Sweet MBoard/CPu Deal! (but need lil help)

[ptr.exe]

Well he did say that he was on a budget and eventhough a socket 939 and PCI-E is the next path in the upgrade they are still expensive. I would recomend getting a Nvidia Nforce2 ultra chipset on a socket A motherboard with an Athlon XP and buy some DDR sticks to run dual channel, with a Socket A you would be supprised that new games still run fine and you could upgrade to a Geforce 7800gs and still play new games for the next year or two. Possibly you could go for a Socket 754 compromise, If you can afford you can still get an athlon 64 and PCI-E but I highly doubt you could buy a socket 939 on a $300 budget.

I'm still running a socket A on an MSI nForce2 board, love socket A

The price difference between socket A and 754 is negligable, you can buy a Athlon 64 3200+ for ~£100, and then a decent mobo for £40. The price for socket A is pretty much the same, so you may as well go with skt 754.

edit: Also, the difference between 4x and 8x is negligable, the bandwidth really doesnt make that much of a difference in terms of performance. Google 4x vs 8x to find a load of tests proving that it makes very little difference.

[RedKing14CA]

alright, well thats settled.. now which CPU/ MOBO combo should i get... lol.... 1.36ghz increas with intel... or should i be a good gamer and which to 2.0ghz amd sempron?

[ptr.exe]

Never get Sempron/Duron/Celeron, any of that budget crap isn't for games. Possibly a Sempron would do if you really need to save some cash, but best to get a proper Athlon.

If you're going with socket 754:

Athlon 64 3400+ £105 (OEM)

AMD Sempron 3000+ £57 (if you wanna save a few quid)

Asus K8N Socket-754 nForce3 £43

Sorry thats a UK site but I don't know any good US sites.

You could save a bit by getting a 3200 Athlon 64, and that motherboard was like the first one I saw that looked okay so you may wanna look around for a better/cheaper one. That Athlon CPU and mobo comes to roughly $260 USD, you could save a bit with getting the Sempron or getting a cheaper motherbaord. Just make sure you get a good brand (MSI, Asus, ECS) of motherboard and read reviews to check it's a good motherboard.

Make sure you post on an actual PC forum before you buy stuff as people with give you more detailed advice when it comes to components, that one i linked to earlier is a really good site with a lot of knowledgable people.

[RedKing14CA]

I cant afford $260 all at once.. i only have $130 right now.. and the processor/mobo im getting has to be this price without rebates.. with rebates im hoping for $70-$50 to get a 1gb stick of ddr 400mhz pc3200 ram with...

i kinda jus tneed to know which would be better for gaming, the mobo with the sempron, or the mobo with the intel...

or if you can find a better mobo/cpu pack for $60-90 (120-130$ without rebate)

thank you... i understand the athlon is better for gaming, but not for price...

[RedKing14CA]

:'(

[Tomlo]

Well you can either wait for a socket 754 or buy a socket A now.

You could buy an Athlon XP but since they havent been made in a while your best bet is a sempron, Basically all a sempron is a renamed Athlon Thoroughbred. An athlon xp is usually an Athlon Barton. The only differences between this chips is the barton has 512 L2 Cache and the Thoroughbred has 256 L2 Cache (Same as that intel celeron) also the barton is meant to run at 400FSB and the Thoroughbred is meant to run at 333FSB but it can easily be overclocked WAY past 400 if your motherboard can handle it.

Dont get me wrong if you see an athlon xp you can afford pick it up but I highly doubt that the sempron will be holding back significant FPS in games.
(I have heard it is much easier to find an athlon xp in the uk, but in USA its very expensive you can buy 2-3 semprons for the same price)


Keep in mind that socket A although its awsome and we all love it is more outdated everyday but I dont think socket 754 is a good step. I think soon socket 754 will get gobbled up by socket 939 as its prices go down. I think your best option it to buy a socket A now and upgrade to socket 939 when its cheaper and you have cash to spend on a better rig.

[RedKing14CA]

Wow, thank you SO much for the help. YOu guys are awsome.

I found a celeron D 2.93 GHz with a much muxh better mobo. socket 775 and same price as the other package i wanted with the celeron...

i know intel is t3h suxX0rz but it has a much better mobo than what the sempron had... thx for your help

is here if you want to tell me how suxX0rz it is, i haven't ordered yet if there is something wrong (besides it being intel) please tell me...

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...509&CatId=1599
atleast i think thats it....

I couldn't find the FSB spead and im a retard so i dont know what cache is for

[semicolo]

seems good to me, you can upgrade the cpu/video card later.
You just need to know this about cache memory : The more you get, the better (in fact it's high speed memory embedded on the processor or the motherboard)

[RedKing14CA]

256k... i know... that sux? But... is it still a good deal...

[RedKing14CA]

I have the friggan credit card in my hand IM FREEKIN OUT.... so confused... the cache isnt too much of a problem.... i was going to upgrade to a Pentium D 3.2 GHz with hopefully a 600 FSB and clock it up to 3.8GHz with 833FSB... 2MB cache... but that wont be until next year