Doing a pseudo-econo-build

[Queelis]

Hello there,

it's been a while since I've last posted here due to being quite occupied with my studies, but I knew where to ask for advice when I need some.

So there, I'm replacing an old banger of a laptop with a modest desktop build. Since I'm not from the UK, I don't know whether there's point in posting the approximate price of the components in pounds - You tell me.

The PC won't be used very heavily: web, multimedia (movies, converting audio), occasional games (nothing very new, and I won't mind turning the settings down a notch).

So here's what I'm currently thinking about, and some reasoning behind it:

Case - Antec Solo (not large; I like the looks; has some noise prevention; I ruled out the Sonata III because I don't like the doors; no other solid manufacturer (for a reasonable price) is available here)

PSU - Fortron (FSP) Epsilon 500W (not expensive; I've heard they're quite reliable)

MoBo - Gigabyte GA-P45-DS3L (not a cut-down chipset (unlike P43), though doesn't have any features I don't need; stable and reliable (I think); layout doesn't have any major issues)

CPU - Intel C2D E7400 (budget not large enough for a 9 series quad-core, don't really want an 8 series; clock speed only 200MHz less than E8400, and costs only two thirds of the latter - yes, I know, half the cache, but that doesn't really have a big impact on performance)

HDD - can't really decide between a Samsung F1 640GB or WD Caviar Blue (WD6400AAKS). The Samsung, I've read, is quieter, the WD has (much) better multithreaded read/write speeds. Are those important on a home PC? This info is from the review on Xbit Labs.

Graphics card - Asus Radeon HD 4670 (EAH4670/DI/512M) (has Arctic Cooling Accelero L1 slapped on it, should be cool and quiet; has enough grunt to get some not-brand-spanking-new games at medium setting at least; cheap, ofcourse; will be running a 20" monitor).

That's pretty much it. Everything else is quite settled on: 4 gigs of Kingston ValueRam, Samsung DVD burner. I do plan to upgrade to a quad core (Q9550, probably; Q9550s, even) if the price comes down and finances go up in the future

Umm, quite a long post there, I hope at least some will take the time to read all that through.

Your advice is very welcome; thanks in advance,
Queelis.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would look at a HD4830 if you are going to play any newer games. The Sapphire one is the one to go for. Have you looked at the Phenom II X3 710 or 720?? One of these paired with a 780G or 790GX motherboard will be an excellent combination.

[Queelis]

I would look at a HD4830 if you are going to play any newer games. The Sapphire one is the one to go for. Have you looked at the Phenom II X3 710 or 720?? One of these paired with a 780G or 790GX motherboard will be an excellent combination.

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I've noticed that 4830 is a good deal as well. There's the Sapphire, then there's Asus with the same Accelero L1, Club3D (same as Powercolor everywhere else, I don't recognise the cooler), MSI and XFX (same cooler as in the 4850 Hexus recently reviewed).

The Powercolor:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...-DL-DVI-I-HDMI


And about the CPU: currently there's only 720 BE in stock where I'm planning to buy, and that's some 25% more than the E7400. How does it compare to the performance gain? Besides, I really appreciate silence and low power consumption, so the E7400 has an edge here (don't know about the boxed coolers, though).


Additionally, were I going to take a Phenom, there's the thing with AM2+ motherboards: I don't really know much about them Currently looking at the available stuff, these would be those I'd consider (links to Scan, just so you get a clear picture):

Asus M3A78 Pro
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=898318

Asus M4A78 Pro
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=952120

Oh, and there's Gigabyte GA-MA780G-UD3H (official Gigabyte page):
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...ProductID=3004

Hmm, that's pretty much it. Really nothing more to choose from: AsRock - never in my life, others are mainly mATX, and only two 790GX boards, but those would blow the budget too much. Maybe the dim-witted pricks running the suppliers haven't waken up from the years of low AM2 board sales, I don't know. Availability was one the main reasons I didn't go the AMD route in the first place.

