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Good MoBo and Paired Video Card for this CPU: Phenom II X4 830

C

Caveman

Platinum Member
Looking for best bang for the buck...

Specifically, for Video card, I'd want something that meets/slightly exceeds this CPU at 1600 x 1200.
 
If you are looking to just meet that resolution then I would recommend a GTS 450 / GTX 550 Ti 1GB GDDR 5 for a significantly lower cost (and lower performance).

I am also at the resolution and I went with a Geforce GTX 460 768MB ($170 w/ $30 rebate) which gives me more performance and the ability to go up to 1080P whenever that time comes for me.
 
Will you overclock? If so, you want a board that gives you a good chance to get the base clock into the 280+ range. The CPU is a C3 stepping Deneb, and should get you close to 4ghz with decent cooling, but in order to do that you need a board that will take you there.

If not, than virtually any AM3 board should be good enough.
 
$130AR 6850 1GB

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102908

or

$165AR 560 1GB

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102908

I wouldn't worry about an expensive mainboard, if you're not doing SLI/CF, or don't care about BD (which sucks anyway), then pretty much any decent $60-$70 AM3 board will be great for you. That said, that Asrock 970 Extreme for $85 is one hell of a bargain.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157280

You could get away with a lesser GPU, but in my experience it's a poor decision to think that you'll use a low resolution forever. Who knows, you may stumble on a deal on a great 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 monitor, and the extra HP from the 6850 or 560 will really help.
 
Maniac, in your opinion is the 830 an upgrade from a high overclocked c2d in modern games? trying to play bf3 on high 1440x900.
 
severus said:
Maniac, in your opinion is the 830 an upgrade from a high overclocked c2d in modern games? trying to play bf3 on high 1440x900.
Click to expand...

I had a Phenom II 805 and 955BE. They're certainly just as good as Core 2 Quad at roughly equal clock speeds, with the high end C2Q being a little faster (Q9550/etc), and the low end C2Q being a little slower (Q8200/etc).

So yeah, a good quad >>> a good dual for games that take advantage.
 
severus said:
Maniac, in your opinion is the 830 an upgrade from a high overclocked c2d in modern games? trying to play bf3 on high 1440x900.
Click to expand...


The last Intel CPU I owned was a PIII, so I couldn't really tell you. I went from the PIII to a K8 3200+ to a Kuma 7750BE (@3.1ghz) to a P2 940BE that never really worked right, and met an early death, and now to this.

To be honest, I really like this CPU. It runs cool and uses minimal voltage to overclock. (I'm currently at 1.33v) I'm stuck where I am because the board won't let me go any higher. As Arkaign said, Phenom 2 is about as fast as C2Q, and the C3 and E0 stepping chips are about as power efficient too (830 is C3) At $50 at Microcenter, if you've got a dual on an AM2 or AM3 board it's a no-brainer. If you're going to be buying an all new platform it's tough to argue against a 2500K, but the 830 puts up a good fight, especially if you have DDR2 RAM that you can re-use, as that would put the platform cost at around $100 vs. $330 for the i5.
 
If you are purchasing a new motherboard for that chip then its hard to recommend anything but an AM3+ board at this point which will give you an upgrade path to AMD FX chips in the future.

Here an Assrock EXTREME 4 AMD 970 chipset based board with both external and an internal USB 3 header

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157262

Here is a low cost AMD 990FX based board which doesn't support SLI (yet)

Biostar TForce TA990FXE AM3+

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138341

Both of these listed board will require new DDR3 memory.
 
nenforcer said:
If you are purchasing a new motherboard for that chip then its hard to recommend anything but an AM3+ board at this point which will give you an upgrade path to AMD FX chips in the future.
Here an Assrock EXTREME 4 AMD 970 chipset based board with both external and an internal USB 3 header
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157262

Here is a low cost AMD 990FX based board which doesn't support SLI (yet)
Biostar TForce TA990FXE AM3+
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138341

Both of these listed board will require new DDR3 memory.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I have to disagree with your recommendation from a value perspective. The potential advantage of the P2 830 is that it gives you the ability to build yourself a good mid-range PC very inexpensively. Once you start looking at $130 boards, the cost difference between the 830 and the 2500K gets small enough that it becomes difficult to recommend the 830.

If we take the $130 board you recommend, add in $25 for 4GB DDR3, and the CPU at $50, we're at $205. What do we get for that extra $100 or so? For a P2, DDR3 isn't a noticeable improvement over DDR2, so we get a couple USB3 ports, SATA 6, and a possible upgrade to BD. Most SSDs can't even saturate SATA3, so I don't view SATA6 as a "must have" feature at this point. At this point, I also think it's fair to say that most enthusiasts consider BD to be a disappointment unless you're encoding, and I doubt the OP is doing much encoding if he's on a dualie. That pretty much leaves USB3 as the only big advantage for going to a more expensive board, and you can take care of that a lot cheaper with an add-in card.
 
maniac5999 said:
Unfortunately, I have to disagree with your recommendation from a value perspective. The potential advantage of the P2 830 is that it gives you the ability to build yourself a good mid-range PC very inexpensively. Once you start looking at $130 boards, the cost difference between the 830 and the 2500K gets small enough that it becomes difficult to recommend the 830.

If we take the $130 board you recommend, add in $25 for 4GB DDR3, and the CPU at $50, we're at $205. What do we get for that extra $100 or so? For a P2, DDR3 isn't a noticeable improvement over DDR2, so we get a couple USB3 ports, SATA 6, and a possible upgrade to BD. Most SSDs can't even saturate SATA3, so I don't view SATA6 as a "must have" feature at this point. At this point, I also think it's fair to say that most enthusiasts consider BD to be a disappointment unless you're encoding, and I doubt the OP is doing much encoding if he's on a dualie. That pretty much leaves USB3 as the only big advantage for going to a more expensive board, and you can take care of that a lot cheaper with an add-in card.
Click to expand...

I agree.

I think this model is a better compromise. As long as you use single GPUs, it's got a really nice feature set and great reviews for $85

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687

Going too much more expensive than that raises the question of why not build an i5?
 
LiuKangBakinPie said:
ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 SATA6Gb/s USB3.0
GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 AMD970 SATA6Gb/s USB3.0

GPU
6870
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00..._ss_tl?ie=UTF8
Click to expand...

This^^^^^

1600x1200 resolution is not that much different from 1080p.

1600x1200 = 1,920,000 pixals
vs
1900x1080= 2,052,000 pixals

I had a gtx460 @ 930 core with a 1600x1200 monitor and a 1080p monitor and the fps was almost the same.

You should be shopping for a card that will push 1080p, and a 6870 will get the job done along with a gtx560 overclocked or regular gtx560ti. Anything more your cpu will hold back, unless you overclock.

A 5770 or 6770 will not do the job @ 1600x1200 with most games, thats the reason I upgraded to a gtx460 last year.
 
Last edited:
Arkaign said:
I agree.

I think this model is a better compromise. As long as you use single GPUs, it's got a really nice feature set and great reviews for $85

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&SID=u00000687

Going too much more expensive than that raises the question of why not build an i5?
Click to expand...

That looks like a good choice for Caveman, since based on his sig. he needs an entire new system, and if you're building new, there's no reason NOT to go with DDR3 at this point. Unless Severus wants to repurpose his C2D rig as a HTPC, I think he should look for a AM2+ board so he can re-use his RAM. (I'm assuming he doesn't have a DDR3 s775 board) Actually, at this point, if you're going AM2+, you're probably better off buying used anyway.
 
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