View Full Version : Advice for low end PC
Hello everybody.
At least I decide to leave my old duron 800.
I'm more an AMD guy for cost reasons, I've been thinking in buying a new computer for month now, but I was only considering the AMD offer.
The new pemtium E2160 changed my mind.
So I want to put together an Intel based computer.
The point is that most guides and premade config don't seem up to date (most are stuck with X2 3800+) and I'm completely ignorant in regard to Intel motherboard (I've tried but so far I'm still completely lost...).
A little reminder the new pemtium E2160 is a dual core based on the core micro architecture that runs @1.8GHz (9x200) and supports 1Mo of L2 cache. I plan to overclock it from scratch (not too hight anyway).
For reference before I changed my mind I was going with :
X2 3800+ (~70 euros)
Gigabyte GA-M61SME-S2 (geForce61) (~50 euros)
Kingston ValueRAM 1Go DDR2 PC5300 (667MHz) CAS5 x2 ( 2x 35 euros)
So my budget was around 190 euros/$
I can go up to 220 max.
What would be your choice is this price range for Ram+mobo?
Do you think the base fan will be enought, I plan to run the cpu at at least 2.3GHz?
Thanks from a lost AMD boy in an Intel world...
Blazkowicz
09-Jul-2007, 00:38
the problem is motherboard prices if you want a G965 chipset, I can see a gigabyte one at 95 euros, or the Asus P5B-VM and P5B-V around 120 euros (that latter one looks sexy). the cheaper mobos with IGP have an uninspiring VIA chipset or the older 945G, I don't know what to think of them. why not if they do the job.
poopypoo
09-Jul-2007, 05:43
Maybe to some, I'm a fanboy, but AMD still dominates the low-end market. You can get a cheap, new, sempron for $25. couple this with a $50 motherboard with ok onboard graphics (ati or nv!, not via or intel crap), some ram ($30), and and 57382% for VAT and you should be able to keep it well under 220 euros. ;) then you can still afford a $100 graphics card, even... however, your build would be much faster -- but you'd need a far more expensive motherboard. most games on most PCs are still gpu-limited, not cpu-limited, but maybe you want a PC to crunch math or something?
Skrying
09-Jul-2007, 07:42
Maybe to some, I'm a fanboy, but AMD still dominates the low-end market. You can get a cheap, new, sempron for $25. couple this with a $50 motherboard with ok onboard graphics (ati or nv!, not via or intel crap), some ram ($30), and and 57382% for VAT and you should be able to keep it well under 220 euros. ;) then you can still afford a $100 graphics card, even... however, your build would be much faster -- but you'd need a far more expensive motherboard. most games on most PCs are still gpu-limited, not cpu-limited, but maybe you want a PC to crunch math or something?
A Sempron would be a bad mistake. Instead I'd highly suggest you pick up a X2 3600+ and ignore the super crippled Intel's down at that price range. You'll easily be able to OC the 3600+ a bit more as well, might even want to push for a 3800+ depending on the cache differences. Also the motherboards with a price/performance bang are better on the AMD side in the low end. You're not going to be able to play anything that decent, but if you're coming from a Duron 800 I doubt that was the point so much.
Instead I'd highly suggest you pick up a X2 3600+ and ignore the super crippled Intel's down at that price range
The OP is right, the Pentium E2160 is quite a bargain these days. It's within the same price range of a X2 3600+ and X2 3800+ (MSRP is $84) but usually provides better performance. But what set it really apart is its overclocking potential. From reviews and people who bought it, it looks like you can easily get in the 3.15-3.4GHz range on air cooling alone - at which point even an overclocked X2 3600+ or X2 3800+ will have a tough time beating that.
poopypoo
09-Jul-2007, 14:09
...or get a sempron for $25 and play most games just fine... ;)
Thanks, for all your responses.
So far I'm pretty set on the new pemtium.
In France the X2 3800+ costs ~70 euro while the E2160 costs ~85 euro.
The Pemtium performs significantly better on most multimedia workloads while the X2 is slightly better for gaming, but even the "bad" E2160 seem to over clock quiet easily @2.5GHZ.
I will first rely on the IGP but it's likely that I will buy 8600 gt or gts quickly after my purchase.
I will use the computer for multimedia and later some gaming (I play mostly RPG so I don't need ubber perfs, at this time I'm still playing nwn, I plan playing games like Jade empire, guild wars etc... ).
