AM2+ or AM3

[james 1]

Hi guys

I have decided to build a new system but I have a problem choosing the parts. At the moment these are the parts I have selected:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600: £ 57.10
Mobo: Sapphire 52026-00-40R: £ 95.21
RAM: Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) dominator: £ 50.00
GPU: Sapphire HD 4870 512MB: £ 51.68
Hardrive: Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB: £ 48.49
CD-Rom Drive: £ 14.99
PSU and Case: Coolermaster Centurion 5 All Black Case with 550wat psu: £ 70.17

Here are the questions which I have

1) Do you think this system is a good gaming rig?
2) Should I spend about £200 more and upgrade to a AM3 mobo and a AM3 chip i.e. phenom ii and if so which phenom ii chip and AM3 mobo should i choose

 

[AstroGuardian]

1. Your CPU is the bottleneck here.
2. Motherboard is kinda expensive for a budget system. By the looks of it, i think you are talking about a budget system.
3. The Dominator is perfect for gaming
4. The VGA is perfect for gaming

Bottom line, upgrade to Phenom if you want a good gaming rig.
Upgrade to Intel E7300 or better for best combination gaming rig. (Assuming you will OC the E7300 to 3,4GHz, stock cooler is fine).

 

[heyheybooboo]

Do you have a link as to where you will purchase your components? What is the resolution of your monitor?

The 790gx is a good choice for your motherboard. The X2 5600+ will be a slight bottleneck but you should be able to crank it to 3.2GHz so it will be a nice 'placeholder' until you are ready to invest in a Phenom II.

The current AM3 PhIIs function as both a DDR2 & DDR3 memory controller so a '710' or a '720BE' would work in your mobo if they are within your budget (and also work in a future AM3 mobo with DDR3).

 

[AstroManLuca]

However, it may not be worth it to go AM3 - motherboards are less plentiful and RAM is a little more expensive. More importantly, there is no real performance improvement.

The other thing is that AM3 motherboards only work with AM3 processors, so that limits you to the X3 710, X3 720, and X4 810. No X4 920/940 for you. An AM2+ motherboard, on the other hand, will support all current AM3 CPUs and also uses cheaper DDR2 and should be easier to find and cheaper.

 

[james 1]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
Do you have a link as to where you will purchase your components? What is the resolution of your monitor?

i will buy the parts from ebuyer.com and scan.co.uk and the resolution of the monitor will be 1680x1050

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

I noticed you are spending about £ 152 on the CPU/mobo combo. For about £ 165, you could get the Asus M3N78 & Phenom X3 710. Much more power.

 

[james 1]

Asus M3N78 I don?t think can support ATI cards and I want a ATI card, but I did look at a Biostar TA790GX-A2+ it looks like a great motherboard but I am not sure about Biostar as a motherboard maker have not really heard of them have any of you guys got a Biostar motherboard and how do you rate them.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Um, there's no reason a motherboard wouldn't support ATI video cards. Some of them only support dual-GPU configurations from nVidia (SLI) or ATI (Crossfire), but if you have a single card setup it doesn't matter which mobo you get.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: james 1
Asus M3N78 I don?t think can support ATI cards and I want a ATI card, but I did look at a Biostar TA790GX-A2+ it looks like a great motherboard but I am not sure about Biostar as a motherboard maker have not really heard of them have any of you guys got a Biostar motherboard and how do you rate them.

The maker/chipset of the motherboard has has no bearing on what video card it supports. Only Xfire or SLI. Like AstroManLuca said.

The Biostar T-series has been very good motherboards, in my experience. I've used a handful of them over the years, and have been very happy. I'm currently using a Biostar TA790GX in my main rig

Biostar has been around for a very long time. They have a history of producing budget and mainstream boards, but a few years ago began to cater to the enthusiast market with their "T" series. "T-force" is their top of the line, while the regular "T" is one notch down.

 

[james 1]

Maybe I should spend £250 more and get the dragon platform, and the am3 motherboard which will set me up for future upgrades i.e. new processors

 

[james 1]

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

The Biostar T-series has been very good motherboards, in my experience. I've used a handful of them over the years, and have been very happy. I'm currently using a Biostar TA790GX in my main rig

so what kind of GPU and CPU you running

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: james 1

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

The Biostar T-series has been very good motherboards, in my experience. I've used a handful of them over the years, and have been very happy. I'm currently using a Biostar TA790GX in my main rig

so what kind of GPU and CPU you running

I have a 8800gt and Phenom II X3 720, with the 4th core unlocked.

Since, in your OP, you specified an X2 5600, we all figured you were building a budget PC...

 

[Philippart]

in any case get a faster cpu!! X3s are great

 

[nenforcer]

If your going that route why not an X2 7750 ? These are Phenom X3 with the third core disabled, right? It's called an X2 but its really a Phenom. I wouldn't buy an X2 other than the 7750 now that Phenom ]['s are out.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: nenforcer
If your going that route why not an X2 7750 ? These are Phenom X3 with the third core disabled, right? It's called an X2 but its really a Phenom. I wouldn't buy an X2 other than the 7750 now that Phenom ]['s are out.

The X2 7750 is good if you're REALLY trying to save money, but because it's based on the Phenom I and not the Phenom II, its performance is mediocre. I'd go so far as to say that a 7750 would be a bottleneck for a Radeon 4870.

Instead, I'd go for a Phenom II X3 710 at least. They're about $120. Great deal, definitely worth the extra $50 or so over the 7750.

 

[AstroGuardian]

Unless you are all AMD fans, i suggest moving to P45/P43 and E7300 combination for the price range. Much more compatibility and much more power.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: AstroGuardian
Unless you are all AMD fans, i suggest moving to P45/P43 and E7300 combination for the price range. Much more compatibility and much more power.

Anand's testing would seemingly, one could even say universally, disagree with your sentiments.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: AstroGuardian
Unless you are all AMD fans, i suggest moving to P45/P43 and E7300 combination for the price range. Much more compatibility and much more power.

Much more compatibility with what? :disgust:

Unless you are an Intel fan, there is no real reason to go with an E7300. The E7x00's are pretty close in price to the Phenom II X3's, and the X3's are more powerful.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo

Originally posted by: AstroGuardian
Unless you are all AMD fans, i suggest moving to P45/P43 and E7300 combination for the price range. Much more compatibility and much more power.

Anand's testing would seemingly, one could even say universally, disagree with your sentiments.

Depends on a few things. The X3 720 gives better performance than the E7400, but it's also more expensive. Then again, the motherboards are also cheaper and there are a lot of discounts available at the moment. There's also the X3 710, which costs about the same as the E7400 and provides similar performance.

Then you have the E5200 to think about. If you overclock it, it can be almost as good as the E7x00 for quite a bit cheaper. AMD doesn't really have an answer for the sub-$100 range - the X2s are very disappointing and the E5200 whips them all.

Moving up, you also have the E8400, which is somewhat better than the X3 720 for games, but isn't as good for other general tasks. Price is about the same.

In short,

E5200 ($75) < X3 710 ($125) = E7400 ($120) < X3 720 ($145) < E8400 ($165)

Most of them are pretty good for the price. In fact, the E7400 strikes me as the worst deal since you can just overclock the much cheaper E5200 and get almost the same performance. All you lose out on is 1 MB of L2 cache.