Need upgrade recommendation

[mooncancook]

My HTPC 939 mobo just died. Instead of trying to find another 939 board, maybe it's time to upgrade coz I think the X2 4600 might be bottle-necking the 8800GTS. I mainly use my HTPC for gaming (I'm slowly moving most of my games to the HTPC from my desktop) and watching streaming video and downloaded videos. The case is an Silverstone LC03. Maybe I can do some mild OCing in this case but nothing extreme. Budget is around $300 for CPU+mobo.

Here are some of my options:
1. ebay a 939 board and be done with it. cost < $100

2. AMD route
Phenom X4 9550 + MSI K9A2 CF-F. cost < $240 - $20MIR (fry's combo)
Phenom X4 9850 Black + MSI K9A2 Plat. cost ~ $330

3. Intel route
E8400 or E7300 or E5200, mobo undecided

Any recommendation? Note that my gaming resolution on the LCD TV is 1366x768 so the 8800GTS-512 should be plenty fast.

 

[Markfw]

I say the E8400 ($170), OC to 3.8 and I think there are some decent ASUS MATX G45 chipset motherboards for $120. Thats $50 more than the cheap AMD setup, but will absolutely kill it in performance. You could even leave the E8400 @ stock, and it will max your card I think, and be WAY cooler in an MATX setup.

Edit: I just looked up your other motherboard choices, and they are not MATX, so a P5Q pro is like $130, and a way better motherboard.

 

[mooncancook]

Thanks. I think I'm leaning toward the E8400. The only reason I'm considering a Phenom is just I prefer to support AMD... I don't like to see AMD tank and Intel dominate. so if an AMD chip can keep up with an Intel chip somewhat at the same price then i'll choose an AMD. Maybe AMD is falling a bit too far behind to justify that now?

And yeah I don't want a uATX board, I need the flexibility of an ATX.

 

[daveybrat]

If you decide to stick with AMD, then go with this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819103249

Can't really beat a Quad-Core Phenom @ 2.5GHz for $169 w/free ship! And the nice thing is you'll be able to upgrade to Deneb when it's available in January too! If you go with Intel, you'll be stuck with what you have since Nehalem will require a new socket/motherboard.

 

[Markfw]

For $10 more than that, he can get a Q6600 quad that will stomp that 2.5 phenom silly, especially if he overclocks it to 3.4

 

[cusideabelincoln]

You should consider a Phenom X3. They are cheaper than the X4s and would provide about the same performance per clock as their big brothers. They will also use less power and run cooler, and I doubt you'd notice the performance difference between the $115 Phenom 8650 and the $120 Core 2 Duo E7200. There's also a $135 Black Edition 8750, which will come with an unlocked multiplier for easier overclocking. Pair it, the 8750 BE, with this Asus 780G board and call it and your AMD support a day.

Otherwise, pick up an E8400 and an Intel G41/43/45 board. Also, don't forget to grab some DDR2 RAM, since the DDR1 RAM from your 939 board won't work with new boards.

 

[mindless1]

Option #1

If the HTPC needed more performance for your uses you would have upgraded it already before it died, plus moving gaming you still have mostly a video card limitation, and playing video at 1366x768, it's not as if some new even higher HD standard is going to come along in the near future to thwart your video playback. You'll need to check benchmarks carefully to see if the CPU can handle what you'd want to play.

Pick up a new or used skt 939 board somewhere, even better if it has the same chipset as the old one to minimize OS reconfiguration or not require reinstallation. Even if you had the brand new parts handed to you free, there's no reason to put them in your HTPC if it had enough performance already and still worked, it'd just be a waste of time (unless there were other issues you hadn't mentioned?).

Paying multiple times more for performance you don't need will just result in it depreciating over time. Check out ebay, by merely searching for "socket 9393 motherboard" I got 150 hits that were mostly priced under $60, with the obvious potential to pay a lot less if an auction instead of buy it now. If you can get a board for $40 that seems a good option, even if it isn't a long-term option it doesn't necessarily matter since you may save $200 or more that can sit in the bank till an upgrade is really needed, and you'd end up with more performance later when it's needed by merely delaying the upgrade until newer parts depreciate more on the retail market.

In short I'm saying, never buy for the future when there's a multiple hundred dollar price difference. There will be sales, rebates, faster parts in the future too.

The other option I would consider instead is rotating the desktop system board into the HTPC and upgrading the desktop system instead of new upgrade parts for the HTPC.

 

[Philippart]

get an AMD AM2+ board and a cheap CPU, you'll be able to upgrade to Deneb or even later AM3 CPUs without having to change RAM and motherboard. Since your usage is mainly HTPC, you could look for a Phenom 9350e or a 9100e/9150e, they only consume 65W and stay cool!

If you get MSI K9A2 CF-F, pay attention to buy revision 2, the first revision only supports CPUs up to 95W.

I wouldn't go the Intel route since you won't be able to upgrade in future, Nehalem has a new socket!

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Philippart


I wouldn't go the Intel route since you won't be able to upgrade in future, Nehalem has a new socket!

Yeah, right and the AM2+ mobos that are on the market now, will work great with Deneb. Get serious man, every time a new generation of cpus is released, you have to buy a new motherboard to really take advantage of your new chip.
AMD had to release a new south bridge to take the Phenom past 3 ghz, even though it worked fine in most AM2+ mobos. All the 9X50 series needed a new AM2+ motherboard and would not run, or have problems with the old AM2 boards.

