$300 budget for new build

[dawgtuff]

I have $300 or so to spend on cpu/mobo/ram. I have everything else. I'm looking for a AMD Athlon II x3 or x4,or Phenom IIx3,4 that can be unlocked to x4 and can have the L3 cache unlocked to 6gb. The mobo doesn't need USB3 or SATA3 or built in video. I'm partial to ASUS, but another board with a a solid pbc and high quality caps will do. RAM- 4 sticks of DDR3 1.5 volt ( or would 2x2gb do as good?). I don't multitask much and I play a lot of older games. I'll probably buy StarCraft II, but I'm waiting for new games like the old Wing Commander-Edge of Chaos,etc. I'll be using a Viewsonic 21" full screen @1400x1050.
Items I've considered:
CPU: AMD x3 265
Phenom II x2 550 or 555 Black
" " x3 Black
" " x4 955 or 965BE
Athlon II x3 445 Rana
Mobo:
MSI 870(770 chipset) G45
Asus M4a77t\usb3
" M4a88TD-M
" M4a79XTD EVO
ASRock 770 Extreme 3 MB

I just did some checking on AMD's new offerings. They're coming out with Phenom II x2 560 and a Athlon x4 645. I"ve got a feeling these are just rebadged CPU's. What do you think?

 

[mfenn]

Don't think you'll find anything with 6 gigs of L3. 😉

With $300 to play with, you don't need to bother playing the "Will it unlock?" game.

Phenom II X4 955 + ASUS M4A785TD-M $215
4GB Mushkin RAM $75
Total: $290

 

[dawgtuff]

mfenn- Look again, there's a couple of CPU's I've listed that have 6 gigs of L3

 

[Dankk]

Dawgtuff, what you mean is 6 megabytes of L3, not gigabytes. A processor with that much cache does not exist.

 

[skulkingghost]

for a bit out of your price range (379) dell outlet has this:

* Inspiron Desktop 570 MiniTower
* Processor: AMD Athlon II X4 630 (2.8GHz, 2MB)
* Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
* 750 GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)
* 6 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz (3 DIMMs)
* 16X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability

 

[dawgtuff]

Oops, my bad. Yeah, 6 mb L3 is correct. I think I'll go with the PII 955, but I'm still looking at mobos. Skulk, thanks for the heads up on the Dell, but I'm going ahead with a new build.