A few upgrades

[False_Dmitry_II]

Firstly, my friend is looking to build a newer computer, his old one will be going to a family member. He needs it to be as cheap as possible. As such I figured I'd sell him my 4600+ dual core CPU and have him buy a AM2+ motherboard of some kind since those are pretty cheap and I'd think DDR2 RAM is still pretty cheap. To replace that I'm looking at the Phenom II X3's but can't find any information about what kind of DDR2 RAM it will take - My system has DDR2 800 in it at the moment, 6 gigs worth, so I'd rather not have to change that. My motherboard is a gigabyte ga-ma78gm-s2h.


That was dealing with my main rig, I have a a810n HP desktop that I'm looking to turn into a secondary gaming computer - for friends to use or for bringing places without worrying too much about it. I've already put in a 480 watt power supply and 2 gigs of RAM into it. The only thing left would be to add a AGP graphics card as a final upgrade. Based on the recent article about the newest AGP card to come out, I need to know what cards would saturate its 3300+ AMD single core processor without being a huge waste of money or computing power, and heck, even just plain power.

 

[obsidian86]

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/page-269162_13_0.html

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

After reading a few other threads that seems to be your cure all response. I can easily build a completely new system for much cheaper than any of those. That "bargain" PC build is very expensive. I do not want a new motherboard at the moment, the next time I will get one is after the new SATA, USB, and PCI-E come out, so that CPU will be a good final upgrade for my current motherboard. I've even already done full AM3 builds for other people, if that was what I wanted I wouldn't be here asking questions. And none of those things has anything to do with my 2 questions which are soley about older stuff since its all about new builds.

This is all I want answered:
If Phenom II's are compatible with DDR2-800 RAM, specifically the X3 versions.

And what graphics card would be good for a P4 3.2 gigahertz equivalent CPU as far as not being too much graphics with too little CPU.

 

[skora]

The current phenom IIs (incuding the 720) all have DDR2 and DDR3 controllers and will work in your AM2+ board. Might need to flash the bios though.

Your current ram will work with the 720 also. How is your 6gigs of ram set up and what do you use your computer for? If its mainly gaming, you're not using even 4 gigs. If you have 3x2 gig sticks, you're not running in dual channel and that will effect performance. So you could also sell 2 gigs to your friend with the CPU, get better performance from your 4gigs, and he's got 2 gigs which is enough for an XP gaming build.

As far as the 3300+ AGP card, read this, should answer your question. It's a year old, but there really isn't anything new to add, even with the release of the 4650 AGP.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ati-agp-3850-agp,1939.html

 

[tecmo34]

This is all I want answered:
If Phenom II's are compatible with DDR2-800 RAM, specifically the X3 versions.

And what graphics card would be good for a P4 3.2 gigahertz equivalent CPU as far as not being too much graphics with too little CPU.

1.) X3 versions support DDR2 if used on a AM2+ motherboard or DDR3 if used on a AM3 motherboard

2.) I would go with the HD 4650, since that seems to be less effected by the CPU over the other AGP cards tested in Tom's review.

edit: skora beat me to the first point!!

 

[skora]

Finally, I won a finger race!

I think the 4650 is way beyond saturating the 3300+. The article I linked says for single core, the 3850 or the X1950 Pro is spending too much. The 2600XT will be more than the single core can accomidate or similar 3650. But as the prices for all of them hit right around $70, not sure if its worth for a backup rig even. Might be able to find cheaper elsewhere, only looked at NE. Also might get a steal on ebay if you don't mind used.

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

Well it was originally 2x512MB and 2x1gig. That was all fine and good until something happened and the 512 MB sticks stopped working, so I looked up RAM to buy and got 2x2gigs for like $30 off of NE. While I totally agree that I'm not really using more than 4 gigs, 2 gigs in my opinion was not enough for the windows 7 RC that it's running at the moment. 2 gigs would be enough for my friend, but I'm pretty sure it's running in dual channel as-is.

Also the heavy use is mainly gaming.

And oh yeah, I'm fine with used graphics cards. That CPU was bought used and will be sold for the same $30. I got it when that motherboard came out cause a different friend was "upgrading" to one of the early phenoms. I told him no different. Thanks for the link, I'll check it out. After I decide on what to do or find a deal I'll post back, till then I'll keep checking for any other input.

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

Hmm. okay. Seemed to me that the 3850 was pretty much locked at 30fps while some of the lower cards can end up much less than that. I'd say 30fps is plenty for a rig for that purpose. So for now I'm looking on ebay and whatnot for x1950 pro's 3850's 3650's 2600XT's (depending on price) and the 4650 is brand new, but it is too close in price new to totally ignore. Does anybody know some other cards I should keep my eye out for, including nVidia cards? Interestingly the reviews of these cards that are still new on newegg all have posts saying how great they are for single cores of similar performance of mine.

 

[skora]

Remember, newegg reviews don't require any kind of credentials to post them. Its relative. You're taking people that had MX420 64meg GPUs and giving them something much more powerful. To them, it does look great. Same as when I went from the 420 to a 6600GT 3 years ago. But now that I've been playing on a 4850 for a while, the 6600GT is going to show for what it is. A bottlenecked card.

2 gigs should be enough for Win7. The footprint is in the 850meg range, closer to what XP was and no where near as intensive as Vista. A very well optimized OS.

 

[Onus]

False_Dimitry, your response to obsidian86 was necessary to clarify your OP, which skora has now answered very nicely; I couldn't really tell either what the OP was asking, and I'm sure obsidian86 couldn't either.

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

So I've got the x3 720 Phenom II, and it's running great. The only odd thing is now when it boots it says "ddr2 unganged mode" and it never used to say that before. Do I want to just leave it like that or what?

 

[tecmo34]

So I've got the x3 720 Phenom II, and it's running great. The only odd thing is now when it boots it says "ddr2 unganged mode" and it never used to say that before. Do I want to just leave it like that or what?

I would Google what that means... It might mean your RAM is bad or wrong slots...etc.