So seriously, you're not going to be more future proof with AMD as you won't be with Intel too. They had the LGA 775 socket for some years now, but you can't use a Penryn chip, for example, inside a two years old 775 motherboard.

 

[mooncancook]

Thanks for the responses. Actually I might be able to fix the mobo. I'm going to re-solder a capacitor and see if it works. If it's fixed then I'll probably wait and save the money for the next round. Will I see a significant performance increase in today's game though if upgrading to something like an E8400? Right now the only game that I feel runs slow is Crysis (@1280x720), but I guess it's not worth it for just one game.

 

[Martimus]

Just wanted to bring up that you will need to buy new RAM as well, since the AM2 and LGA775 boards use DDR2, versus DDR on the S939 boards. Luckily that part is about as cheap as cheap can get right now.

 

[Kingbee13]

Since you'll be buying RAM and CPU and Mobo if your still in a 300 dollar budget range I'd pick the e7300 you can get that and a good P45 mobo for about 250, and 4gigs of cheap ddr2 should fit snugly into your $300 budget

 

[AstroGuardian]

there are DDR2 mobos with s939 as well

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: AstroGuardian
there are DDR2 mobos with s939 as well

No, they're not!!!!

 

[Kingbee13]

Originally posted by: AstroGuardian
there are DDR2 mobos with s939 as well

S939 CPUs have an integrated memory controller for DDR only.

DDR2 was introduced in the AM2 socket, thats why the socket changed

On the other hand you can still by a Scoket 775 board that supports DDR, but I wouldn't

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: Philippart
get an AMD AM2+ board and a cheap CPU, you'll be able to upgrade to Deneb or even later AM3 CPUs without having to change RAM and motherboard. Since your usage is mainly HTPC, you could look for a Phenom 9350e or a 9100e/9150e, they only consume 65W and stay cool!

If you get MSI K9A2 CF-F, pay attention to buy revision 2, the first revision only supports CPUs up to 95W.

I wouldn't go the Intel route since you won't be able to upgrade in future, Nehalem has a new socket!

You don't even know if deneb will require a socket change, and socket 775 will still be around for a while. If you wanted to upgrade then, you could get a new motherboard. It always seems to me that I do that every time I upgrade. I just can;t see recommending someone buy an AMD system now, that gets beaten badly in performance, in hopes that in the future, the upgrade path is better.

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: Kingbee13

Originally posted by: AstroGuardian
On the other hand you can still by a Scoket 775 board that supports DDR, but I wouldn't

The C2D chips actually ran just fine with DDR memory.
C2D on AGP 8x & DDR

Who knew that AGP 8x and DDR would still be this competitive after a myriad of chipset, memory, CPU, and GPU enhancements over the last three years?

But yeah, on the AMD side the S939 and AM2 socket chips have all had ondie memory controller so they are locked into DDR and DDR2 respectively. Intel has just done the same with Nehalem, which is locked for DDR3.

OP: I'll second (or third or whatever) the Intel route. Get a solid P43/P45 board (~$75), 4GB DDR2-800 ($20AR) and an e8400 (from eBay with MS cashback, around $120) and you're done for about $250 or less.

 

[mooncancook]

The mobo is beyond my repair. I'm going to upgrade for sure. I have already bought the memory (2x2 GB Kingston HyperX DDR2-8500 $50 AR)
I can get the following from B&M MicroCenter:

Intel E8400 ($149), Q6600 ($180), E7200 ($105)
AMD X4 9850 ($164)

Which one should I get?

 

[Markfw]

Intel E8400 ($149), Q6600 ($180), E7200 ($105)

Depends on budget, or use. See the thread stickied at the top of the forum. Once you decide, then its down to budget.

 

[mooncancook]

I was going to get an E7200 but they are sold out, so I got an E8400 instead, along with a Biostar TPower I45. I was deciding between the TPower and the eVGA 750i SLI FTW, and decided on the TPower because the transistors on the eVGA board looks cheap (not sold-state, or whatever they are called).

Due to HTPC case size constraint, I can't use the better tower coolers. I'm going with a Zalman 8700, hope it'll fit and perform well. I'm going to check out the sticky on OCing the C2Ds.

[Edit]
I'm relieved to find out the 8700 cooler fits perfectly on the board
[/Edit]

 

[Dadofamunky]

Good job on the RAM! And the E8400 is a beast. you are not going to believe the difference in performance. I love my Socket 939 system, but there's no doubt my Intel system eats it alive.

You are going to have FUN!!!!!!

 

[perdomot]

I like my Phenom X3 so if you want to support AMD, I would say to get the 8750 and pair it up with the 790GX so you can use the ACC function to improve your OC. Otherwise, the 8400 from intel with a P45 mobo is the way to go.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Combo Deal: $179

Biostar TForce 790gx & X2 6000+ 89w

If you think a Denab 45nm Phenom quad might be in your future select DDR2 1066 (or you could load up on some cheap DDR2 800)

 

[mooncancook]

I've already made my choice: E8400 + Biostar TPower I45. It's my first Intel build in a long time. I'll have to wait and see what AMD has to offer with their 45nm processor, and that might be my next upgrade for my desktop PC.

Anyway, I'm coming into a small CPU cooler problem. I'm going to see if I can get some help here without starting a new thread in C&C. Here's a couple pics:
pic
Closer look

I like the fact that the PSU exhaust fan is aimed directly at the main board and help cool everything, but would it cause air flow problem with the CPU cooler? My other option would be using the other PSU (shown sitting on top) with a rear exhaust fan.

 

[Markfw]

Try it and check the temps. If they are OK, don;t worry.