"New" AMD Box for my little brother

Mediarocker

Mediarocker

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Aug 8, 2008
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Hey there guys, I'm re-building my brothers computer for Christmas.

The mainboard suffered from Capacitor Plague and I need to replace it so I figured I'd just upgrade him.

He had an AM2 Athlon X2, I'm not sure of the clocking or anything as I never tinkered with it much other than setting it up.

So here's what I'm getting him:

Foxconn M61PMP-K AM3 NVIDIA MCP61P Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor ADX640WFGMBOX

G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBSR

OCZ ZT Series 650W Fully-Modular 80PLUS Bronze High Performance Power Supply

He's primarily a web browser, but he plays some games. Nothing too intensive, but I want to be able to upgrade the graphics card if need be. I figured the Athlon II X4 would be a good median approach to performance, as he's not too into top of the line gaming. (most he'd ever run would be the new Madden games.) But would this be pretty good to last him a while? He's not playing BF3 or CODMW3 or anything like that, but I want this system to be ready for WoT or things like that. So I put the 650 watt PSU so I could pop in a 560Ti in the future if need be. He'll have an 8800GTS which I think should be plenty for him. He's been using a 6800 without any issues.

Dunno much about AMDs anymore, it's been a while since I've fooled with em. But IIRC It progresses, Sempron>Athlon>Phenom>FX?

Thanks for the help guys.
 
Well if you are going with AMD go with the Phenom. Not saying the athlon's are bad but they just arent as good. I currently have the AMD phenom X4 955 black ed. And its amazing. Much more then needed for what im playing. XD And it would be helpful to know his current computer specs like what kind of case? or some stuff like dat
 
It's a MATX Mid Tower, Nothing special, just Lenovo J3000.

The thing is would he really need a Phenom to play WoT? (I mean that's going to be the closest to a taxing game he'll ever play) or can he get away with the Athlon II? I don't have much money to play with. He's not too into high graphics and stuff and just likes playing games for their entertainment value.

I originally wanted to get him an X6 black but it just cost too much. In the end I'm only gonna have to spend about 280 bucks for all this so I'm quite happy with the price... just 350-60 is...a bit more than I have set aside.

I don't want him to have crappy performance, but I need to save as much money as possible. My car insurance bill went up this month. :S
 
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Yeah, grab an upgradeable AM3+ board instead and drop in a X4-X6 Phenom. Still pretty cheap.
 
You can find older Phenom II's for fairly cheap, I found my Phenom II x4 920 for 60 bucks, whereas its about $100 now, since its harder to find. Upgrading from a Athlon x2 250, it was worth it.
 
Well no about the WoT game. Buy you sed you might smack in a 560 Ti into his rig for better games later on means you probably gonna have to upgrade ur GPU again when you get that 560. Just because it will make your system a bunch faster. If he isnt a BIG gamer dont worry about RAM. Ide only go with 4 gigs. Other then that. I wouldnt worry about anything else. Ide save some money on RAM and ide spend a bit more on the CPU. It will pay off in the long run. With my current system specs i still get lag every time i shoot in WoT.

I have an AMD phenom x4 955, GTX 9500 GPU and only 4 gigs of RAM. But the RAM isnt the issue. Ive got plenty more then i need. The GPU is what makes the big difference. same with the CPU.
 
NeweggcomShoppingCart-074903.png



Only around 10$ over your current budget. :)
 
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I gotta tell ya, if its a budget rig and your brother is not a hardcore gamer, the new Amd cpu's with the built in graphics on the cpu itself are pretty durn raw. I just built a dual core for my brother and the framerate was impressive, not mind blowing, but perfectly adequate for a light gamer.

With that said..
On the subject of your build. I'd personally opt for a biostar board instead of the foxcon, difference in price is negligible, reliability, stability, massive.
I would also spend the extra $15 and get a x4 phenom.

BTW that power supply is total, total total overkill. I'd get a little CX430 Antec, these can be had for as little as $20 after rebates.
 
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crackdaddy said:
I gotta tell ya, if its a budget rig and your brother is not a hardcore gamer, the new Amd cpu's with the built in graphics on the cpu itself are pretty durn raw. I just built a dual core for my brother and the framerate was impressive, not mind blowing, but perfectly adequate for a light gamer.

