Hey guys, $100 upgrade for my little brother. Please help.

[milkshakez7z]

Hey all, My little brother runs an old dell he found a while back on the side of the road, its got a Pentium 4 (not sure which model it is but its pretty slow), 2GB ram (maxed out on the motherboard) 200W psu, 8GB HDD. and he bought a 7750 but it wasnt compatible D: (no 16x slot) .
Now as a big sister I want to give him a B-DAY present that will make something he uses everyday more usable, My budget is $120
This is what I have so far (300W psu from another dell) (1TB sata 2 HDD I used to use) and I am thinking of buying him these 3 other parts
CPU : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005LTU54Q/
RAM : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003ZDJ42O/
MOBO : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005HMZ740/
I will be using his original case and installing a fresh copy of windows 7 64bit.
Opinions?

 

[mouse24]

I looked around very briefly and couldn't find anything else in that price range. I can't say the that proc will be very good for very current gaming but its atleast huge leaps and bounds above the P4.

Everythings compatible, looks good to me.

 

[milkshakez7z]

I looked around very briefly and couldn't find anything else in that price range. I can't say the that proc will be very good for very current gaming but its atleast huge leaps and bounds above the P4.

Everythings compatible, looks good to me.

^_^ , Yeah he's using intergrated chipset this build is mainly for minecraft and you can imagine what MC runs like on a P4 with intergrated gfx , Im thinking that this would run it so much better! , Also the build will most likely be very upgradable , the first thing would def be psu....

 

[philly27]

I would say move up to this http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=72082&vpn=BX80623G630&manufacture=Intel&promoid=1388

the other picks look good. that mobo has free shipping from newegg too. they'll ship it faster

 

[manofchalk]

If you can spare an extra $10 and the case will fit it, this Z68 board would be a better option.
MSI Z68A-G43. $70
http://www.amazon.com/MSI-Intel-Chipset-DDR3-1066/dp/B005SEZWBK/ref=sr_1_15?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1349234604&sr=1-15&keywords=Z68
The Z68 chipset combines the good parts of the H61 and P67 chipsets, overclocking and integrated graphics. Should also accept an Ivy Bridge CPU in the future if you wanted to upgrade further.

Other parts look good.

 

[milkshakez7z]

I would say move up to this http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=72082&vpn=BX80623G630&manufacture=Intel&promoid=1388

the other picks look good. that mobo has free shipping from newegg too. they'll ship it faster

I'm Australian :C

 

[mouse24]

^_^ , Yeah he's using intergrated chipset this build is mainly for minecraft and you can imagine what MC runs like on a P4 with intergrated gfx , Im thinking that this would run it so much better! , Also the build will most likely be very upgradable , the first thing would def be psu....

Oh man that must hurt, I have to ask is he using the Optifine mod? it increases fps by quite a lot most times. And yes my nephew is using a lesser build (integrated graphics and a 2ghz dual core of some fashion, I forget exactly which one but it was made in 2008 if that gives you some idea ) he runs it constantly at atleast 25fps with optifine it doesn't drop below 40

 

[milkshakez7z]

Oh man that must hurt, I have to ask is he using the Optifine mod? it increases fps by quite a lot most times. And yes my nephew is using a lesser build (integrated graphics and a 2ghz dual core of some fashion, I forget exactly which one but it was made in 2008 if that gives you some idea ) he runs it constantly at atleast 25fps with optifine it doesn't drop below 40-50~

Yeah with optifine maybe 25FPS D: , extremely slow 8GB HDD wouldn't help either.

 

[manofchalk]

I'm Australian :C

Then what are you doing on Amazon? Chances are it would cost more to ship this stuff from the UK or the US than its worth. Believe me, despite how jacked up the prices are here (fellow Aussie), importing is even more expensive.

Here are a bunch of good Australian stores.
http://www.pccasegear.com/
http://www.msy.com.au/index.jsp
http://www.umart.com.au/

Heres a good board that I saw on PC Case Gear.
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=138_711_1183&products_id=20802
The B75 chipset is essentially Z77 minus overclocking and PCI-3.

 

[milkshakez7z]

If you can spare an extra $10 and the case will fit it, this Z68 board would be a better option.
MSI Z68A-G43. $70
http://www.amazon.com/MSI-Intel-Chipset-DDR3-1066/dp/B005SEZWBK/ref=sr_1_15?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1349234604&sr=1-15&keywords=Z68
The Z68 chipset combines the good parts of the H61 and P67 chipsets, overclocking and integrated graphics. Should also accept an Ivy Bridge CPU in the future if you wanted to upgrade further.

Other parts look good.

Hmm that is a nice mobo.

 

[computernoob29]

+1 for that motherboard

 

[milkshakez7z]

Then what are you doing on Amazon? Chances are it would cost more to ship this stuff from the UK or the US than its worth. Believe me, despite how jacked up the prices are here (fellow Aussie), importing is even more expensive.

Here are a bunch of good Australian stores.
http://www.pccasegear.com/
http://www.msy.com.au/index.jsp
http://www.umart.com.au/

Heres a good board that I saw on PC Case Gear.
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=138_711_1183&products_id=20802
The B75 chipset is essentially Z77 minus overclocking and PCI-3.

Is it funny how I was just on logging onto PC case gear? It's just my mum buys things from amazon all he time

 

[milkshakez7z]

CPU : http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=20848
MOBO : http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=20082
RAM : http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=13930

 

[manofchalk]

Swap the RAM to this.
Corsair XMS3 4GB (1x4GB) 1600Mhz CL9 1.5v. $23
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=186_538_1137&products_id=16034
Only a $1 more and you have the 4GB on the one stick, bit faster and looks better. Also means you have an easy upgrade path to 8GB later.

 

[milkshakez7z]

Swap the RAM to this.
Corsair XMS3 4GB (1x4GB) 1600Mhz CL9 1.5v. $23
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=186_538_1137&products_id=16034
Only a $1 more and you have the 4GB on the one stick, bit faster and looks better. Also means you have an easy upgrade path to 8GB later.

I was thinking that but I thought dual channel ran faster?

 

[cbag]

good picks cant get much better for the price - maybe a lucky rebate?

 

[manofchalk]

Sort of... On a dual channel board, having 3+ sticks slows it down since each channel has to deal with 2 sticks instead of one. If you have a single stick in a dual channel board, its the same speed since one channel is being used, and the other is just idling there. So no (according to my understanding anyway) speed difference between single and dual sticks on a dual channel board.

And even if I'm wrong, I would think the bump in frequency and easier expandability would outweigh the small performance loss.

@Cbag: Aint no such thing as rebates in Australia. Purely an American/European thing.

 

[romany8806]

Nice picks - that'll be a great little machine once he adds the 7750 and will be capable of far more than Minecraft. You're an awesome big sister!

Just a thought - have you looked at Umart? If you're near Brisbane their prices are hard to beat. manofchalk included a link in one of his posts. By shopping there you might just about squeeze a pentium into your budget, especially if you go with the $48 Asrock H71 mobo, but if Umart aren't close by then I think you've chosen really well.

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about single-channel memory latency - there is a small difference between one and two sticks, but with this modest Intel platform you'll be bottlenecked by CPU or GPU or storage media before that is likely to be a problem and the ability to upgrade to 8gb down the track will be worth the tradeoff, especially on boards with only two DIMM slots.

 

[milkshakez7z]

haha, I think I know what I'm getting thanks for all the help guys!