Need advice for a budget system...

[Raketa]

I'm building a budget system for a friend who's going to use it ~95% for office & internet use and ~5% for gaming. I think I want to go Intel, because I believe at this point they're better than AMD. I also think I'll a mobo with 965 chipset, since the system is never going to be OC'ed so I need it to run nicely for a few years. The reason I'm considering the E4300 or E4400 over the E6320 right now, is because with the money I save on the cpu I can get a little better graphics card, which I think will be much more significant in that case. Also about the RAM I don't know if I want to get 2GB now, or just get 1GB for now. Plz. advice.

 

[F1N3ST]

E4400, and 965 chipset mobos overclock the best even though your not going to be doing that, get an IB9 like I have, 73$ after rebate, does 375 FSB stable (Needs a BIOS update ABIT!)

 

[imported_maxdad007]

What kind of budget are you on and what parts do you need to pick up? I would say that even though intel is better if you are getting the budget cpu's ( 4XXX series) then I would go AMD since you can get a better $100 to $120 CPU from them then the intels, and usually the MB's are cheaper.

 

[bryanW1995]

I agree that with absolutely no oc the amd is a better deal right now. Of course, a 25 % oc on an intel is not really an overclock, that's just getting it back to where it would have been in the first place if amd had a competitive lineup!

 

[spinejam]

e4300 on a gigabyte P965 S3 w/ 2 gigs of supertalent ddr2 is a budget and will perform like a beast upon overclocking! i've purchased 2 e4300's (mwave & zzf) and both of them run @ 3.2ghz rock solid!

 

[harpoon84]

IMO a budget (non overclocked) system is better served with an AMD X2 3600+ or 3800+ type machine. A good $50 cheaper than the E4300, and AM2 mobos are a bit cheaper as well. For 95% office/internet and 5% gaming they will be MORE than enough power.

Sure E4300s and such are faster than the budget X2s, but they still cost a fair bit more.

 

[Raketa]

Thanks for all of your replies. My budget is ~$800 u.s and that includes a 19" LCD. Hearing what you're saying I'm leaning very much towards the E4300 now, though I'm also a little curious about the AMD lineup. Which setup from AMD would I be interested in at this point? Will it run cool and quiet with no OC? and how much future proof is it? I want a system that can do the above for about 5 years, it will be replacing a more than 4 years old AMD xp 1800+ system.

 

[VirtualLarry]

5 Years is a long time to keep any system, although I've been running an Athlon XP1800+ OCed to a 2000+ for quite some time now in my main rig. With all the price drops, now is a great time to upgrade. If you don't plan on OC'ing, then I agree, look at AMD. For future-proofing, look at their cheaper dual-core CPUs. (X2 3600, X2 3800). However, if you are overclocking, the C2Ds offer quite a bit of bang for their buck. There are also the new, lesser C2D chips, the E2xxx line, that's slightly cheaper than the E4xxx line, because they have less L2 cache installed. You could also get the AMD now, and overclock it later when you need more speed. C2Ds are definately a more powerful CPU though.