Best value motherboard and CPU gaming

paulhennessy1986

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Hi guys


I'm planning to build a pc on a budget and due to funds id like to get decent enought parts and put them in a bare bones over time I.e buy a good cpu and motherboard and use the onboard graphics for a month or so and then by a good GPU etc, Any idea of the best value gaming motherboards and cps and ram etc? ones that work well together?

i can then buy a gpu decent HDDs and upgrade the smaller parts over time.

Used to be big into building pcs but havent in years so no idea what are good prices these days.

Paul :non:
 
Athlon II X3 and an ASRock board with 2 PCI-E Slots to go with it. If you're really low budget then I'd say the 785GXH (the board uses a switch card like the old XPress 1600 boards to give you two 8x slots), and a cheap C2 chip that the board supports with the shipping BIOS.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157167&cm_re=asrock_785g-_-13-157-167-_-Product

With the latest BIOS updates that board supports up to an X6 CPU so plenty of room to upgrade there. The first two PCI-E slots can run in 8x mode for crossfire. The onboard graphics ain't great, but you can latter upgrade first to one 6870, and then add another one latter :D.
 

pete3867

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I have the above config , an x3 440, and it beats the phenom 550 in almost ALL benchmarks , yet costs around £35-40 less ...oh and it easily overclocks to 3.5 ghz without even breaking a sweat ...I would get the x3 and as someone mentioned a Asrock 785 gxh...you can get them both for around £100.......now that's good value!
 

paulhennessy1986

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Sorry about the delay, Around 500 is for the whole pc at the moment but that would be for a decent motherboard and cpu and case psu ram etc., id use and old hdd and do without graphics till i can afford it in a month etc
 

paulhennessy1986

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does having onboard gpu hinder over clocking speeds for when i buy a decent graphics card and install it?
 

paulhennessy1986

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Basicially thinking for future proofing a bit. do a fair bit of photoshop and such too so wouldnt mind the extra cores, i heard you can oc the x6 up to around 4ghz quite easy
 
From whatever info is available now, it doesn't looks like the Bulldozer platform will be compatible to any of the current line of processors.. Can't actually blame AMD here.. They desperately need a major architectural overhaul to compete with Intel on the performance front.. They too must be sick and tired of just sitting there, waving the price to performance flag..
 

paulhennessy1986

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From whatever info is available now, it doesn't looks like the Bulldozer platform will be compatible to any of the current line of processors.. Can't actually blame AMD here.. They desperately need a major architectural overhaul to compete with Intel on the performance front.. They too must be sick and tired of just sitting there, waving the price to performance flag..
`
Id love to get an amd3+ mb and just use an x4 or x6. pity.

what is the best mb to go with the x6 and x4 at the mo? also what ram should i be going for?

just out of curiosity how do the x6 and x4's rank when they are overclocked to 4ghz compared to the high end intel cps that are hard to overclock so more limited in speed?
 
With cash permitting, you can opt for the Asus M4A89TD Pro/USB3.. It is based on the newest AMD chipset available and has a pretty decent price tag marked to it.. To answer your overclock query, an Intel i7/i5 will both be faster and also more stable compared to any AMD CPU clocked similarly (4GHz in your case).. That should however not deject you.. An AMD X4 running at 3.8 GHz (my considered sweet point for AMD processors) is plenty fast to keep up with the best video cards available out there and enough stable to consider running in a 24 x 7 system..
 

paulhennessy1986

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THank you for your advice by the way, IVe been reading around and alot of people seem to think that the i5 760 2.8GHz 8MB is better then the x6 and x4s etc. What is your opinion? I want to go heavy with games but at the end of the day ill be using it for downloading. photoshop music production and alot of things at the same time
 

thechief73

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Hi paulhennessy1986, I would say the performance from the i5-760 will be all you need for gaming these days and most likely well into the future, as Tom's has ranked it the best Gaming CPU since its release. But the problem is it will be really tough to stay within a $500 budget if you need to buy a complete system, I dont not know if it would be possible, at least without making some sacrifices.
 
The i5 760 is stronger overall processor compared to any of the X4's and it edges out even the X6's apart from a few applications which are core heavy (3DS Max for example).. However, it does not has that big an edge when considered solely for gaming.. So if your primary task is playing high end 3D games then better to invest more heavily towards getting a stronger video card.. If you are more a novice towards photoshop then best not to let it be the criteria for your processor/platform selection..
 

thechief73

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Hey paulhennessy1986, I dont mean to stray the tread of from its discussion but I just put together this build for another forum poster with a $500 budget so I figured I would post it here for you to take a look at as well.

With this $500 build the CPU I selected is a dual core that can POSSIBLY be unlocked to a quad(AMD doesnt want people doing this but alot do and its a FREE performance upgrade :) , the Asus Mobo allows you to do this unlock with the BIOS, but as I said there is NO GAURANTEE of the cores nlocking for you.

6jk515.jpg



**--This is another build with a x4 AMD CPU(this removes the risk of core unlocking)--**

35cof3a.jpg
 

thechief73

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Hi , paulhennessy1986. First, far as I know no AMD chips unlock from x4 to x6. And secondly, when I posted that I was not aware that there in no guarantee that any of the CPU's will unlock the third or fourth core for you, many have done it an succeded but it is the luck of the draw and not a 100% thing. They way this happens is that AMD makes the x4 CPUs and based on the quality and defects of the chip when they test them they may disable one or two of the cores and sell them as x3's or x2's, so the extra cores may be defective or they may work just fine but didnt get the OK from AMD for ome reason to be x4 CPU's

With that said I am updating my previous post with the $500 PC build to a new setup that will have a x4 CPu to begin with to remove the risk of you not being able to unlock the extra cores.

I just wanted to let you know about this and if you think that you still want to try useing a CPU that you can possibly unlock cores its up to you.
 

paulhennessy1986

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What do you think of antec cases, Besides the fans in them is there really a big reason to spend even 80 dollars on a antec 200 case comared to one for saw 30 dollars?