Chossing the right AMD ll processor

[dtrwilliams]

I recently upgraded most of the components of a homebuilt AMD XP 2500+ (Barton) to a cheap ECS GeForce6100PM-M2 mobo and AMD LE1640. Both are running OK, but the mobo is very OC restricted (no voltage adjustments, etc,,
Then AMD launched the Athlon ll line, and having recieved some $$ for Christmas and my wife suggested that I go and get what I really want.
That's the issue. What do I really want?
I play Neverwinter Nights and am just starting Dragon Age: Origins. I do a fair amount of photography editing and I'm getting really interested in the Media Centre PC idea. I'm also very energy concious and these new procs seem to be just the ticket.
Currently, I'm using a 550W PSU, a 750gb 32mb Cache SATA 2.0 Seagate 7200.11 hard drive, 2 1gb. sticks of Corsair C4 DDR800 Ram.

I've pretty well decided on a Gigabyte M785G-US2H motherboard and one of these three CPU's.
1) AMD ll X4 620 @ 2.6gb $105 cdn.

2) AMD ll X3 435 @ 2.7 gb $106 cdn

30 AMD Phenom ll X2 545 @ 3gb $118 cdn.


I would appreciate any thoughts or comments the comunity might have.
Thanks in advance.

 

[noob2222]

if the AII 620 and 435 are the same price, its a no brainer, the x4 is better. Both of the Athlons score better in multithread apps and games due to the extra core or 2 over the 500 series.

 

[GhislainG]

You already listed the CPUs according to their general performance. I couldn't find the Gigabyte M785G-US2H motherboard. Is this the motherboard that you want to buy (GA-MA785GM-US2H)? http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128394

 

[dtrwilliams]

if the AII 620 and 435 are the same price, its a no brainer, the x4 is better. Both of the Athlons score better in multithread apps and games due to the extra core or 2 over the 500 series.

I haven't used a forum like this before, so please excuse any gaffes I might make. I did buy the Athlon ll X4 620, and I'm delighted. I'm not so thrilled with the ECS A780GM-A Black Series that I also bought. It doesn't want to overclock at all, just freezes during Windows booting. I'm simultaneously having temperature issues with my Radeon 2400 Pro, so I'm going to get an after market cooler and try that. If that stabilizes the temps, but not the board, I'll return it to Tiger Direct. I still have three weeks to do that.

Thanks for your help.
David

 

[dtrwilliams]

You already listed the CPUs according to their general performance. I couldn't find the Gigabyte M785G-US2H motherboard. Is this the motherboard that you want to buy (GA-MA785GM-US2H)? http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128394

That was the mobo I wanted to get, but Tiger Direct was sold out locally, so I got the ECS A780GM-A, but so far I'm not too thrilled with it. I'm having a hard time getting the BIOS to flash, and the user manual leaves a great deal to desired.
Anyway, I still have three weeks to exchange it at Tiger Direct, so I'll work with for a week or two, and see where I get.
Any thoughts.
David

 

[GhislainG]

You didn't choose the best motherboard for overclocking. If you're still interested in the Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H, then a good place to get it online is http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=11830BD6205&vpn=GA-MA785GM-US2H%20&manufacture=GIGABYTE

Total cost will be $87.83 plus GST and $9.99 air shipping. If you order it early in the morning, it will probably be delivered the next day via Purolator Air.

 

[dtrwilliams]

You didn't choose the best motherboard for overclocking. If you're still interested in the Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H, then a good place to get it online is http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=11830BD6205&vpn=GA-MA785GM-US2H%20&manufacture=GIGABYTE

Total cost will be $87.83 plus GST and $9.99 air shipping. If you order it early in the morning, it will probably be delivered the next day via Purolator Air.

Thanks. Are you familiar with the O/C potential of the Gigabyte board? Like a lot of other people, I suspect, I'm having to upgrade on a very tight budget, so getting the best bang for the buck short term and long term is the highest priority. I like the value implicit in these new Athlon ll processors, and I tried to read the online reviews about current and older mobos. There isn't a lot of information about these boards. I'm rapidly becoming somewhat disenchanted with ECS. Fortunately, I purchased the mobo on my Mastercard, so I have an out if I need it.
Thanks again for your help. I'll keep you posted.
David

 

[GhislainG]

It will allow for overclocking, but don't expect an inexpensive mATX motherboard to be as good as a $200 ATX motherboard. Do some reading (reviews, benchmarks, etc.) before ordering it.

 

[dtrwilliams]

I'm not really looking for a screamer, more a system that I built & upgraded over time that can still give me an upgrade path without having to ditch evrything and that will let me upgrade to Windows 7. At least my system is stable, even if the Radeon 3200 is almost a joke.
I started building with an AMD XP2500+ (Barton) and an MSI K7N2- Delta. I loved it, but it had no upgrade path, so I've slowly been swapping out parts and now have a setup that I can live with for while......maybe.
Thanks again.
David

 

[sighQ2]

The giga 785 chipset board will perform well - goto gigas website and study the specs until you know whatcha got.

ECS - their rep is pretty low thanx to their past exploits. not recommended.

Giga, MSI and asus - some people are really pissed w asus - and now they are outsourcing manufacturing. Giga and MSI look good. and asus still has good rep with a lot of people who have not had problems.

The 785G chipset models have good multimedia capabilities onboard included. Eventually you might want to add a Radeon 5750 or 5770 vidcard - I believe the 785G has a vacant PCIe slot for that.

