Upgrade of MB CPU & Ram

[andyw]

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: 2 weeks

BUDGET RANGE: £300-350

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: surfing the internet, Movies

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: Case- Q-Teq 500w Psu-Wd 640 sata drive

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: Ebuyer or Dabs

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Uk

PARTS PREFERENCES: See below

OVERCLOCKING: No

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Yes / No / Maybe ?

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1280x1024,

Ok so these are the parts that I have selected, but need advise on compatability, feel free to change things if you think I could do better with my money.

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition 3.4GHz Socket AM3 8MB L3 Cache 125W Retail Box Processor £144.99

Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H 890GX Socket AM3 HDMI DVI VGA Out 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard £107.20

G-Skill 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 Ripjaw Memory Kit CL7(7-8-7-24) 1.65V £110.27
or
Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 HyperX Memory Kit CL9(9-9-9-27) £100

The Ram is a worry to me as the G-Skill says it is 1.65v, but the board description says 1.5v, so maybe you could explain this to me.

 

[MadAdmiral]

Drop to the X4 955. The 965 and 955 are basically the same, just the 965 has a very slight factory overclock. It's not worth paying any extra for.

On the board, do you actually need the onboard graphics, or do you have a GPU? If you have a GPU, I'd switch it for the Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4.

I'd definitely get the first set of RAM. If you're not overclocking, you can also drop to some 1333 mhz CL 7 sticks if it saves you some money. There isn't any issue with the voltages on AMD boards.

 

[andyw]

As it's not a gaming machine, I thought that on board graphics would be OK, have always had a separate GPU board before but it's money.

 

[MadAdmiral]

It would be fine, I was just asking because you could save money by not getting a 890 chipset if you didn't need onboard graphics. Though getting a Crossfire board is still costing you. I'll look for a non-CF 8xx board real quick...

EDIT: This Asus M4A87TD/USB3 would save you some money and you wouldn't see any difference.

 

[andyw]

No graphics with that board from what I can see, or maybe I missed it.

Thanks so far for your help, keep it coming.

 

[dark_lord69]

Pertaining the the SLI or Crossfire: For what you want to use your computer for I would say the answer is NO. Also, with your monitor's resolution you don't need SLI or Crossfire even if you start gaming.

You could save a lot of money by taking a couple steps down in each catagory. You don't need such high end parts for watching movies and surfing the net. On the other hand it will allow you to use the same parts for a long time.

1st - If your not going to be gaming and your not going to overclock then I suggest this CPU.

AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0GHz Socket AM3 6MB L3 Cache Retail Box Processor 123.05 Euros

(You won't notice a speed difference but you will save 20 Euros)

2nd - Since you only run 1280X1024 resolution, even if you get into gaming you still won't need more than 1 graphics card so you can save a lot buy getting a board that doesn't have Dual PCIe 16X slots. But if you want that motherboard for the other features like USB 3.0 for example it a nice board.

3rd - Once again for what you use the computer for you won't see the speed difference from one set of ram to the other and you definitely won't see the difference in the CL rating. So you can save yourself some money if you want.

Last - Don't worry about what that website said about voltages for the RAM. This is always adjustable in the BIOS. Many websites miss-state technicial information or have no idea what they are talking about at all.

This is a direct quote from the motherboards manual:
"The adjustable range is from 1.275V to 2.445V."
The 1.65v rating you were concerned about is covered in that range.

 

[MadAdmiral]

That board has onboard graphics. It's the newest one that will support even full HD playback if needed.

 

[andyw]

I still cant see where it says onboard graphics on the Asus board as in link, also the 3rd review it says no graphics.

Maybe I need to go to specsavers.

 

[MadAdmiral]

Crap. I was half awake the last couple of times I posted. This was the board I meant to link to: ASUS M4A88TD-M. That's what I get for trying to answer two different posts at once. Sorry about that.

 

[andyw]

Ok so I went with all the parts from my original post:

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition 3.4GHz Socket AM3 8MB L3 Cache 125W Retail Box Processor £144.99

Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H 890GX Socket AM3 HDMI DVI VGA Out 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard £107.20

G-Skill 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 Ripjaw Memory Kit CL7(7-8-7-24) 1.65V £110.27



Plus a Coolermaster 335 case and a OCZ Stealth XStream 600W PSU - SLI Ready ATX2.2 12cm Fan.

But my new question is about the power supply connections, the M/B has a 24 pin ATX plus an 8 pin ATX, and the power supply has a 20+4 pin connector and also two 4 pin connectors marked CPU 1 & 2, so do I use all of the 24 pin plus the 2x4 pin into the 8 pin ATX, or only use some of them.

 

[andyw]

Best answer selected by andyw.