Price challenge: Mobo, Ram, GPU, and Processor for <$280, shipped!

S

semisonic9

Gawd
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May 2, 2005
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A buddy was asking me for recommendations, but I've been out of the game for awhile.

He's looking at: E5200, Gigabyte UD3L, 4GB RAM, and a Radeon 4830 right now, for $280 shipped. I can't help thinking there are some tweaks to be made here.

Gaming wise, he wants to play like Sims 3,

-S
 
What PSU does he plan on using/reusing?

Oh and that E5200 + UD3L mobo is not good of a choice for the money. For just $10 more, you can get a significantly faster CPU:
$159 - AMD Phenom II X3 710 CPU + ASUS M3A76-CM AMD 760G mATX Motherboard Combo
 
Does he live near a Fry's?

$80 - Intel E5200 + MSI-G31M3-L-V2

What size monitor does he have?
 
He does not live near a Fry's, and I'm assuming he games on a 20", 1600x1200 monitor or better.

I'm thinking there's got to be a way to cram a 4770 in there, if not a 4850 or gtx 260, without squashing the mobo or CPU choices down too hard.
 
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Then he either goes AMD or used, hehe. Either Danny's combo or to save $30, an AMD 7750 + GA-MA770-UD3.
 
Looks like either:

E7500 - $140
ATI 4770 - $100
Gigabyte GA-G41m-ES2l - $65
OCZ Reaper 4dgb DDR-2 1066 - $41 (after rebate)
-------------------------------------
for $346, which blows the budget by quite a bit.

Another way is to go:
E5200 - $70
ATI 4770 - $100
Asus P5QL-CM - $80
Patriot Viper 4gb DDR-2, 800 - $32 (after rebate)
-------------------------------------
for $282, which ain't bad.

The main trade-off here is a greater L2 cache, a faster FSB and the ram to go with it. Thoughts?
 
er I wouldn't go intel...I'd go for a phenom II 710 + motherboard combo on newegg for around 160-180$
or 720+ motherboard combo for around 170-200$ . I guess if you can't afford it stick with the e5200.
 
Used parts. Their is nothing wrong with this. Find a old P35 or hell even a 965 with a 6600 or something used like that. Overclock is to 3.0GHZ or so and then you should have enough for a used 4850 or even a 4870 512MB card. :eek:
 
/\ That's probably what I would do, Vengance. I'm just not sure how comfortable he is buying used parts, overclocking, etc. I know to start, he's planning on leaving it stock.

So I'm trying to find him reasonably priced new parts that represent good bang/buck even without OCing the crap out of them. I'm recommending some TX-2 right off the bat. When he's comfortable with it, I think he should try to OC north of 3.0 ghz. That should be doable with a stock cooler and Antec 900 case (which he's already bought), right?

For the AMD guys: I haven't paid attention to AMD processors in forever. Are the newer batches competitive again? Why are you recommending them? I'm going to need some literature and some links if this is a serious option to consider. A little convincing, please?
 
semisonic9 said:
... The main trade-off here is a greater L2 cache, a faster FSB and the ram to go with it. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Intel's greater L2 cache and fast (not faster; AMD uses HyperTransport, like Intel's new QPI) FSB translates to the same performance for more money on the lower end Intel offerrings. The integrated memory controller, hypertransport, and L3 cache (die shrink allowed space for this) allow these newly released AMD chips to perform on par with their Core2 counterparts. It only took two years, but AMD has finally caught up to Core2, and the price war is far from over. Now they're trying to catch up with Core i7, lol.

For the lower end, AMD gives you better performance at stock speeds for less money. All the AMD parts suggested so far outperform their intel price-equivalent parts. If your friend is not OC'ing, his best bang for buck is AMD.

If he is OC'ing, I'm still not sure the price of a nice Intel board is worth the extra cost over an AMD setup. AMD boards are typically much cheaper than Intel boards for the features you get. AMDs can OC nicely, just not as good as Intels at these price levels, but you'll pay more for a good mobo. Also, Intel is moving away from LGA775, so no or only a few more chips for it will be offered until Core i5 comes out later this year.
 
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semisonic9 said:
For the AMD guys: I haven't paid attention to AMD processors in forever. Are the newer batches competitive again? Why are you recommending them? I'm going to need some literature and some links if this is a serious option to consider. A little convincing, please?
Click to expand...
Phenom IIs are pretty good for their price and AMD boards are cheaper than intel boards. Phenoms wern't too great but the Phenom IIs are pretty good chips.
 
semisonic9 said:
For the AMD guys: I haven't paid attention to AMD processors in forever. Are the newer batches competitive again? Why are you recommending them? I'm going to need some literature and some links if this is a serious option to consider. A little convincing, please?
Click to expand...

As Enginurd and Joseph has said, AMD is pretty competitive again. Granted there are still some C2Q/C2D that outperforms many of AMD's Phenom II CPUs, the fact is that AMD Phenom II CPUs provide more performance than many similarily priced Intel C2Q/C2D CPUs. In addition, Intel's socket 775 is pretty much a dead end at this point as there will no more worthwhile socket 775 CPUs being released. AMD's AM2+ socket has a much longer life as AMD's new socket AM3 CPUs are backwards compatible with AM2+. So basically AMD's sockets AM2+ and AM3 have a significantly longer CPU upgrade path. And finally, the fact that Newegg seems to have pretty good AMD CPU + mobo combos with heavy discounts also provides further incentive to use AMD CPUs and mobos in many budget builds here in this part of the forum.

So that's why right now, at least in this part of the forum, most of the hardware recommendations are now geared towards AMD's socket AM2+ for best bang for the buck/budget builds or Intel's Core i7 for sheer performance builds.

Some literature:
http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTYyMSwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-phenom-ii-x3-720.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon-x2-7750.html

As shown in the above, the X3 710/X3 720 that I recommended earlier performs on par, if not better, with the E7500 you chose. In addition, the X2 7750 that enginurd recommended performs on par, if not better, with the E5200 but is $10 cheaper.
 
Persuasive arguments. I'll keep that in mind. I forwarded this thread to my buddy, as well.

Thanks everyone!

-S
 
He's got an OCZ 500w. It, the Antec 900, and a few other things are already bought and assembled. He was just on the fence about processor/ram/mobo/gpu when he came to me.
 
semisonic9 said:
He's got an OCZ 500w. It, the Antec 900, and a few other things are already bought and assembled. He was just on the fence about processor/ram/mobo/gpu when he came to me.
Click to expand...

Which OCZ 500W? The StealthXStream?
 
Well, since he already bought it, just make sure he doesn't load it up to 500W, lol.
 
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