HELP ME DECIDE!!!!

[NEWYORKJETS000]

UGH! i cant decide what cpu and board to get.....i dont game that much i play halo mayb once a month so i dont really need a gaming pc.. i have 512x2 oc pc3200 and a 120gig sata. im tryin to keep this under 200bucks for board/cpu if u can give me some suggestions i would b really happy.

 

[DrMrLordX]

You need the cheapest S939 setup you can get if that's the RAM you want to use. You might get more responses if you don't use all caps *)

Maybe a 3000+ Venice E6 + board? You overclocking any?

 

[TSS]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103535 looks like a good CPU deal
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130491 for a motherboard maybe... havent been able to find much about it, but i thought MSI was pretty good, atleast for the price range thats in.

according to a small article on extremetech it can handle AMD X2's if you ever want to upgrade, and it pretty much has the standard Nforce 4 features at a low price. source:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1835751,00.asp

itll set you back about 250 in total, which isnt bad for a good proc and reasonable motherboard.

 

[BW86]

You can get some nice s754 cpu+mobo bundles for ~$200 over at tigerdirect.

 

[klocwerk]

depends on what upgradability you want.
Get a socket754 for cheap if you don't mind replacing the mobo next time you upgrade. they're really cheap right now because the socket has no future.

If you want to be able to upgrade it, go with the s939 Asrock mobo that newegg has for like $60, then blow the rest of your wad on your cpu and/or video card. The asrock will take an AGP or a PCI-e, and there's good deals to be had on solid AGP cards in the ForSale forum since everyone's going to PCI-e. Also it will apparently be upgradable to the M2 socket due out this winter for the next gen of AMD procs.


It's a good time to be building a cheapo workstation since so many people are migrating to s939/PCI-e right now.

 

[klocwerk]

Asrock board is this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157081
and it's $68.
Definitely the way to go for a budget 939 system.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: NEWYORKJETS000
UGH! i cant decide what cpu and board to get.....i dont game that much i play halo mayb once a month so i dont really need a gaming pc.. i have 512x2 oc pc3200 and a 120gig sata. im tryin to keep this under 200bucks for board/cpu if u can give me some suggestions i would b really happy.

You didn't mention your video...do you have a good card or are do you want onboard. If you have a card, is it AGP?
If you want upgradeability, try this mobo and a Venice 3000+ A64 ($231 total).
For less upgradeability and lower cost, try this mobo and a Sempron 3400+ ($185 total)

Both will give you an onboard GeForce 6100 and a PCIe slot for upgrade...

 

[NEWYORKJETS000]

thanks for the replys....im tryin to get the cpu/board and a low cost video card(plays halo good) all for 200 bucks i was lookin at the 754 setups but they dont use dual ch is that bad? will i be able to tell?

 

[Markfw]

Dual channel doesn;t really matter much for Athlon64.

 

[Icepick]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Dual channel doesn;t really matter much for Athlon64.

Yup. It's more of a marketing gimmick than anything else.

 

[NEWYORKJETS000]

ttt

 

[DrMrLordX]

I mentioned s939 since he might have trouble using 2x512mb DIMMs in a s754 setup. some people have problems with this, some don't. It's guarenteed to work on s939.

 

[Markfw]

I have 2x512 in 3 different s754 setup, on 3 different motherboards, and OC'ed (a little) no problem. Where did you get that from ?

 

[DrMrLordX]

How many of those setups are at 2T timings and/or DDR333 speeds? Some people get this problem, some people don't. It's been mentioned hundreds of times on these forums.

 

[fbrdphreak]

First: http://labs.anandtech.com AT RTPE, Learn It, Live It, Love it

Second: any AMD CPU + mobo will run you about $200, maybe a little less. Either way, not enough left over for a video card worth any money.

I don't know what will play Halo these days, probably anything in the Radeon 9600 range or higher, but you're wasting your money if you try to spend $50 on a GPU these days. Get the rest of your system together so you have it running. Save your money and then buy a GPU worth your time. X800GTO, 6600GT, 6800GS, etc.