Best budget processor 2010

[robdouglas]

Which is the best AMD or Intel budget Processor and compatable motherboard for my home computer,
on board graphics and sound will be ok as it will mainly be used for work accounts and Emails plus Internet ( Wife looking on holiday booking sites ) my present system is not very good at multi tasking
so this would be a great advantage

 

[LePhuronn]

Athlon II X2 with a socket AM3 785 chipset motherboard - dead cheap but will do what you want no problem.

Athlon II X2 250
Asus M4A785TD-M Evo
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 RAM

If you do any heavy-duty number crunching as part of your accounts (and your software can use multiple cores) you could look at the Athlon II X4 630 which is a quad-core, not a dual-core.

A quad-core will certainly help out big time with your multi-tasking anyway.

 

[robdouglas]

Athlon II X2 with a socket AM3 785 chipset motherboard - dead cheap but will do what you want no problem.

Athlon II X2 250
Asus M4A785TD-M Evo
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 RAM

If you do any heavy-duty number crunching as part of your accounts (and your software can use multiple cores) you could look at the Athlon II X4 630 which is a quad-core, not a dual-core.

A quad-core will certainly help out big time with your multi-tasking anyway.

Thanks very much for your help
would the same motherboard be ok for the quad core ?

 

[LePhuronn]

Yup no problems there. I have a Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition in that same board and overclocked it so it's pumping out a wee bit of heat and things are fine.

 

[enzo matrix]

The Athlon IIx4 is a great budget chip but before you decide you need more than you think you need, what is your current system and what else do you do with it?

 

[robdouglas]

The Athlon IIx4 is a great budget chip but before you decide you need more than you think you need, what is your current system and what else do you do with it?

Enzo
It is an AMD sempron processor and it only has 512 mb Ram which i think is the main problem with its slow running, maybe the 4 core is overkill for what i want to use it for, as i said its mainly for office stuff
I have another computer for my photos, music and videos (which it struggles with), thats an Intel core 2 duo with 4 Gb Ram
Regards
Rob

 

[o1die]

The best budget cpu is at frys today, if they have any left. They are selling the retail boxed sempron 140 with biostar 6150se board for $24.99 after rebate. The 635 is $55 more with board if you want a quad core.

 

[randomkid]

The best budget cpu is at frys today, if they have any left. They are selling the retail boxed sempron 140 with biostar 6150se board for $24.99 after rebate. The 635 is $55 more with board if you want a quad core.

I envy you guys for having the likes of frys offering excellent deals on PC parts... From where I came from, most prices are 20-30% more compared to newegg's.

To the OP, you can go in between the dual core and quad core with the Athlon II X3 435 if you think the quad core is overkill for your use.

 

[enzo matrix]

I'd say for that the dual core would be fine. Ram isn't a big issue if you are using windows xp, but if that computer runs vista or 7, I would definitely upgrade the ram. I don't personally notice a difference with xp past 768Mb of ram. And if you do want the x3, the prices for them are excellent these days and would be well worth it.

 

[randomkid]

I'd say for that the dual core would be fine. Ram isn't a big issue if you are using windows xp, but if that computer runs vista or 7, I would definitely upgrade the ram. I don't personally notice a difference with xp past 768Mb of ram. And if you do want the x3, the prices for them are excellent these days and would be well worth it.

If it is for browsing, even XP will consume more than 1GB if you got lots of browser tabs open. I usually reach 1.5GB RAM usage specially when I am in the forum since I open lots of links referred to by the posters...

 

[enzo matrix]

If it is for browsing, even XP will consume more than 1GB if you got lots of browser tabs open. I usually reach 1.5GB RAM usage specially when I am in the forum since I open lots of links referred to by the posters...

Yeah true. When I tested, it was a number of years ago before I started opening more than 5 tabs. I had 512 at first, went to 768 and noticed a difference. Then I went to 1.5GB and didn't notice a difference. All under xp with a dual core 1.6GHz AMD.