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S

Swimma

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Mar 15, 2008
Location
Farmington, MN
My motherboard has died so its time to upgrade the old system.... looking to upgrade to an AM3 board, new CPU, RAM and GPU. Any suggestions? i'm looking to spend around 500$. (I usually game and watch movies.) I am way behind on all the new cpus, gpus i don't know what to do or where to began.

Thanks.
 
You should probably add a good air cooler to that list of parts. Are you in the USA? It makes a difference what's available to you and what we would recommend if you are not.

And what about your PSU? If the one you have is old and small and a low quality you ought to look at that too.
 
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Heres a decent Mobo/RAM combo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.493086

The 790X chipset, (this board specifically) will get you a lot of the bells and whistles that the 890GX boards offer, but at slightly less cost. If your looking for something more suited for overclocking, crossfiring/SLI (hack with AM3 boards), and more intense gaming, I'd look at a 890FX or even 790FX board.

But that leads me to ask, what kinds of games are you playing? If you play on your 22" monitor, your resolution is (correct me if I'm wrong) 1680x1050? At that resolution, you could get away with a card like a 5770 and play things fairly well (like myself) for around $160. You could spend $20-$30 more and get a 5830, which would be a big bump up, or you could spend between $200-$230 for a GTX 460, which has been dubbed the best card for that price/performance in that general area. But then it comes down to your budget as well. If you want/need a quadcore for gaming, I'd say go with the Phenom ii 955. But AMD offers plenty of options for an AM3 socket gaming chips. I love my 550, but if you have the budget, get something with more muscle. I'd look at the PHii x3's, x4's even the athlon ii x4's. You should choose according to what you think you need. The 955BE will run you $155ish, so that specific Mobo/RAM/CPU combo totals $340. Obviously, the more/less you spend on a CPU will influence how much your budget will be left for a decent HSF (which I would recommend getting) and a GPU. But let us know specifically what you game/plan on gaming, and what you might be doing down the road.

In short, my personal opinion is, don't half *** it, save the extra $50, and buy the Mobo/RAM combo, a 955BE w/ heatsink, and a GTX460 1GB. If your penny pinching, think hard about everything you might do with your computer.
 
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Just built a Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4 with 965 BE, 4 Gb. of Corsair, Sapphire 5770 and Enzotech Extreme-X heatsink. Excellent package and value for $635. The 955 and boxed fan/heatsink will get you closer to the $500 price point.
 
X@nder36 said:
Heres a decent Mobo/RAM combo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.493086

The 790X chipset, (this board specifically) will get you a lot of the bells and whistles that the 890GX boards offer, but at slightly less cost. If your looking for something more suited for overclocking, crossfiring/SLI (hack with AM3 boards), and more intense gaming, I'd look at a 890FX or even 790FX board.

But that leads me to ask, what kinds of games are you playing? If you play on your 22" monitor, your resolution is (correct me if I'm wrong) 1680x1050? At that resolution, you could get away with a card like a 5770 and play things fairly well (like myself) for around $160. You could spend $20-$30 more and get a 5830, which would be a big bump up, or you could spend between $200-$230 for a GTX 460, which has been dubbed the best card for that price/performance in that general area. But then it comes down to your budget as well. If you want/need a quadcore for gaming, I'd say go with the Phenom ii 955. But AMD offers plenty of options for an AM3 socket gaming chips. I love my 550, but if you have the budget, get something with more muscle. I'd look at the PHii x3's, x4's even the athlon ii x4's. You should choose according to what you think you need. The 955BE will run you $155ish, so that specific Mobo/RAM/CPU combo totals $340. Obviously, the more/less you spend on a CPU will influence how much your budget will be left for a decent HSF (which I would recommend getting) and a GPU. But let us know specifically what you game/plan on gaming, and what you might be doing down the road.

In short, my personal opinion is, don't half *** it, save the extra $50, and buy the Mobo/RAM combo, a 955BE w/ heatsink, and a GTX460 1GB. If your penny pinching, think hard about everything you might do with your computer.
Click to expand...

I like to play new FPS, RTS and i forgot to mention i would like to play on my 32" 1080 120 hertz tv. I definitely agree with you on spending the extra 50$ for the better quality.
Thanks!
 
Processor choice will depend a lot on the specific games you run and how long you will be keeping this machine. Not many games use more than two cores, making an X3 (two cores for the game, one for the OS/sounds/misc) the best choice. As time goes by more and more games will use four cores so if you plan on this rig lasting three years it might be better to grab a quad to prepare for the next generation of games.

The combo X@nder36 listed above is a good choice and probably what I would buy if I were in your position.

A good CPU cooler (at this week's prices) would be the Hyper 212 Plus, assuming your case is wide enough.


Good luck and post back with any other questions or concerns ... :)
 
I was big nVidia fan back the days but after having so many issues with their chipset and video cards. I totally converted to full AMD/ATi solution no more nforce chipset no more nVidia so that makes my life bit easier to choose stuff from. so you can choose whatever side you can go on and stick with it using rational or irrational reasoning ... it doesn't matter LOL

I'm middle of debating what I should get for my system. but I almost decided that I should get the X6 1090T because I do some encoding and don't want the 1055T because its clock speed is low (but then this OCforums I should be overclocking that but not feeling like to). also no uATX so my options narrowed down to this http://products.amd.com/en-us/recom...1090T&f3=E0&f4=AMD&f5=&f6=&f7=ATX&f8=125.000&

BTW there are tons of idiots on newegg putting bad reviews so not all of them are accurate so watch out. I had a personal experience with one of the idiots who tried to setup his DFI mobo and he was so careless he totally mounted the mobo wrong on the case and God knows what he did when he tried to put on the CPU and heatsink. so in the end it had tons of problems then he was going oh I got a defective product. nah it was all ok till he touched it!

next step SATA and USB don't you want the latest?

case and PSU oh my... it's a nightmare if you have good case and PSU then maybe you're a lucky one. Everytime I'm about to make decision then boom found something interesting about the case or PSU

for RAM I looked around and always say my G-Skill RAM is not working on this mobo! not sure it's just by chance or some type of compatibility or user error?!! but to play it safe looks like I'm staying away from G-Skill at which bandwidth I'll go back to tom's hardware and look at these numbers soon if it makes any difference.

it looks like it's going to take forever for me to decide on stuff. we'll see who will built the computer first your or me LOL

ok I'm done with my babbling for today :blah::blah::blah:
 
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