I have asked once or twice on here for advice and I had a set back or two but it actually played to my advantage so to speak so before I made the final plunge of purchasing I wanted to toss out both upgrades I was looking at and what my needs are. My PCs main use is gaming, but I am looking at recording some of my games with the potential to stream here and there. Currently my rig is ancient but I have pushed it quite far...
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6400+
MOBO: ASUS M2N32-SLI
RAM: OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 4GB
I am looking at either sticking with AMD or going to Intel, I do not favor one of the other I mostly concern myself with pushing the all might dollar as far as I can.
AMD Option
CPU: Phenom II X4 965 BE
MOBO: ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0
RAM: G.SKILL Value Series 8GB
Total = $231
Intel Option
CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 Ivy Bridge
MOBO: ASRock Z77 Pro3 LGA 1155
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 8GB
Total = $314
I can actually go a bit beyond these two prices, but trying to go above $400. I am also upgrading to Win 7 but that is not figuring into this cost. If anyone has an alternative to one of these setups or which option would be best bang for buck your help is awesomely welcome. I went with the Z77 board as someone who had helped me before said it was a good option for if I had a chance to upgrade to a better CPU at a later date.
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6400+
MOBO: ASUS M2N32-SLI
RAM: OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 4GB
I am looking at either sticking with AMD or going to Intel, I do not favor one of the other I mostly concern myself with pushing the all might dollar as far as I can.
AMD Option
CPU: Phenom II X4 965 BE
MOBO: ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0
RAM: G.SKILL Value Series 8GB
Total = $231
Intel Option
CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 Ivy Bridge
MOBO: ASRock Z77 Pro3 LGA 1155
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 8GB
Total = $314
I can actually go a bit beyond these two prices, but trying to go above $400. I am also upgrading to Win 7 but that is not figuring into this cost. If anyone has an alternative to one of these setups or which option would be best bang for buck your help is awesomely welcome. I went with the Z77 board as someone who had helped me before said it was a good option for if I had a chance to upgrade to a better CPU at a later date.