With that said..
On the subject of your build. I'd personally opt for a biostar board instead of the foxcon, difference in price is negligible, reliability, stability, massive.
I would also spend the extra $15 and get a x4 phenom.

BTW that power supply is total, total total overkill. I'd get a little CX430 Antec, these can be had for as little as $20 after rebates.
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It isnt over kill. He sed later on he would upgrade his brothers rig again but add a GTX 560 Ti. :P Which you will need around a 500-550 W PSU. Plus it gives him the room so he doesnt fry his machine. lol But if you saw my picture i posted it does have a Quad core phenom. And its only 10$ over his budget which is an amazing upgrade for 10$ more. :P
 
Sorry missed that part, I just saw budget.
I'd rather see him with an Antec or Corsair though, one can be hand in the same price range A/R.

560ti for someone that is not a hardcore gamer is probably a bit overkill though.
 
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5153/nvidias-geforce-gtx-560-ti-w448-cores-gtx570-on-a-budget/6

There is load power consumption of the computer during gaming. cx430 is a good suggestion though it is buy corsair. Given the fact that this is for a budget build with limited requirements, 650 W is definitely overkill. They overestimate the power requirement needs of all cards as they need to take into account the crappy psus that cannot output their rated power.

Also, definitely go with a phenom ii x4 over the athlon as prices should be fairly close.
 
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I'm your huckleberry said:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5153/nvidias-geforce-gtx-560-ti-w448-cores-gtx570-on-a-budget/6

There is load power consumption of the computer during gaming. cx430 is a good suggestion though it is buy corsair. Given the fact that this is for a budget build with limited requirements, 650 W is definitely overkill. They overestimate the power requirement needs of all cards as they need to take into account the crappy psus that cannot output their rated power.

Also, definitely go with a phenom ii x4 over the athlon as prices should be fairly close.
Click to expand...

The 650W PSU is plenty for him yes. I suggest keeping it because what if his bro gets into gaming on the PC more? Maybe he would like to play some games that come out in a couple years that require a better GPU? I say stick with the picture i posted. Your golden on that. Plenty to work off of from there
 
I'm your huckleberry said:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5153/nvidias-geforce-gtx-560-ti-w448-cores-gtx570-on-a-budget/6

There is load power consumption of the computer during gaming. cx430 is a good suggestion though it is buy corsair. Given the fact that this is for a budget build with limited requirements, 650 W is definitely overkill. They overestimate the power requirement needs of all cards as they need to take into account the crappy psus that cannot output their rated power.

Also, definitely go with a phenom ii x4 over the athlon as prices should be fairly close.
Click to expand...

if i remeber correctly, anand measures from the wall, so subtract 10-20% due to loss during AC-DC conversion.

560 Ti + processor and everything comes under 300w

I don't know where it is, but anand explained their power consumption testing. Pretty sure it is before conversion. could be wrong though.
 
Cloakedsphere said:
The 650W PSU is plenty for him yes. I suggest keeping it because what if his bro gets into gaming on the PC more? Maybe he would like to play some games that come out in a couple years that require a better GPU? I say stick with the picture i posted. Your golden on that. Plenty to work off of from there
Click to expand...

When the OP is trying to spend as little as possible by considering even an athlon ii, spending $100 on a psu that is way over the top is not a good distribution of funds. I would want the cpu to last as long as possible, whereas the cx430 psu will provide plenty of power even for a decent single gpu setup down the road.



And reflex, didn't know that, preciate the info though. That just proves the point that much more.
 
I'm your huckleberry said:
When the OP is trying to spend as little as possible by considering even an athlon ii, spending $100 on a psu that is way over the top is not a good distribution of funds. I would want the cpu to last as long as possible, whereas the cx430 psu will provide plenty of power even for a decent single gpu setup down the road.



And reflex, didn't know that, preciate the info though. That just proves the point that much more.
Click to expand...

Well ide just figured if he would like to upgrade his brother later on it would be great to have a little room to be able to play more modern games in the next couple years. Every year they do come out with stepped up graphics that require more then whats out atm. XD So ide just figure if his brother would ever get into gaming more and more it would be better the stick with the phenom X4 i posted and the PSU . Especially if his bro wants to get a 580 or something :) But yeah i see what your saying.
 
Alright guys, lots of good responses I really appreciate the attention!

