profile card you chose might not be a good choice from a heat dissipation standpoint as the PCB board doesn't have a lot of area to it and the fan looks a little puny. I applaud your choices in general, however. If you had a mind to upgrade one component on the list (to sink a little more money into it) to ensure a good gaming experience, it would be the video card. You might consider moving up to a the Radeon 5750 series which seems to run about $50 more U.S than the 5570.

Get this CPU: http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/components/processors/amdphenomx4/amd/hdz955fbgmbox.html

trents said:

My only hesitation might be with the choice of video card. The low profile card you chose might not be a good choice from a heat dissipation standpoint as the PCB board doesn't have a lot of area to it and the fan looks a little puny. I applaud your choices in general, however. If you had a mind to upgrade one component on the list (to sink a little more money into it) to ensure a good gaming experience, it would be the video card. You might consider moving up to a the Radeon 5750 series which seems to run about $50 more U.S than the 5570.
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+1, heres a list of some good 5750s.(sorry they are on Newegg, I just had to use their power serach feature to find this stuff)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...Manufactory=12287&PropertyCodeValue=679:50042