I think a pentium based pc will more future proof than a X2, SSE3, overclockability, multimedia perfs(think hd decoding while having some other task in the back ground, etc...).
I think I will stuck with the pemtium.
Thanks Blazkowicz,I was really lost...
I've done some search all the boards based on P35, 965, 975 are out of my range, so I have to stuck with the old 945 north bridge.
But that's where it hurts, there a lot of different 945 chipset and the Intel site is..... plainly awful...
I found some 945 based mobo that are advertised as core 2 duo compliant around the fifties euro.
So if some body know a good micro atx mobo based on the 945 chip that would handle easily fsb slightly above the 250MHz.
I will try to continue my search anyway, but I should be able to find old review but low end Intel compliant products were quiet ignore when AMD dominated the low end market.
Anyway, advices are still welcome!
You're not going to be able to play anything that decent,
Actually far-cry, ut2004, painkiller + games similar in complexity play very well with a 1.2 athlon and a good graphics card....
in other words for games the gpu is much more important
So far I've found i945GZ in my price range but I'm unable to find reviews of theses boards running any kind of core II duo.
Most of these cards don't support serial ATA II.
None support dual channeling for memory.
And from the few consumers evaluations that I find on price comparator sites the fsb can't go very high...
I'm really in a tough situation, I don't the motherboard to hinder most the benefits I would gain by purchasing a core II du based processor...
I need a new computer quickly (my old die for some reasons and I don't want to spend a penni on it), If somebody know a good motherboard he is welcome, otherwize I will go with the AMD solution.
Blazkowicz
12-Jul-2007, 16:26
A Sempron would be a bad mistake. Instead I'd highly suggest you pick up a X2 3600+ and ignore the super crippled Intel's down at that price range. You'll easily be able to OC the 3600+ a bit more as well, might even want to push for a 3800+ depending on the cache differences. Also the motherboards with a price/performance bang are better on the AMD side in the low end. You're not going to be able to play anything that decent, but if you're coming from a Duron 800 I doubt that was the point so much.
I still think a sempron 3000+ is reasonable, half a X2 3600+ at half the price. Frequency is low though but you can do an easy +50% o/c which gives you a 2.4GHz athlon 64 with 256K L2. and replace the CPU later with a K10. the X2 will be twice as fast for things like media encoding though.
Skrying
12-Jul-2007, 19:39
Actually far-cry, ut2004, painkiller + games similar in complexity play very well with a 1.2 athlon and a good graphics card....
in other words for games the gpu is much more important
Neat, old games...
I'll just state that cheap Intel based motherboards suck and is the main reason I'd go AMD in this area.
If you need a good IGP, your best bet would be an RS600-based board... sadly, there aren't too many around. There's the abit f-i90hd (http://www.abit.com.tw/page/en/motherboard/motherboard_detail.php?pMODEL_NAME=Fatal1ty+F-I90HD&fMTYPE=LGA775) ( prices should hover just south of €100 ), the asrock 4core1333-fullhd (http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=4Core1333-FullHD&s=n) ( apparently not quite in the retail channels yet )... and that's about it, I think.
Hello everybody.
At least I decide to leave my old duron 800.
Woah woah woah, lets not be too hasty now.....
ElStupido
16-Jul-2007, 12:05
I'm kinda in the same situation as the thread starter.
Though I want to invest the vast majority of my pc budget (300-400€) in a gpu (150€ max).
Given that premise what gpu would you sugest?
And when buying a gpu I'm more concerned with stutterless playback of hd videos (different codecs) then games, because the pc will become kind of a lowend htpc. Still I would like to run the HL2 Episodes, FEAR or God forbid Bioshock (with low details maybe??) :(
thx in advance!
on the gpu side the x1950pro seems the best bang for buck
as for cpu the x2 6000 is only £110 seems good value
some benchmarks here:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2duo-e6420_6.html#sect1
Thanks again for yours reponses!
I'm going with a X2 3800 with a Rs600 based gigabyte mobo.
For Elstupido, I think you should follow Davros advice, the X1950XT is a great deal and while the G8600GTS is directX 10 compliant the first benchs seem to implie that this card is too weak to allow playable directX 10 games...
So for a while most of the games will be directX9c+ compliant, and the G8600GTS doesn't hold a candle in front of the 1950XT.
I'm really thinking in purchasing this gpu, but I'm still expecting Nvidia to release a real mid range card with say 64 stream processors the difference between G8800 and G8600 is too dramatic as far as ALU are concerned.