I went with the 650w PSU because it was a good price and allows for Capacitor aging and for a future upgrade to a better proc and GPU. (I don't want to have to buy another PSU for the life of this computer. I'd rather buy a new Mobo. I'm kinda out of touch on AMD's so I appreciate everyone's pointing out on the need for a Phenom.

Anyone have physical experience with the ASrock boards? I really really really don't want to have to pull the board again because of it being a poor construction.

But thanks to frost for pointing out up there a great setup. I think the 450 will hold him over, I decided to keep the 8GB memory since it was only 10 bucks more, and I'm still under $300.

One of the big reasons why I went for the 650 to begin with, Is I have a 325w PSU in my old system. When I upgraded to a second hard drive, put the 8800GTS in there, overclocked it, and whatnot it ran fine until last year where capacitor aging took effect on the PSU. I can't really replace it since it's a proprietary PSU, but I will be putting the 6800 back in it and put it back to stock clocks. It should be stable then. I didn't want this to happen to his machine. So possibly a little fear came in to effect. I can always plop a new PSU in there when and if I need to do a graphics card upgrade... though I'd rather just throw a new card into it and not have to spend any extra to get it running.

I did the newegg PSU calculator and it said for a phenom II x4, and a 8800GTS, single 7200 hdd, 4GB of ram, 490W? I have a feeling that's factoring capacitor aging?

So I'm kind of concerned in the way that I want to make sure I don't have to buy another PSU in a couple of years because the caps have aged.
 
Mediarocker said:
Alright guys, lots of good responses I really appreciate the attention!

I went with the 650w PSU because it was a good price and allows for Capacitor aging and for a future upgrade to a better proc and GPU. (I don't want to have to buy another PSU for the life of this computer. I'd rather buy a new Mobo. I'm kinda out of touch on AMD's so I appreciate everyone's pointing out on the need for a Phenom.

Anyone have physical experience with the ASrock boards? I really really really don't want to have to pull the board again because of it being a poor construction.

But thanks to frost for pointing out up there a great setup. I think the 450 will hold him over, I decided to keep the 8GB memory since it was only 10 bucks more, and I'm still under $300.

One of the big reasons why I went for the 650 to begin with, Is I have a 325w PSU in my old system. When I upgraded to a second hard drive, put the 8800GTS in there, overclocked it, and whatnot it ran fine until last year where capacitor aging took effect on the PSU. I can't really replace it since it's a proprietary PSU, but I will be putting the 6800 back in it and put it back to stock clocks. It should be stable then. I didn't want this to happen to his machine. So possibly a little fear came in to effect. I can always plop a new PSU in there when and if I need to do a graphics card upgrade... though I'd rather just throw a new card into it and not have to spend any extra to get it running.

I did the newegg PSU calculator and it said for a phenom II x4, and a 8800GTS, single 7200 hdd, 4GB of ram, 490W? I have a feeling that's factoring capacitor aging?

So I'm kind of concerned in the way that I want to make sure I don't have to buy another PSU in a couple of years because the caps have aged.
Click to expand...

I have worked with ASrock boards. They are hit and miss. The big 3 (MSI, Gigabyte and ASUS) are all more consistent and have many more features and typically better warranties, but that comes at a price premium. I've installed ASrock in 4 of my friends computers so far, 2 were DOA and had to be re-ordered, and one of those died 3 months later (something burnt out, but that could've been a power supply issue, I don't know). The other 2 fired up first shot and are still running.

I agree 100% with the power supply. I like over buying the power supply, but not for wattage, more for quality. You're right, it's the one constant (aside from maybe the case) in any custom upgradeable build. I love the Corsairs personally and I'm running one on my rig, though it's out of your price range and power needs. It seems that the newer (Gold efficient) supplies with long warranties (read: 5+ years) are the way to go. But it will cost a lot. Your call.

Have fun man. I used to be an Intel guy since Pentium IV's, but price / performance AMD has impressed the hell out of me over the past 3 years.
 
Another thing is that the NEWEGG PSU calc is way off. By alot. I dont remember where i downloaded mine but Reflex99 gave me one and it works amazing. Actually gives out the REAL amount of power you would need. But the Newegg PSU calc is off. by around 100-200 watts. I believe they do that to factor in that they dont fry your system or something.
 
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