Umm, okay, to sum things up. Would an increase of 10-15% in the price of these 3 components (graphics card-CPU-MoBo) translate to a similar increase in performance?

Thanks again for your time.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Sapphire HD4830 has PowerPlay working fine and when in 2D mode it downclocks the GPU to 160mhz and the RAM to 250mhz. Not all HD4830 and HD4850 cards have as well implemented PowerPlay as the Sapphire card.

Here are some reviews of the card:

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=654

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...re,2098-4.html

http://www.elitebastards.com/cms/ind...=629&Itemid=27

[url]http://www.o v e r c l o c k 3 d.net/reviews.php?/gpu_displays/sapphire_radeon_hd_4830_-_budget_overclocking/2

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/sapp_4830/

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1415&pageID=5842

I have the PowerColor HD4830 and the stock cooler is relatively quiet at idle. However it does get noisier under load. You can use the ATI Catalyst Control Centre to change the fan speed manually though. However PowerPlay is not great on this card as it only downclocks the GPU to 500mhz and the RAM to 750mhz when idle. I have to use ATI Tray Tools to downclock the card manually and I can only get it down to 200mhz for the GPU and 300mhz for the RAM so far.
I did replace the stock cooler with a better Akasa Vortexx Neo though. The HD4830 cards overclock very well and you can easily get it upto near HD4850 performance as a result.

Regarding the Phenom II X3 720 here are some reviews:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16382/4

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpu...710-am3-cpus/5

http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-ph...-review-am3/16

Actually the Phenom II has quite low idle power consumption when used with a 780G or 790GX motherboard.

The M3A78 PRO will probably do the job fine unless you need the extra connectors and the abilty to take 16gb of RAM that the more expensive M4A78 PRO has.

[Queelis]

Thanks again for a reply.

I've read through many of Phenom II X3 720 BE reviews, and it really seems to be the budget processor to take at the moment (800MHz overclock by only changing the multiplier, dang!).

But the choice of the motherboard still puzzles me. What is the advantage of 780G/790GX chipset, over, say, 790X? I don't suppose the PC would only use the integrated graphics core in 2D applications, would it? And correct me if I'm wrong, but Hybrid Crossfire only works with low end discrete graphics cards, right?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The on-board graphics on the AMD motherboards is disabled when using a PCI-E graphics card. Hybrid crossfire only works with the HD3450 and HD3470 I believe as the 780G and 790GX graphics cores are based on them.

The 780G and 790GX have the improved SB750 southbridge. If you are not using Crossfire go for a 780G motherbaord. The 790GX motherboards are meant to be easier to overclock although IIRC I have heard there are some slight bugs a while back with some of them. If you can go for a 790GX at a similar price then go for it but TBH the Phenom II X3 720 seems to be easy to overclock anyway!!

[Pob255]

Sorry but as good as the new phenon II are they are not the best budget cpu's they are the best mid range/price point cpu's
At half the cost of them the old amd x2 7750BE and intel e5200 both for around £60, good performance and overclock very well, these are the current budget kings

[Queelis]

The on-board graphics on the AMD motherboards is disabled when using a PCI-E graphics card. Hybrid crossfire only works with the HD3450 and HD3470 I believe as the 780G and 790GX graphics cores are based on them.

The 780G and 790GX have the improved SB750 southbridge. If you are not using Crossfire go for a 780G motherbaord. The 790GX motherboards are meant to be easier to overclock although IIRC I have heard there are some slight bugs a while back with some of them. If you can go for a 790GX at a similar price then go for it but TBH the Phenom II X3 720 seems to be easy to overclock anyway!!

To be exact, the motherboards I'm looking at (Gigabyte MA780G-UD3H and Asus M3A78/M4A78 PROs) have SB700 southbridge, not SB750. 790GX boards come with SB750, however. But I do suppose SB700 is better than SB600, isn't it?

And maybe you (or anyone else, for that matter) would have a word or two on other components I've chosen?

