A little hardware advice....

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Sheepbot

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So I'm finally in a position where i have to upgrade my old p4 rig to something more respectable. I'm looking at buying cpu, mobo and ram now and saving for a few months for a nice graphics card (maybe dx11 cards if they're out :)) which means the mobo will have to have onboard graphics as i don't have a pci-e card. The pc will be used for gaming and regular photoshop/illustrator work.

My budget is about 5k, can maybe squeeze out a couple hundred more. I want it to be as future proof as possible (and as my budget allows). I've been looking at prices this weekend and i7 is out of the question, so the phenoms 2's are looking like a decent choice.

What I've come up with so far is:

ASUS M4A78T-E (AM3 board which uses DDR3 + has onboard video)
Phenom II X3 720BE
Corsair TW3X4G1333C9 XMS 3, 2 x 2Gb DDR3 kit (http://www.prophecy.co.za/corsair-tw3x4g1333c9-with-heatsink-2gb2048mb-p-31038.html)

Any thoughts/recommendations would be appreciated :D
 
Sheepbot said:
So I'm finally in a position where i have to upgrade my old p4 rig to something more respectable. I'm looking at buying cpu, mobo and ram now and saving for a few months for a nice graphics card (maybe dx11 cards if they're out :)) which means the mobo will have to have onboard graphics as i don't have a pci-e card. The pc will be used for gaming and regular photoshop/illustrator work.

My budget is about 5k, can maybe squeeze out a couple hundred more. I want it to be as future proof as possible (and as my budget allows). I've been looking at prices this weekend and i7 is out of the question, so the phenoms 2's are looking like a decent choice.

What I've come up with so far is:

ASUS M4A78T-E (AM3 board which uses DDR3 + has onboard video)
Phenom II X3 720BE
Corsair TW3X4G1333C9 XMS 3, 2 x 2Gb DDR3 kit (http://www.prophecy.co.za/corsair-tw3x4g1333c9-with-heatsink-2gb2048mb-p-31038.html)

Any thoughts/recommendations would be appreciated :D
Click to expand...

You've made excellent choices. I'm sure you could fit a 4670 into your budget though...
 
Ok cool thanks :) I'm looking for bit more juice graphics card wise, which is why I've decide to save a bit more and buy a decent card.

Hoping to get around 3.5Ghz out of the 720BE and maybe even unlock the fourth core, but if I can't it's no biggie...only found out about unlocking it after i decided on it anyway :P
 
Seriously dont waste your budget on ddr3 the performance gains are minimal , if none. Especially if your on a budget.
 
The price os also not a hell of a lot more than DDR2 so why not go that route?

I had the 720BE and got 3.4GHZ out of it and it was stable 24/7. You'll want a better cooler than stock as well so look at the CM Hyper TX2. They're around R280 and the bang for buck can't be beaten.
 
flashfire208 said:
Seriously dont waste your budget on ddr3 the performance gains are minimal , if none. Especially if your on a budget.
Click to expand...

The AM3 boards inly suppoort DDR3 and in buying the AM3 board, his processor will benefit from the new HyperTransport link speed the motherboard supports over an AM2+ board. Plus it gives future proofing for new AM3 processors.
 
I just built a PC with this mb and I was impressed,

Asus M4A78-EM , support new upcoming 140W Powered CPU , support hypertransport 3.0 + Hybrid CrossFireX , all-in-one ; socket AM2/AM2+/AM3 , AMD 780G/sb700 chipset , 4 x dual channel DDR2-1066 ( upto 2.5v ) , 6 ( 5 internal+1 external e-sata ) s-ata2 with raid 0/1/0+1/10 , 1 x parallel ata133 , on-board directX10 ATi HD3200 tripple output VGA ( with D-SUB + HDMi + DVi / 1080i HDCP compliant ) + ALC887 7.1 audio with optical s/pdif out + gigabit lan ; 1x pci-e (1x) , 1x pci-e 2.0 (16x) , 2 x pci - micro atx , 1 x PS2 only for kb
,

this was with the CPU you wanna use. Ok, you cant unlock the 4th core with this SB but who cares!? :rolleyes:

You can use the extra $$$ for your video card!
 
Looks like a good mobo HTC, but i think I'm decided on going the DDR3 rout due to it's future-proofing factor (not that the term "future-proofing" means anything in the world of hardware :P).

That CM Hyper TX2 sounds like great value Juggy. I'll see if i can get it from my supplier, otherwise I'll just order it online. If my budget allows, I'm thinking of getting a WD Caviar Black 500GB as well. Are they good drives?

Thanks again for all the comments :)
 
Sheepbot said:
Ok cool thanks :) I'm looking for bit more juice graphics card wise, which is why I've decide to save a bit more and buy a decent card.

Hoping to get around 3.5Ghz out of the 720BE and maybe even unlock the fourth core, but if I can't it's no biggie...only found out about unlocking it after i decided on it anyway :P
Click to expand...

HIGHLY unlikely that the 4th will be functional, the numbers of people for whom it works properly are uber small.
 
Future proofing is not a myth. An i7 system will not become obsolete for another 3 years imo. Hardware requirements are slowing down.
 
dudewotevr said:
HIGHLY unlikely that the 4th will be functional, the numbers of people for whom it works properly are uber small.
Click to expand...

Ye I'm aware of that, but my decision to get the 720 is not based on unlocking that fourth core, it's just a bonus if it does. So if it unlocks, awesome, if it doesn't then no worries.
 
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Are Western Digital HDD's crappy? there is a special on a 500gb WD Sata drive for R500. These IT guys at work say its a crap brand, but somehow they're not the smartest IT guys i've ever worked with
 
Some IT guys know F all in my opinion, to say western digital drives are rubbish just shows how little they know.
 
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