DirectCanada is one good source and Canada Computers is another - they are similar in pricing; but slight differences in stocked products.

yeh, lose that ECS thing.

I am not clear on the games you mention re how demanding they are; but the cpu will be adequate. If the games are not too demanding, the onboard 4200(?) IGP might be adequate, at least for starters. but a 5700 will be a rocket.

I don't recall what you said about ram - you are into DDR3 - I guess you know that. You will want 4gigs min. for windows7, and you will also want the 64bit O/S- not 32bit - I don't know it actually; is 32bit even possible in win7 ??

 

[sighQ2]

You could also look at mobos with a 790GX chipset - they are more heavy duty and also have IGP. But they are stronger electrically, and the bios would offer more options.

Beyond that is the 790FX chipset mobos. made for hi perf oclox and multi vidcard xfire - serious heavy duty in the PWM section - no IGP = and the best of those is the MSI GD-70. but that's expensive, and more than most of us need.

The 790GX is about halfway in between.

There's another - the 790X - which is like the econo version of the FX. again, no IGP. These are about as popular as the 785's. But the 785's have everything ready to turn it on and go.

Beyond that, we play the soon-to-be future cards.

 

[yannifb]

You could also look at mobos with a 790GX chipset - they are more heavy duty and also have IGP. But they are stronger electrically, and the bios would offer more options.

Beyond that is the 790FX chipset mobos. made for hi perf oclox and multi vidcard xfire - serious heavy duty in the PWM section - no IGP = and the best of those is the MSI GD-70. but that's expensive, and more than most of us need.

The 790GX is about halfway in between.

There's another - the 790X - which is like the econo version of the FX. again, no IGP. These are about as popular as the 785's. But the 785's have everything ready to turn it on and go.

Beyond that, we play the soon-to-be future cards.

The MSI-790FX GD70 is amazing though, I have to admit . Worth it if you optimize and tweak all your voltages and speeds a lot.

 

[dtrwilliams]

It will allow for overclocking, but don't expect an inexpensive mATX motherboard to be as good as a $200 ATX motherboard. Do some reading (reviews, benchmarks, etc.) before ordering it.

I got to see that while working with the ECS board. Marketing hype is sublime, isn't it?

I took the damm thing back to Tiger Direct expecting to get a hassle, but the tech guy just told me to go get what I wanted and exchange them.
I ended up with a Biostar TA790GXE for $99cdn. The had an instant discount of $25, so it cost me $7.85 m\ore than the ECS.
Thanks again for your input and guidance.
Regards,
David

 

[obsidian86]

good choice biostar been making some waves recently

 

[dtrwilliams]

You could also look at mobos with a 790GX chipset - they are more heavy duty and also have IGP. But they are stronger electrically, and the bios would offer more options.

Beyond that is the 790FX chipset mobos. made for hi perf oclox and multi vidcard xfire - serious heavy duty in the PWM section - no IGP = and the best of those is the MSI GD-70. but that's expensive, and more than most of us need.

The 790GX is about halfway in between.

There's another - the 790X - which is like the econo version of the FX. again, no IGP. These are about as popular as the 785's. But the 785's have everything ready to turn it on and go.

Beyond that, we play the soon-to-be future cards.

Intersting that you should mention the 790 boards. I got really disgusted with the ECS piece of garbage. It does almost nothing they claim it does, if you can understand what ther're claiming. Anyway, I dismounted the thing and took it back to the Tiger Direct store in Burlington, expecting to get a hassle over returning. I admit to being very pleasantly surprised to be merely told to go get the board I wanted and no problem.

As I looked through their stock they still didn't have the Gigayte 785 board, but they did have a Biostar TA790GXE with the SB750 (radeon 3300) for $99cdn. I haven't seen any other 790 boards anywhere near that price. They reviews I been reading recently on the technical sites suggest that tey're pretty robust boards, and the Biostar was one of the ones I remembered reading about, so I grabbed it. Apparently there was an instant discount of $25.
It's been installed and running for a couple of days now, and it's sweet! It does what it says it will and it's easy to understand the manual. It comes with some pretty sophisticated overclocking and monitoring utilities.

I like the idea of overclocking through Windows because I don't have to run it overclocked when I don't need to. I used the auto overclocking utility T- Utility Overclock lll and it ran it up to 3.08ghz ( 13 x 232 FSB, and my DDR2800 memeory running at 902mhz (if memory serves me correctly).

I'm really looking forward to exploring this rig. I have some further upgrades to make in the future (maybe a couple of months). I'm still using a Samsung 955DF CRT monitor, garbage speakers and a waaaay too big gaming case. I'm also using Windows XP SP3, which I really like, but I think adding Windows 7 and running it dual OS foe a while.

The board only supports DDR2 and DDR3 RAM modules, so I might upgrade that too, if the price of the RAM comes down. Meanwhile, I have plenty to keep me busy.
Thanks again. I'd like to keep you all posted as I work along with this rig.

David

 

[dtrwilliams]

The MSI-790FX GD70 is amazing though, I have to admit . Worth it if you optimize and tweak all your voltages and speeds a lot.

I used to have an MSI K7N2 Delta 400 board with the XP 2500+ (Barton). I loved the board and the ease of updating them, but they're just too expensive for me to get right now.
Thanks for your input, I would really enjoy getting another MSI board.

Regards,
David