- Jun 3, 2014
- 61
- 0
- 4,640
Hi!
This isn't for my main PC, but a second rig I will be building for my other work, submerged in mineral oil, but I'm really having trouble deciding on what to use inside my tank, as I really don't want to have to drain it for upgrades later on. I will be using it for homework in the office, light gaming, so medium settings at 1600x900, movies and possibly be using it for hours at a time. I have a few choices at the moment and cant decide at all what to do. Here are my options.
1: Use my current 4GB of ddr2 800 with my Athlon ii 245 overclocked to 3.2 with my hd 7770 ghz edition on my 300 watt power supply. Aside from the graphics card this is all free, but the CPU is a fairly big bottleneck here. may be able to overclock more under the oil I don't know, but I still feel a little bit cheap on performance especially for something I'd like to keep running with no upgrades for a couple of years. I could buy some cheap AMD only ram for £13 to get 8GB
2: Get a phenom ii x4 960t from ebay which can unlock to a ii x6, and spend £51 on that. CPU boss shows it winning in benchmarks compared to a q9650, without any overclocking or the other cores unlocked. Yes my board has asus core unlocker. I only have 4GB of ram and feel that isn't enough, so I could also get 8GB from eBay, but that will cost another £15. I have to buy more as this board has only 2 slots and I only have 2GB sticks. Obviously it works with 4GB but it feels a little bit unbalanced and again i cant upgrade it later without draining it. this option would require me to swap the blue motherboard I have for one that supports 125 watt TDP chips, but I can switch the heat sinks around so its ok. However, if I'm to switch the motherboards around, the high TDP one has an Athlon ii 250 overclocked to 3.6 already. If I got a ii x4 lower end than the one above, I don't feel as if it is worth the money as opposed to option 3 as they aren't much cheaper.
3: Use my q9650 I have lying around and 8GB of the ddr2 I have already, but I need a micro atx motherboard with 4 slots and a 1333mhz fsb with some basic overclocking capabilities. This is cheaper than the phenom however the only motherboard I see on eBay within £40 with postage has no way of tuning the FSB or multiplier so the CPU is stuck at stock. Any other boards seem to only take 4GB of ram, which I likely need more for my workload with 2 slots or have the wrong form factor, or some other deal breaker aside from the Intel one here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/361517082015?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
This is cheaper than the phenom and can take all of my RAM plus the big cooler I have, but cant overclock to match the phenom's performance. If I buy the CPU or board i will sell the Athlon CPU or the entire rig to pay for it, so that knocks some cash off of it, but I've already spent £60 on oil so its getting expensive.
does anyone know of any boards that will take my components under £40 on eBay in the uk?
Another thing to mention is that my power supply being a measly 300 watts, and unchangeable now as I've cut leads off of it, can only just handle the load of the GPU and these components. At peak load the phenom and core2 will hit 281 watts, and the calculator recommends over 300 watts which I don't have.
This isn't for my main PC, but a second rig I will be building for my other work, submerged in mineral oil, but I'm really having trouble deciding on what to use inside my tank, as I really don't want to have to drain it for upgrades later on. I will be using it for homework in the office, light gaming, so medium settings at 1600x900, movies and possibly be using it for hours at a time. I have a few choices at the moment and cant decide at all what to do. Here are my options.
1: Use my current 4GB of ddr2 800 with my Athlon ii 245 overclocked to 3.2 with my hd 7770 ghz edition on my 300 watt power supply. Aside from the graphics card this is all free, but the CPU is a fairly big bottleneck here. may be able to overclock more under the oil I don't know, but I still feel a little bit cheap on performance especially for something I'd like to keep running with no upgrades for a couple of years. I could buy some cheap AMD only ram for £13 to get 8GB
2: Get a phenom ii x4 960t from ebay which can unlock to a ii x6, and spend £51 on that. CPU boss shows it winning in benchmarks compared to a q9650, without any overclocking or the other cores unlocked. Yes my board has asus core unlocker. I only have 4GB of ram and feel that isn't enough, so I could also get 8GB from eBay, but that will cost another £15. I have to buy more as this board has only 2 slots and I only have 2GB sticks. Obviously it works with 4GB but it feels a little bit unbalanced and again i cant upgrade it later without draining it. this option would require me to swap the blue motherboard I have for one that supports 125 watt TDP chips, but I can switch the heat sinks around so its ok. However, if I'm to switch the motherboards around, the high TDP one has an Athlon ii 250 overclocked to 3.6 already. If I got a ii x4 lower end than the one above, I don't feel as if it is worth the money as opposed to option 3 as they aren't much cheaper.
3: Use my q9650 I have lying around and 8GB of the ddr2 I have already, but I need a micro atx motherboard with 4 slots and a 1333mhz fsb with some basic overclocking capabilities. This is cheaper than the phenom however the only motherboard I see on eBay within £40 with postage has no way of tuning the FSB or multiplier so the CPU is stuck at stock. Any other boards seem to only take 4GB of ram, which I likely need more for my workload with 2 slots or have the wrong form factor, or some other deal breaker aside from the Intel one here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/361517082015?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
This is cheaper than the phenom and can take all of my RAM plus the big cooler I have, but cant overclock to match the phenom's performance. If I buy the CPU or board i will sell the Athlon CPU or the entire rig to pay for it, so that knocks some cash off of it, but I've already spent £60 on oil so its getting expensive.
does anyone know of any boards that will take my components under £40 on eBay in the uk?
Another thing to mention is that my power supply being a measly 300 watts, and unchangeable now as I've cut leads off of it, can only just handle the load of the GPU and these components. At peak load the phenom and core2 will hit 281 watts, and the calculator recommends over 300 watts which I don't have.
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