I was ordering my new computer when I've realize that there weresome questions still in the air.
For record I'll buy :
X2 3800+
ASUS M2A-VM Chipset AMD 690G Micro ATX
I will go with 2Go of ram but should I use pc5300 or 6400 (ie 667Mhz or 800MHz)?
I don't know what to chose for the box/power supply ?
What brand are cheap and reliable enough?
Do you have suggestion?
EDIT so far I'm thinking in a Antec NSK4000 .
I'm done thanks for yours answers.
{Sniping}Waste
15-Aug-2007, 16:45
You might take a look at this Gigabyte mother board.
GIGABYTE GA-MA69G-S3H
Its about $89 US so I don't know the price in Euros. Its a solid and very good overclocking mother board that is a full ATX and not mATX. This is the best of the 690G boards out there.
http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2527&ModelName=GA-MA69G-S3H
I have played with OCing on this mother board to fime its max HTT speeds and in about a hour of playing in the BIOS I was able to get 420HTT stable in windows and test. Default HTT speeds are 200HTT.
http://pic15.picturetrail.com/VOL601/2766865/13295977/259325199.jpg
I was able to get 420HTT stable in windows and test. Default HTT speeds are 200HTT.
im not too clued up on htt but is that the same as fsb ? does going from 200htt to 420htt mean you got over 100% overclock ?
{Sniping}Waste
15-Aug-2007, 21:47
im not too clued up on htt but is that the same as fsb ? does going from 200htt to 420htt mean you got over 100% overclock ?
For the HTT its a over 100% overclock. This was just to find out the max HTT. To overclock the CPU the multiplier is set by the CPU speed you get like the 3800+ X2 has a multi of 10X so the speed at default HTT is 2gig 10 X 200HTT AMD locks the multi upward like look at the 3800+ X2 thats at 2 gig speeds. Its default multi is 10 but you can't set the multi higher then that but can set lower then 10. The only way to overclock the CPU is to raise the HTT speed so it the default multi is 10 and you ara able to set the HTT to 220 then you rget 10 X 220HTT with a speed of 2.2gig now.
The test I did is to find the max HTT speed of the mother board so to do that you lower the multi to 5 so you don't reach the CPU max overclock speed so the CPU will not limit your test and lower the memory divider so the memory don't hit its max and hold you up there. Most AM2 motherboards that overclock well only get around 330HTT max stable.
so it the default multi is 10 and you ara able to set the HTT to 220 then you get 10 X 220HTT with a speed of 2.2gig now.
T.
so htt is like fsb fsb*multiplyer = cpu speed + htt * multiplyer = cpu speed
so when you set your htt to 420 your cpu speed was 420*10 = 4.2ghz (x2 8000) or was the 420 a typo and you mean 220*10 ???
ShaidarHaran
16-Aug-2007, 01:04
You might take a look at this Gigabyte mother board.
GIGABYTE GA-MA69G-S3H
Its about $89 US so I don't know the price in Euros. Its a solid and very good overclocking mother board that is a full ATX and not mATX. This is the best of the 690G boards out there.
Or the (slightly cheaper) mATX version which features VGA, DVI, HDMI, and tv outputs, the GA-MA69GM-S2H (http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2547&ModelName=GA-MA69GM-S2H).
I've been debating between these two boards lately as the basis for a potential (cheap) AMD build until I can afford a solid AM2+ or even 1207+ build.
{Sniping}Waste
16-Aug-2007, 03:42
so htt is like fsb fsb*multiplyer = cpu speed + htt * multiplyer = cpu speed
so when you set your htt to 420 your cpu speed was 420*10 = 4.2ghz (x2 8000) or was the 420 a typo and you mean 220*10 ???
The max HTT I was able to get on that mother board was 420HTT. Just look at the pic I posted. And yes the HTT is like FSB for calculating the speed of the CPU with the multi. The is no way to run the CPU at 420HTT with a 10 multi because the Athlon64 X2's are capped around 3gig to 3.3gig and only with high end cooling or supper cooling (cooling below 0C).
ahh i see now you set the htt to 420 but lowered the multi
For overclocking it is essential to get a good motherboard as the motherboard more and more is the major limiting factor to overclocks followed by the CPU, RAM and PSU in my experience.
Of course if you get an absolute dog of a CPU then nothing can help but on the lower end AMD and especially Intel models they all seem to be overclocking way above their normal clockspeed. Even going from 1.86GHz to 2.4GHz is a massive performance advantage.
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