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Expensive Motherboard?

Forum Motherboards & Memory : General Motherboard - Expensive Motherboard?

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Anonymous   10-24-2009 at 02:50:19 PM

Finally got a bit of money coming in, and so have decided to update my system over the next few months. I have a really old crappy motherboard atm ASRock ConRoe1333-1394 which need to replace because i have vista x64 which this board doesnt support so cant get more than 4GB into it.

My specs atm:

Vista x64 Home premium
Intel(R) CPU 2160 @ 1.80GHz
ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
ASRock ConRoe1333-1394 motherboard
4gb ddr2 ram

I know very little about motherboards, my question is whats holding by my system back more, my old motherboard or my proccessor. should i buy an expensive new motherboard, or a cheaper one and buy a better proccessor to go with it.

What are the main differences in cheap motherboards and expensive ones. Id spend about 150 on a new motherboard or or that on a cpu and 50 on a motherboard. What will get results???

Many Thanks

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o1die   10-24-2009 at 03:13:34 PM
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I'd go for an amd combo at newegg. They have a gigabyte 785 micro atx board with various cpus; the combos start at around $119 with discount and come with a regor cpu. Even the propus 620 has a combo deal for under $200. Either one will allow you to reuse your old ddr2, which is good since ram is getting expensive again. And your asrock has vista and windows 7 64 bit drivers on their website. Your board also supports the e8400, which is plenty of cpu for gaming. You can also search the for sale forums, such as anandtech, for a used cpu. I've seen the e8400 as low as $100; if not, make an offer.


Message edited by o1die on 10-24-2009 at 03:14:36 PM
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Anonymous   10-24-2009 at 04:18:27 PM
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cheers for the reply,

im in the uk so when i say 150 i mean pounds, so more like $240-300 to spend. Does that mean that if i update the drivers i will be able to put more than 4GB of ram into it? or is that board limited. I was thinking more along the lines of a quad core but that would definatley mean i would hav to change my mobo. A better cpu is more important than a mobo isnt it?

Many thanks

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o1die   10-24-2009 at 04:40:59 PM
- 0 +

You won't need more than 4 gb of memory. The e8400 cpu is pretty good. If you can find a used e8400 for less, your old board should be fine. The e8400 runs at 3.0 ghtz, so it's plenty fast even if you don't overclock it. Be sure to check your bios version if you keep using your old board before changing cpus; you may need to flash it first. You may also be able to sell your old cpu to help pay for the new one.

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