Help on Phenom II system

[sawyen]

Helo guys, been idling pretty a long while now, but need a bit of help...

Looking to build a Phenom II X4 system for my office's 2nd processing station..

Have a limited budget but current monies can stretch up to about a grand..

no need for super graphics as it will do mostly threaded database searching..

I have a Core 2 and a Core i7 as my main workstation already so looking at a Phenom for a change..

I need 2 screens to go with it though, 23-24 inchers.. no need for S-PVA things and such..


** I think the most pressing question is which is the best price-to-performance motherboard (looking at 780Gs now as I can save on the video card as well) to use with a Phenom II X4 940 so I can maximise on HDD and such..

I realise most 780G have only 3+1 phase and during the early days of Phenom X4 has been a problem of dead board etc...

Hopefully will be placing the order by the end of the week.

[staffsMike]

Seem to have the right idea. Great processor, stick it in a 780G (Asus -EM version is great for multiple monitors and video outputs). They cope fine with the new crop of processors so don't worry about that, I run a phenom 9950 in mine

I think there are new CPU's on the way though so don't rush to the 940.
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=18149

[matty-hodgson]

if you're looking for monitors, these might just do the trick
i have 1 of them and it's awesome.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would probably go for the Asus M3A78-EM too:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/150278

[sawyen]

So I reckon all these boards will slip in Phenom IIs fine?

The last thing I want is to smell hot deep fried power modulators while database searching my research...

780G seems to be the best bet as I don't need it to run anything fancy..

Its going to be running XP x64, so there's no need for fancy bits...

I'm trying to keep costs down by sticking to DDR2, unless I'm missing something..

Seems getting DDR3 now is still rather expensive.. and as far as I can see, AM3 boards are all high end 790FX/GX that are all at least 100 quid or more..

Monitor wise, that should do it...

** