CPU help

[james 1]

Hi guys

I been running an old sony vaio laptop for about 4 years and the 1.6ghz intel processor is starting to show its age, I thought I could hold on until bulldozer came along but waiting 10 mins for your system to start up really ticks me off and I recently went down a mates house and he had a i7 920 oc to 3.8ghz and I found out what I been missing out on therefore I decided to make a brand new system ground up.

Well I don?t want i7 920 I think it?s to grown up for me seeing that this will be my first build also I don?t have the pocket for the 920 lol. So I have decide to build a very cheap system with a good CPU because I want learn how to overlclock and cause it?s a cheap CPU and if I do wreck it up it won?t hurt my pocket that much.

My budget is £400 for the whole system and I have set aside £150 for a mobo and cpu at the moment I am leaning towards a dual core phenom and a 790GX chipset.

I will be doing some gaming and web surfing some of the games I will play are, Crysis
COD 4, GRID, them sort of games.

What I want to know:

Is this a good overclocker for noobs
Is it a good gaming CPU
Will it keep up until bulldozer comes out

If you guys think there are better options out there I would like to know about it.

Thanks

 

[james 1]

Oh I was thinking about getting a 4770 I hear good things or shall I wait until the next gen of GPU are out? which are around the corner

 

[james 1]

anyone

 

[SonnyDaze]

On your budget ($250USD) I would go for a Phenom II x3 720 ($119 USD) and a Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P motherboard ($110USD) The 720 is said to overclock well. For a video card look at least a 4850 (these can be found for about $100USD) or 4870.

Btw, GRID is awesome. I just started playing it last week and I'm on season 6.

 

[MODEL3]

Use http://geizhals.at/eu it includes many english stores and is very easy to use.

If you want to overclock a little bit:

get a Intel 5300 2,6Ghz at 52 euro and you can easily overclock it at 3,46GHz.

For something faster get a Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2,8GHz at 89 euro.


If you want AMD get a AMD Athlon II X2 240 2,8GHz at 47 euro

For something faster get a AMD Phenom II X2 545 3,0GHz at 71 euro


For VGA get a ATI 4850 1GB at 89 euro or GeForce GTS 250 1GB at 89 euro.


For mobos there are many options...

Example: ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO, 785G at 58 euro.

 

[betasub]

waiting 10 mins for your system to start up

Sounds like your problem is more than just your CPU.

While you are sorting out your new build, have you optimised your harddrive and boot up, to keep your current system snappy? Defrag, CrapCleaner, MSconfig start-up utility can all help. This is assuming you have enough memory and a decent hardrive already...

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I can believe 10 min. I have Black Berry and the 'desktop manager' software for it was causing extremely long boot up times. It had to do with something roxio included in the app. I disabled it, boots up the same now.

 

[james 1]

Originally posted by: betasub

waiting 10 mins for your system to start up

Sounds like your problem is more than just your CPU.

While you are sorting out your new build, have you optimised your harddrive and boot up, to keep your current system snappy? Defrag, CrapCleaner, MSconfig start-up utility can all help. This is assuming you have enough memory and a decent hardrive already...

lol its true, i have to wait ten mins, i use ccleaner, advanced windows care to take care of all those programs that i dont want to run on start up and i defrag once every week.

anyway heres some processors i think that might go well with the system i want:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products...Hz-3MB-Cache95W-Retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products...-HT-2000MHz-65W-Retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products...-HT-4000MHz-85W-Retail

i reckon the phenom ii dual core is the best bet out of that list, cause i hear its a good overclocker and well i might be able to unlock it but thats all luck

i was also considering, a tri core phenom ii, or i might wait a little because amd might drop the price on their quad core range due to the intro of the i5/i7 also does that mean that the socket 775 will drop in price as well?

 

[Arkaign]

Get the 720 Black Edition if you're going PhII 6MB L3 + Unlocked Multiplier. It's definitely worth the small amount of extra expense.

Socket 775 will only drop in price in the used market, Intel typically doesn't discount older products in the distribution stream, they just let the retailers sell them through and discount them if they wish. Lower-end will be the forthcoming i3, Socket 775 is going away as far as any new releases are concerned. Current S775 users need not really worry though, the platform should be good for a while yet, similar to how Socket 939 was still viable long after AM2 came out, provided you had a decent chip.

 

[james 1]

ok i think iam getting a genral opinion that go with either a dual core phenom ii or a tri core phenom ii, i dont think i will go for the intel option one because the 775 socket won't get any new updates to their line of CPU and if i get a AM3 cpu, i dont mind getting a AM3 mobo cause i hear about the amd six-core thuban processor comeing onto the market.

 

[james 1]

what do you think the price of an i3 will be?

