CPU and mobo recommendations please

[Betty_Swallocks]

One of my son's friends needs to upgrade his PC. His graphics card (an old ATI 9800pro) is starting to die with artefacts showing in Windows. We have another card for him, a 7600GT, but his old system obviously is AGP and the new card is PCiE.

So, he needs to upgrade his motherboard and processor.

He's saved up about £125 but we'll need to spend about 30 quid of that on 2Gb of DDR2 memory, so he has around £95 to spend on the cpu and mobo.

What would be the best combination for that budget, given that he's going to be playing games etc.

I know the graphics card isn't exactly state of the art and it's going to be the bottleneck in the system but it will keep him going for a while until he can save up some more money.

What we want is a CPU and motherboard that will be have enough performance to take advantage of the card he will upgrade to in the future rather than one that matches the 7600GT.

If stretching the budget by another 25 quid or so will give significant advantages then he can wait a couple of weeks if necessary which would bring his budget to about £120.

We'll almost certainly be buying the kit from Scan so links to the recommended products would be appreciated if possible.

Thanks

[staffsMike]

Abit IP-35E or dark raider and a pentium dual core E2160, something like that. Overclockable to 2.4GHz on the stock cooler I would say and should come in around the £100 mark.

There is also this cheap mobo which is supposed to be alright
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=657881

Celeron Dual core's arent supposed to be too bad if overclocked
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=778010

Pentium Dual core
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=632059

[Noxvayl]

Gigabyte EP35-DS3R - £71.90
Intel E2180 Alendale - £43.93

That comes to £115.83 without shipping but being a Hexus member you can get free shipping.

Yes the extra £20 will be beneficial as that motherboard and CPU combo will overclock very well and will last a long time.

[staffsMike]

Did I pick the wrong gigabyte board ExHail?

[Noxvayl]

Did I pick the wrong gigabyte board ExHail?

lol nope. I just haven't had any sort of dealings or read any reviews about P31 boards so I tend to not recommend them.

For all I know your board could be a better choice given the price difference and both of them being Ultra Durable 2. See even within Gigabyte boards your spoilt for choice

EDIT: Just checked some things on the board... only real difference is P31 chipset and its limited to 4Gb of memory. Other than that its pretty much the same board for a little cheaper. Think it would be best to go for staffsMike's recommendation saving you the money but no real dip in performance.

[AdvWar]

Just my opinion, but a £70 motherboard seems a bit overboard for the TCs requirements, and the other parts being used.

[Noxvayl]

Just my opinion, but a £70 motherboard seems a bit overboard for the TCs requirements, and the other parts being used.

Yeah I prefer to spend money on a motherboard because its something you can keep for more than 1 PC build. But staffsMike's recommendation of motherboard is probably better for his needs yes.

[staffsMike]

Well I'd actually for for the dark raider myself £60/£70 is a decent price for the board you are getting.

If no overclocking will be done I'd actually get an amd 780G board and a £50ish X2 I actually have a 690G, the Asus M2A-VM, It's great and only £35 so that would leave a chunk of change for a decent X2.

Or a G31 intel board can be had around £35 Decisions Decisions.

[Noxvayl]

Well I'd actually for for the dark raider myself £60/£70 is a decent price for the board you are getting.

If no overclocking will be done I'd actually get an amd 780G board and a £50ish X2 I actually have a 690G, the Asus M2A-VM, It's great and only £35 so that would leave a chunk of change for a decent X2.

Or a G31 intel board can be had around £35 Decisions Decisions.

I think you've just confused him... aren't we meant to be making those decisions to make it easier for the person asking us, not telling him what decisions to make.

Anyway an AMD setup is also a decent idea... forgot about that(*slaps himself*). I'm getting slack now that my exam is over, its like I've switched into idle now and can't think that much any more.

Ah bugger Scan is temporarily having issues

[staffsMike]

OK well I'll be less annoying now.

If you are going to go intel I would get an IP-35 and a pentium dual/celeron dual core.

If you go amd then go for the 690/780G (probably 690 as you don't need the extra integrated graphics oomph) and then the X2 with the highest clock which suits your budget. I would aim for a brisbane core chip though.

[Betty_Swallocks]

I would personally be inclined to go the Intel route mainly because he will be able to upgrade later to a Core 2 Duo or Quad when he can afford it.

Another question though.

The cheapest Core 2 Duo that Scan list is the E4500 at £76 and the best Pentium dual is the E2220 at £55.

Which would be better? Is it worth paying the extra for the E4500 and economising on the motherboard, and if so why? Or should he get a better motherboard and aim to upgrade the chip later?

[staffsMike]

I wouldn't bother to be honest. The E4***'s have a bit more cache but not much esle going for them. In terms of gaming you might as well just get the pentium dual.

If you want a better chip look at the E7200 at around £80, thats a new 45nm chip. But I wouldn't really feel right pairing it to what will have to be a serious economy board to come in anywhere near on budget.

[Noxvayl]

The best bet would be to get a good motherboard and pair a sub par processor with it. Processors don't get cheaper because they have worse quality components they are only slower with clock speed so no matter which CPU you purchase its bound to last. Motherboards on the other hand are cheaper because they are built using inferior quality components to save money which means they are more likely to break or fail sometime.

Therefore saving money on a motherboard is not good. Get a good quality motherboard like the one I initially linked or the Dark Raider from Abit and then an E2160/E2180 which would work well in those boards and overclock very nicely as well. Then later on you can upgrade and then you don't need to change motherboard so you'll be able to purchase a better CPU or even use the money saved not having to get a motherboard for a GFX.

[Betty_Swallocks]

Good points. Thank you all.
We'll go in that direction.

[Betty_Swallocks]

Ok, thought I'd let you know what we are going for.

There's been a bit of a delay for various reasons which has given him time to save up a bit more money and the budget is now £135 so we're going for the following.

Intel Core 2 Duo, E7200, Wolfdale Core, S775, 2.53 GHz, 1066MHz, £83.06

Abit IP-35P, iP35, Socket 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 1066/ 800 MHz, SATA II, ATX £53.37

The alternative to this one would be the IP-35V
The only difference I can see is that the P has the ICH7 chipset and the V has ICH9. I have no idea what difference that makes. There's only a quid difference in price so which would you think would be better?

I've always liked Abit motherboards and the 7200 looks like a good bit of kit.

He's not going to be doing any overclocking at all. He has no experience with it and is very nervous about the idea of it tbh so I thought it best to get the best processor he could afford.

He's already bought the memory and a new hard disk so we don't have to worry about that.

Thank you to all who gave their opinions.