H61 for budget gamer?

[geekapproved]

EDIT

Asrock H61
i3-2100 3.1ghz
4gb ddr3-1600 XMS3
HD5850
Earthwatts 380 Green

Any video limitations for the video card or bandwidth limitationswith with ssd in the future?

 

[jb6684]

Budget gamers don't use SSD drives.... expensive and honestly I can wait a couple extra seconds for the next level to load.. (I can buy a Western Digital 500Gb Blue drive for $39....

Sandy Bridge is all the rage, but, you don't need it....

Budget gamer would be perfectly well off using an AMD Phenom 955 or even and Athon II 630.... again about half the price of MB & CPU for Sandy Bridge....

 

[jb6684]

Intel: $275
i5-2400 $190

MB:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131716


AMD: $155
Athlon II 640 $99 (or bump up to an AMD 955 $140)

MB: $55
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131619


What I don't like about this board:
- only two RAM slots
- only one PCI-E slot

 

[geekapproved]

I only want 32nm. I currently have Q6600 at 3200mhz. I know your thinking why would I go dual core, well....it will outperform my Q6600 at a lot of things and use less than half the watts. I run my pc 24/7 so 65-70 less watts is awesome. Another reason is I have bad carpal tunnel so I have to stop gaming, or at least not nearly as much. Also my psu is old and I got a brand new Earthwatts 380 sitting in my closet. I can always upgrade the cpu later on if I feel the need, but don't think I will need to for a while.

I really wanted to go with a new Bulldozer but I'm tired of waiting.

I can sell my current cpu, mobo and ram for almost what this is gonna cost me because I already have 4gb of DDR3-1600 Corsair brand new in my closet.

I can't wait to see how low the temps are gonna be compared to my heatbox I have now. LOL


i3-2100 3.1ghz 65w 32nm
Asrock H61
HD5850
Earthwatts 380 Green 80+ bronze


Uses are gaming, music, and internet.

Anyone see any limitations on H61 for that video card or a future ssd?

 

[jb6684]

MB, Don't see any issues other than those mentioned 2 RAM slots & 1 PCI-E slot.....

I would stretch a bit and go Back to the Intel i5-2300 quad core, here why:

- Intel LOVE's to change sockets and chip sets sorry, we have to face it, they do....
- my 1156 Lynnfield isn't old, but, on it's way out.
- My 1366 BloomField isn't old, but again on it's way out.
- And just how may "varieties" of 775 socket & chips sets were there? (some only single core, some only up to dual core, ... etc not compatible
and not interchangeable is the theme..)

Bottom line, I'll be you will have trouble finding a CPU to upgrade to for your MB in 1--2 years....

- As an example; I've built a few AMD Phenom Dual cores, and at the same clock speed the AMD Phenom Quad cores are simply much more responsive even for surfing the net...

 

[geekapproved]

Well according to Tom's the i3-2100 "Sails" past the 955BE at 3.5ghz in gaming. It's cheaper and uses half the wattage.

Considering I can still readily get s775 dual cores on Newegg I really don't think I'll have trouble finding a i7 in a year or two. A quad with HT


From Toms:

The Phenom II X4 might be a better choice for an all-purpose processor, but from a pure gaming standpoint, the $120 Core i3-2100 is superior. And while the Phenom II X4 955 is multiplier-unlocked, experience shows us that AMD's CPUs rarely go more than a couple hundred MHz past 4 GHz. And we're confident that you won't see much of a gaming advantage over the stock Core i3-2100, according to our tests that show the Core i3 sail past a 3.5 GHz Phenom II X4.

Considering my cpu is slower than a 3.5ghz Phenom II, I'll gladly take this i3 and the power savings I'm going to get.

 

[geekapproved]

I bought it. I'll let you know how it benches against my oc Q6600.