You're welcome.
The budget gaming article looks good.
Here's a CPU cooler that'll be $7 after rebate as of now. I use one on a somewhat
overclocked quad core intel Q6600, so it'll handle pretty serious overclocks on the
CPUs you're looking at, i.e. up to the reasonable limit of your CPU/motherboard.
It's a pain in the butt to install, though, and way bigger/heavier than it ought to be
but nothing will even come close to it for the current price. It should let you
overclock a fair bit more than the stock AMD/Intel cooler heatsink-fans, and
if you buy an OEM CPU you don't get the AMD/Intel heatsink-fan anyway so then
you'd certainly need to buy one.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/...p?ProductCode=10005496
Here's 2GB (2x1GB) of DDR2 for $40.
http://www.clubit.com/product_...8301&CMP=EMC-MIX110907
OCZ Platinum Revision 2 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-800 CL 4-4-4-15 ATI CrossFire Certified Dual Channel Kit Retail OCZ2P800R22GK
oh NEVERMIND wait...
Here's an EVEN BETTER deal on RAM:
4-4-4 timings for $30 after rebate.
http://shop2.outpost.com/product/5398158
OCZ EL DDR2 PC2-6400 / 800 MHz / Enhanced Latency / Platinum Edition / Dual Channel / OCZ2P800FR2GK
NOTHING is wrong with the ballistix, though you listed a $100 price for them, so,
whatever you get I wouldn't pay more than around $20/Gigabyte for decent
PC2-6400 DDR2 memory whoever you buy it from considering the prices like
the ones I mention are popping up all over every day.
Personally I'd go with the intel CPU bugdet gaming type setup; the article you
linked to said the Intel would be faster and overclock better, but the reason they
liked the AMD was mainly because the AMD motherboard could SLI two 8800GTs
whereas an Intel system could not. But honestly I doubt you'd ever want/need to
buy a SECOND 8800GT to add it to SLI, if you needed anywhere near that game
performance you'd be shopping for an all-around much higher end system.
And by the time you ever want something better than the 8800GT (mine arrived
today, I'm about to install it), in a year I'm sure the next generation model will be
out and it'd be a better deal for better performance to get ONE of those vs. a SECOND
8800GT. So overall I'd stick with the CPU that will overclock faster and perform
better TODAY if you have no other reason to prefer the AMD setup (which is fine,
but you seem to be after performance for the dollar, so I'm just saying get the best
deal you can).
Might not be too bad of a deal to look for the cheapest new OEM model or
even a used CPU from someone LOCAL who you 100% trust and maybe even
can see it WORK before they take it out to sell to you just to get whatever the best
CPU model for the dollar.
I think the ABIT IP35-E Motherboard seems to have some very NICE reviews
for being great performance for the dollar in a mid-range P35 chipset (very modern)
motherboard for Intel CPUs. You might compare its price / features / reviews to your
other options and see what works best for you.
Since you're giving away the old system vs selling the parts and keeping the
case/PSU, I'll say get a case with GOOD airflow and room inside as much as your
budget allows, and a good quality 550W PSU on sale somewhere (EarthWatts 550
is around $40-$49 when on sale sometimes);
the 8800GT is a great card and very low power FOR WHAT IT DOES,
but still between it and an overclocked CPU you will have a good amount of heat and
power drain, so don't let things get too hot.
BTW the current 8800GT driver has a bug that runs the fan speed too low so the
cards heat up too much in gaming because the fan is never told to spin faster when you
game and the card gets a lot hotter. You can use something like ntune or rivatuner
or whatever to force the 8800GT fan to spin at 60% or faster and it'll run MUCH
cooler which would be very good for it. Maybe they'll fix the problem by the time
you get it built, but if not, be aware to do this.
Frys -- AMD BE-2300 45W CPU + ASUS M2A-VM - $108.99 At your neighborhood Frys B&M
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2116530&enterthread=y
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...howdoc.aspx?i=3003&p=1
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/432
I don't know if that's a good deal on Motherboard and CPU or not. The overall price
is pretty low, and coupled with the 8800GT should be decent in games and the
anandtech review article benchmarks of the BE-2300 aren't too bad, but the CPU
is considerably slower than the X2-5000, so if you do have the budget to get
a faster CPU then of course that'll be faster for you at a price.
I didn't really look at the motherboard features to see if it's especially good/bad,
that's kind of subjective to your needs vs budget anyway.
Originally posted by: craftyy
Thanks for the reply QuixoticOne
The dual core Opterons are available for my 939 system, however they are $100 more, raising the price to ~$300 which would equal the cost of upgrading to a new, faster, platform.
I think based on the article on
budget gaming machines I will use the CPU/MB/memory suggested there. It is $100 out of my price-range, but seems to be the best bang for my buck.
Based on your recommendation I was considering selling my 939 mobo and DDR400 memory (both parts were very good to me for a long time), but I think they will make a good x-mas present as part of a non-gaming rig for my family.
These are the parts I am now considering:
AMD Athlon X2 5000+ (2.6GHz 89W Windsor 2 x 512KB L2) ($110)
Biostar TForce TF570SLI AM2 nForce 570SLI ATX ($88)
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-800 PC2-6400 ($100)
= $300
I think this is an acceptable rig, although over my budget by a slight margin. I'm going to hold off and not order until tomorrow in case there are more suggestions from the forum population.
Thanks
Facebook
Twitter