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Need some Hardware advice (AMD/Intel)

A

Alienwho

Diamond Member
I jumped on the deal at Newegg for an Antec Sonata which comes with an Antec 500W Earthwatts and AMD Brisbane 5400+ for $102 after rebate.

This was kind of an impulse buy. I'm planning on making this a server that will run a few VM's, and I might possibly use it as a media pc (someday) so I would like to plan for the future if possible.

Do I keep the AMD cpu and find a mobo/HSF/ram? If so, what do I get? I'd like to get all 3 for under $125 if I go this route. I don't even know if it's worth going this route. I have no idea how good this cpu even is since I haven't been keeping up to date.

Or do I sell this cpu and buy intel components? I'd like a mobo with onboard video and some decent features.

I don't know where to go from here.
 
If it's just for VM stuff and maybe streaming, you could stick with the AMD CPU and get yourself a 790G motherboard with acceptable onboard audio, some cheap RAM and a decent heatsink, given your low budget. It'd be fairly cheap, maybe cheaper than a comparable Intel build (seeing as the bottom end is the only place AMD are competing at the moment, unfortunately for us consumers).
 
Biostar makes nice mATX boards with onboard everything. The only downside is fewer SATA ports that a full-size board (if you're planning some massive software-based RAID5 array).

4+ GB RAM is what you need most for VMs, the CPU is secondary and the AMD is fine for it.
 
ASUS makes an awesome mATX 780G board, M3A78-EMH. Currently $85 with free shipping on NewEgg. 2 GB of DDR2800 is generally $20 after MIR, and that leaves you with a nice $30-40 for a Zalman HSF. Go for it.
 
740g is low-end, weakest IGP, fewest bells and whistles. 780g also comes in ATX, prtty sure, and has more powerfull IGP, and some more bells and whistles. 790g is high-end, used to crossfire or even qaudcrossfire AMD videocards.
 
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