Which one should I purchase? :)

[thorton70]

Hi everyone, I know this is my first post and any help would be greatly appreciated. My little brothers Birthday is coming up in a week and his computer died a month ago. I have a small budget (350$) and wanted to get him a desktop he could keep playing WoW and Left 4 Dead on.

Which one would you purchase?

AMD 3 core ATHLON 3200 MHZ
BIOSTAR motherboard, A780L3B
SEAGATE 7200 RPM 500 Gig Hard Drive;
ATI RADEON HD 6450 video card;
4 GB DDR3 RAM;
DVD burner\writer; tested and loaded with WINDOWS 7 PREMIUM;
speakers, internet ready $329.00

Or

Amd Phenom II 940 Black Edition 3.0Ghz Quad Core CPU
Asus M4A78-E Board
4 GB G-Skill memory
512mb evga ge-force 9800 gt pci express 16x
CoolerMaster Hyper212 Heatsiink
WD Caviar Black 500 GB hard drive
LG SuperMulti DVD Burner (New)
OCZ 500 Watt power supply (New)
Windows XP Home Edition freshly installed and completely updated and ready to use.

325


Again, I know it's my first post and I'm asking for help right away. Thank you though too anyone who can help

 

[Raswan]

First one has a significantly better video card, while the second one has the considerably better processor.

But, with the hyper 212, you can OC the Phenom II. I'd go for the second one. You can throw a GTX460 in there down the road for less than $150, and it would live a lot longer than the first, especially if you OC.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

i would go with intel

 

[Ken g6]

Option #3, if you're in the USA anyway. $350 refurbished HP with a Pentium G620. CPU's better if you don't plan to overclock; graphics are worse than either of the above.

Did his dead computer still have a live graphics card?

 

[Blain]

The first option has no PS, so the only functioning PC would be option #2 even though it has Windows XP Home and an OCZ PS.

 

[mfenn]

First one has a significantly better video card, while the second one has the considerably better processor.

Don't think so. It's hard to find comparative benchmarks between the two, but the 9800GT is about twice as fast as the 6450 in Crysis.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Don't think so. It's hard to find comparative benchmarks between the two, but the 9800GT is about twice as fast as the 6450 in Crysis.

I was about to mention that, while the ATI 6xxx series is quite a bit more recent, the 6450 is more than likely something meant for HTPCs a low profile card that might not even require a fan.

OP: If those are your only options, I'd prefer number 2 quite a bit more over number 1.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

second option considering that WoW is CPU intensive

 

[cdmccool]

Second option, hands down. Better processor, better video card. WTF are you guys smoking?