cpu advise for game rig needed

[tongue_of_colicab]

Hi there,

My little brother wants to buy a gaming pc. Now i've been looking around a bit at what to get him as his budget is a bit limited at 1100 euro's for everything (this will be his first pc, so no parts available for re-use) and I cant make up my mind about what cpu I should buy him.

As for now about 350 euro's is reserved for monitor (24''), OS licence and mouse + keyboard.

Another 200 will go to a 5850. I figured this will be the best bang for the buck (if there is a store that can actually sell one to me that is). The 5870 is too expensive and the 5850 is a fair bit faster than a 4*** card but only 80 euro's more expensive. Given he will buy a 24'' screen the extra horsepower will be nice in the long run.

About 80 euro's will go the the memory.

PSU + case +hdd and some cable, dvd drive stuff etc probably around 250 euro I think.

So that leaves him with only 200 euro's for the mainboard and cpu.

I dont know what to buy here. First I thought maybe tell him to save a bit more and get a i7. But that will be quite a bit more as the cheapest i7 already is 220 euro's and those mainboards dont come cheap either.

I was also thinking about maybe the old intel quad cpu's. Mainboard and cpu's arnt expensive anymore and my q6600 still works fine for all the new games. However its not that good value for money anymore it seems if I take a quick look at benchmarks.

There is also the option of a phenom 955. It will be him a little bit over budget, about 80 euro's I think.

I really have not been keeping track of what is good hardware to buy these days. Maybe somebody can help me about a bit on what would be the smartest to buy him?

He's only 16 and doesnt have much money to spend so it will have to last him pretty well for atleast 2 years in terms of new games performance so I want to get him the best he can get for his money.

 

[Davros]

av a mooch here
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu,2359-3.html

if it has to last several years quadcore the way to go(or maybe x3) its day still hast arrived yet but it will
i7 920 the mboard makes it poor value for money

how about : AMD PhenomX4 9650 Quad Core AM2+ 2MB 2.3GHz £82

or : AMD Phenom II X3 705eAM3 2.5Gh7.5M £90 even though it has 1 less core than the 9650 it beats it in games even gta4 (which likes cores)

am3 boards can be had for about £70

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Thanks.

I dont think there is a point in going for a AMD cpu anything other than a 965 as its only 160 euro's. I checked some reviews and it seems its pretty much on par with the q9550. Only downside is that mainboards are alot more expensive.

The q9550 is about 40 euro's more expensive but mainboards probably are cheaper. I found a am3 one for 140 euro's that seemed good (7**FX chipset). Now I dont know what intel mainboards are good but as far as I know anything with a p45 chipset will do just fine and you can get a decent one of those at 70 euro's plus there is the advantage of slightly cheaper dd2 ram.

Would a Asus p5q series board be any good? Because if it is I will go for the 9550 I think.

 

[Grall]

The Phenom 2 black editions seem good value to me, and having unlocked multiplier gives the opportunity for some fun and experimentation if you guys feel so inclined. It's also a fast CPU, not as fast as the i7 series perhaps, but it'll run anything you throw at it without complaining or breaking a sweat.

Stick in a mainboard with AMD's chipset and you can use AMD's own tuning software, add a cheap and very powerful Radeon HD 4890, and result is kickass PC.

 

[Davros]

So that leaves him with only 200 euro's for the mainboard and cpu.

I dont think there is a point in going for a AMD cpu anything other than a 965 as its only 160 euro's.

You wont get a board for 40euro's

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Yeah thats a bit of a problem. I will go over budget a bit (or rather, I have to save a bit on others). Thats a other reason to go for the intel quad, decent p45 mainboards seem to come at around 70 euro's while the amd ones are way over 100 so it will still be cheaper even though the amd cpu is 40 euro's cheaper (the q9550 is 200 here).