[Queelis]

Sorry but as good as the new phenon II are they are not the best budget cpu's they are the best mid range/price point cpu's
At half the cost of them the old amd x2 7750BE and intel e5200 both for around £60, good performance and overclock very well, these are the current budget kings

I was considering the E5300 (100MHz higher clock than E5200, same price), but seeing I could spend a little more I'm willing to opt for a better CPU, than, say, better graphics (those get old just a little too quickly for me, even for electronics). Hence I'm deciding between an E7400 and the suggested X3 720 BE.

[Pob255]

That's easier, x3 720be

On the e5300, it's not just 100mhz higher, it's 0.5 multiplier higher so should overclock slightly better than the e5200

[Queelis]

That's easier, x3 720be

On the e5300, it's not just 100mhz higher, it's 0.5 multiplier higher so should overclock slightly better than the e5200

Yes, multiplier up from 12.5 to 13 leads to 100 MHz plus.

Okay, then I suppose it is settled

Now just have to find some reviews about 780G boards. Maybe you have some advice on searching? Google is just hopeless at that; or maybe it is just me, but typing some board and 'review' on it brings nothing but useless etailer sites with their so-called 'user reviews', blah

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If you are running it at stock speeds the X2 7750+ is faster than an E5200. If you want a budget dual core to overclock with the E5*** series are far better. However like with the newer Q6600 processors the newer E5200 CPUs do not overclock as well IIRC. On the other hand the newer Phenom II seem to overclocker better than the older Phenoms and the Athlon X2 7750+ which is Phenom based.

TBH if you want an Athlon dual core I would wait for the newer 45nm ones coming out in the next couple of months.

[Sputnik]

Now just have to find some reviews about 780G boards. Maybe you have some advice on searching? Google is just hopeless at that; or maybe it is just me, but typing some board and 'review' on it brings nothing but useless etailer sites with their so-called 'user reviews', blah

To be honest, I wouldn't bother with a 780G board unless you want mATX, because the 790GX is only a little bit more cost wise.

I think at the moment the 720be is a great all round CPU, It has some future proofing(with it being AM3) and it is a great 'bang for buck' unit, It's not the fastest or the cheapest but, a good compromise.

[Queelis]

To be honest, I wouldn't bother with a 780G board unless you want mATX, because the 790GX is only a little bit more cost wise.

I think at the moment the 720be is a great all round CPU, It has some future proofing(with it being AM3) and it is a great 'bang for buck' unit, It's not the fastest or the cheapest but, a good compromise.

The 790GX is really, really out of the budget here. I don't know why, but 790GX boards cost quite a bit more than they did several months ago (take note that I'm not from the UK).

And one thing considering 780G and 770X - what's really the difference besides the integrated graphics core? Though reading a review on bit-tech about stability problems, 770X seems a bit 'dangerous'.

(arrg, the motherboard thing is becoming a pain in the.. neck )

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The 780G motherboard should be fine as the Phenom II X3 720 has an unlocked multiplier.

Looking at this thread one of the guys/girls used an Asus 780G motherboard to overclock a multiplier locked and higher TDP Phenom II X4 920 to 3.8ghz:

http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/sh....php?t=2290234

The M3A78 PRO supports 140w Phenom II processors too unlike some other motherboards:

http://www.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_ID=SChThDvEAJ31GxGV

[Queelis]

The 780G motherboard should be fine as the Phenom II X3 720 has an unlocked multiplier.

Looking at this thread one of the guys/girls used an Asus 780G motherboard to overclock a multiplier locked and higher TDP Phenom II X4 920 to 3.8ghz:

http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/sh....php?t=2290234

The M3A78 PRO supports 140w Phenom II processors too unlike some other motherboards:

http://www.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_ID=SChThDvEAJ31GxGV

Yes, that was a microATX board, even. Though both the Asus M3A78 PRO and the Gigabyte MA780G-UD3H I'm looking at support up to 140W TDP processors. I don't suppose there's a big difference between the reliability of those two manufacturers? What about BIOS releases, I hope one of those isn't known to be lazy releasing new BIOS versions?