Gigabyte ga-ma78lmt-s2 and AMD Sempron budget build

7slaterj

Honorable
Feb 16, 2012
48
0
10,530
Hi guys, I have the following components;


-AMD Sempron 140 @2.7 GHz (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Sempron_140/2.html)

-Gigabyte GA-MA78LMT-S2 motherboard (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3377#ov)

-2Gb Kingston Hyper-x DDR3 RAM (1600MHz)



I managed to get this lot dirt cheap and thought I'd build a budget pc. Just need some help as what to put with it.

-My budget is no more than £150 :(
-Used for media, word processing and light gaming
-To be build within the next two weeks
-In the UK

Just a couple of questions. I've read rumours about unlocking the CPU's other core using the 710 southbridge chip ? :s
and the CPU only supports RAM speeds of 1033 MHz apparently, is this a problem with my current RAM?
Can I lightly over-clock this CPU for experience ?

I realise this wont be the best build but its mainly for experience and because I've already got these parts.
Thank you and regards,
Jonathan
 
I don't think your RAM will work, the 1600 RAM I mean. Boards this old can't read RAM that speed.

You would have to be able to get it to post with that RAM before you could underclock it in the BIOS (if you even could with that motherboard) and it may not be able to post with that RAM.

I think you will have to get different RAM before it will ever work.

You can try to unlock an additional core, but often they are disabled for a reason. It may very well be 50% or less likely to unlock. You may not even be able to attempt it, though, because you might need ACC in order to unlock the other core and I don't know if this board has ACC on it.

In general, I wouldn't hope for too much in the way of OCing. If you had UEFI BIOS (or Gigabyte's Hybrid Touch version of it) then you would have all kinds of options for OCing, but most of the older boards like these just allow an increase of the cycle speed which means every component has to be able to increase in speed for any of them to be able to increase.

Mind you, these aren't the OCers forums. I am no expert on it for sure. You may want to post a new thread in the OCers forums on Toms Hardware and ask the OC related questions there instead.

They should be able to confirm or deny my speculations about your potential OCing experience over there.
 

7slaterj

Honorable
Feb 16, 2012
48
0
10,530
Ahh thanks for the reply, I'll get hold of some older RAM then haha,
Any ideas for a graphics card ?
I'm thinking HD 4870 ?
Would the system bottleneck at the CPU then ?

Thank you !
 
To be quite honest about it (and I am shooting myself in the foot because I have a 4870 I would like to sell) the 4870 is just not a good purchase right now.

It was king of the hill for a pretty good amount of time, but those days are long past.

The 4000 series cards can't do DX 11 which will cripple them in the future. The 4870 also uses about the most power out of any video cards stock because of their old architectures. Because of using all that power they also make the most heat too.

The HD 7750 is current generation and more powerful. It can do DX 11 and makes much less heat and uses a lot less power than the 4870.

The 6770 is another card that is better all around than a 4870 is. Its price should be mid way between a 4870 and 7750.

Regardless what you do, your core is really cheap and likely to be the bottleneck with pretty much everything you do, yes. One core systems just aren't that great in 2012 you have to understand that going in.

If you can unlock the extra core, great and it would help a lot. It is nowhere near guaranteed, though.

Hope for the best plan for the worst.

I would think that the 6770 and 7750 should be easier on the CPU than the 4870 would be, but that is pure speculation.
 

7slaterj

Honorable
Feb 16, 2012
48
0
10,530
How about the 5770 ??
I can get hold hold of one of these for £50 !! :)
I have to remember this is a budget build, I keep getting carried away haha.

What else would i need then ??