 

[Lemon law]

It seems like our OP, james1, is bitching about two different things. (1) Glacially slow boot up times. (2) The ability to be competitive in gaming.

And then seems to think that the cure all lies in the cpu and the mobo.

And to address only point #1, I am willing to bet our OP has a pile of bloatware start up programs that boot up every time that are rarely needed.And while I for one refuse to gut a computer security system just to get a faster boot up, replacing something like a bloatware security apps like Norton with leaner and meaner security apps reduced my boot times by three measurable minutes without compromising security with an older athlon XP1500+ and the doubling memory to 512 MB also dramatically reduced boot times. Now we have faster sata drives and even faster solid state drives to reduce boot times. But I am still confident our OP could knock five minutes off his boot time, without spending a dime
just by pruning his start up list using msconfig. And still have his cake when needed by clicking the icon when that program is needed.

Point #2 is far more complex, and right now its gamers that drive the cutting edge of the need for ever more computer speed. Even though video editing and high end Cad users are in the same boat. Almost everyone else already has more speed than they need. Right now some gamers could easily justify spending more than our OP's entire budget for a faster GPU or two, do the same with a bunch of faster DDR3 memory, and not even touch the cpu or mobo. And no matter how much cpu speed, memory, and video refresh rate you have for gaming, there will always be that future game around the next corner that will require even more overall speed to just to make the game barely playable. Not being a member of the gaming obsessed puts me in a position of being able to feel superior, but I still have to admit its a somewhat harmless obsession because it keep them at home and away from socially damaging mischief others engage in. And when my older computer suffered from hardware failure, I bought the middle, a fairly cheap overclockable mobo and an E5200. Its the fastest computer I ever owned, but I don't pretend to think it will keep up with the system a gamer really wants or needs.

And as long as Moore's law continues to hold, the longer you wait, the faster computer you can buy with the same money. And I benefit from the people willing to spend the big bucks to get the fastest current computer because they fund the R&D needed for ever faster computers.

And my parting advice to james 1 is, now that you have found someone to teach you the ropes of overclocking, don't let your money burn a hole through your pocket, wait and learn, and then try to get the best bang for your buck. And in terms of the games you play and want to play, some of them are delimited by your GPU or memory, and hence raw cpu speed may not be the only holy grail. And as the new new new wears off those fastest CPU's, a price drop is just around the corner. The wise person who is money challenged waits for those price drops before buying, but they never get to be king of the hill for a few weeks either.

 

[james 1]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
It seems like our OP, james1, is bitching about two different things. (1) Glacially slow boot up times. (2) The ability to be competitive in gaming.

lol bitching

anyways so u think i should wait, that was what i was thinking as i said in one of my other posts, but if play the wait game what kind of price drops can i expect? also i did i rethink of my budget its gone up to about £450-500 for the base unit which i think will give me a good entry level gameing rig

 

[Lemon law]

Originally posted by: james 1

Originally posted by: Lemon law
It seems like our OP, james1, is bitching about two different things. (1) Glacially slow boot up times. (2) The ability to be competitive in gaming.

lol bitching

anyways so u think i should wait, that was what i was thinking as i said in one of my other posts, but if play the wait game what kind of price drops can i expect? also i did i rethink of my budget its gone up to about £450-500 for the base unit which i think will give me a good entry level gamein====================================================================

No, james1, I think you missed the point I was trying to make. Computer State of the arts is always more expensive than anyone else without really deep pockets can afford. Upping your budget a tiny bit will do little to elevate you to that top, but your previous budget was more than enough to really do much better than what you now have.

But what you really need, IMHO, is a balanced upgrade that has enough of a combination CPU speed, overclockable ability, memory, and GPU ability to make you light years ahead of the gaming ability you now have.

If you are willing to up your budget by a factor of 4 or more, you can talk buying the best across the board, otherwise its best to cherry pick the best close to State of the arts bargains
and do damn near as well.

 

[james 1]

Originally posted by: Lemon law

No, james1, I think you missed the point I was trying to make. Computer State of the arts is always more expensive than anyone else without really deep pockets can afford. Upping your budget a tiny bit will do little to elevate you to that top, but your previous budget was more than enough to really do much better than what you now have.

But what you really need, IMHO, is a balanced upgrade that has enough of a combination CPU speed, overclockable ability, memory, and GPU ability to make you light years ahead of the gaming ability you now have.

If you are willing to up your budget by a factor of 4 or more, you can talk buying the best across the board, otherwise its best to cherry pick the best close to State of the arts bargains
and do damn near as well.

Yh I take that point into consideration but my budget has been upped because in the future I am looking to upgrade the CPU to the six core thuban and may be go xfire therefore I have made extra funds for a better PSU and not the crappie one that comes with cheap cases with I was going to get.