ready for a new build

[splatee]

Hello,

Well it has been awhile since i have been on the forum. I had to set up a new user name couldn't retrieve my old one.

I am looking to upgrade my aging AMD xp2500 barton with a whopping 512 megs of memory I had this watercooled and overclocked back in the day until my pump went out and i went back to stock. I am looking to do a modest upgrade i guess. It will be mainly for media streaming to ps3, and some gaming. I am planning on using some of my existing hardware. Here is what i was thinking about..

AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition
BIOSTAR TA890FXE AM3 AMD 890FX
A-DATA Gaming Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3
SAPPHIRE 100294L Radeon HD 5550 1GB 128-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.0

As for hard drives i have 2 x WD original Raptors 36 gig for raid 0

I plan on adding a Blu-Ray burner and 1T hard drive later on. I was going to run win XP on this, will i run into issues?

Any thoughts and suggestions would be great. I would like to unlock to a 4 core and maybe a little overclocking down the road.

Thank you

 

[Zok.S.e]

You could upgrade the 5550 to the 5570 on scan.co.uk that's a £1 upgrade.

 

[QuietIce]

I'd say you've got some good choices there - but I won't comment on the video choice, not my area of expertise. The 890FX board gives you lots of CPU updgrade options down the road and 2x2 Gb of RAM should be fine over the next 2-3 years if you're a casual gamer like I am. There is one thing you didn't mention and that's a CPU heatsink. The stocker will be fine for stock speeds but if you're going to OC you'll probably need an after-market cooler of some kind. If your case is big enough for a vertical heatsink I'd suggest the Sunbeam CCT 120mm, a very good cooler, especially for the price ($25 MIR at Newegg).

Most X3s (but not all!) will unlock to a quad - it's always a question of how high they will overclock once you do that. And a quick tip while I'm thinking about it. When you get your system assembled compare the CPU temp to the core temp while it's under load (Prime95 or OCCT) to see how close they match. Once you unlock the core you will no longer be able to get a core temp reading - that's part of the price for the extra core - and most of us use load core temp as the main reference for temps. If you know what the difference is in the readings between "CPU" and "core" then you can use the CPU temp (with a possible correction) for your core temp ...