need advice on amd cpu upgrades.

[ironleg1963]

Howdy! I have a question. My wife bought my kids a kit computer from tiger direct and I would like some advice. the motherboard is a MSI 785GTM-E45 Motherboard. and we have 2 gigs of ram. I have been looking at the amd 1100t, the 980be, 975 and such. newegg has the 980 and it is oem; i am not fond of oem`s because of warrantee hassles. the 975 is a retail boxed processor and the 1100t is from an online store through amazon i never heard of., however they have 18 left at time of posting and it is boxed retail as well. 178.99 we have a power-up!400 watt psu and wanted to know what budget psu to get for a gaming rig. the kit came with a xfx 550 and i was given a asus 4870 x 2 and figured it would be better than the xfx 550 card. any advice is appropriated, a cheap case that is well ventilated advice is also needed.
thanks!have a great bay!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What is your entire budget??

Is this the kit:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...75&CatId=5291#

A few things:
1.)2GB is not a lot of RAM,and since you motherboard uses two RAM slots you need to either get two more DIMMs and replace the current ones,or replace your motherboard. DDR2 is also now more expensive than DDR3.
2.)What is an XFX 550 card?? I assume you mean an XFX 550W PSU??
3.)What OS do you have and is it 64 bit??
4.)What case do you have? It needs to be long enough to take an HD4870X2
5.)What CPU do you have know??

[HalloweenJack]

it`ll be an XFX GTX 550;

the ram stick (from that kit) is a single 2 gig stick of ddr2

[ironleg1963]

[QUOTE=CAT-THE-FIFTH;2479277]What is your entire budget??

Is this the kit:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...75&CatId=5291#

A few things:
1.)2GB is not a lot of RAM,and since you motherboard uses two RAM slots you need to either get two more DIMMs and replace the current ones,or replace your motherboard. DDR2 is also now more expensive than DDR3.
2.)What is an XFX 550 card?? I assume you mean an XFX 550W PSU??
3.)What OS do you have and is it 64 bit??
4.)What case do you have? It needs to be long enough to take an HD4870X2
5.)What CPU do you have know??[/QUOTE



the video card is XFX HD555XZNF2 Radeon HD 5550 Video Card - 1024MB GDDR2, Power-up G54-8019 Executive ATX Mid-Tower Case - ATX, 4 x 5.25" Bays, 8 x 3.5" Bays, Black, Power Up G54-8018 LT 400-Watt ATX Power Supply - ATX, 400W, 120mm Fan, SATA-Ready. 2 x Patriot PSD22G80026 2048MB PC6400 DDR2 Memory - 800MHz, 1x2048MB, Non-ECC, Unbuffered
MPN: PSD22G80026.

my budget is minimal to start. I have been looking online for used cpu`s like the amd 1100t, the amd 1090 be, and the 980 as well as the amd 975 be. I was figuring on cooling it with the coursar h60 with 2 scythe slipstream fans that have 110CFm.

so far I am running windows 7 home premium X 64, 4 gigs ram, change the video card to the 4870 x 2. the CPU in question to replace is AMD Phenom X4 9750 Quad Core Processor - 2.40GHz, 4MB Cache, 3600 MT/s FSB, Quad-Core, Socket AM2+, OEM Processor.
I have been looking at the 1100t, 1090 br, 980be, and the 975 be as well as the corsair h60 cooler.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would get another 2GB stick of RAM. You also need to have at least Vista 64 bit or Windows 7 64 bit. The HD4870X2 is a fast card,but lacks DX11 and consumes a lot of power. It consumes more power at load than a GTX480!! A decent 550W might be enough,but I would probably go for a decent 600W to 650W PSU,just in case.

One of these PSUs would be worth considering:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...070&CatId=1483

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...381&CatId=5439

If you want to save a bit more money,this PSU has got a good review:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817194103

The 125W TDP Phenom II X4 965BE looks good value for money:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103727

However,as your motherboard only appears to have a 4 phase VRM,I would probably look at getting a 95W Phenom II X4 960T if possible. The Phenom II X4 965BE is supported though. You might also need to flash the BIOS to use a newer CPU though.

Your motherboard is not really suited for overclocking. TBH,I would just stick with the stock cooler or get a quieter air cooler. The stock cooler for the 125W TDP Phenom II X4 CPUs is effective though.

The HD4870X2 is around 10.5" AFAIK,so you need a case which can take long cards easily.

An example is the HEC Blitz:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811121096

This can take a graphics card upto 16.5" long.

Another is Zalman Z9 Plus:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ZAL...-a&channel=rcs

This can take a graphics card upto 11.4" long.

Edit!!

You say you have 4GB now - so I assume that is a pair of 2GB DIMMs??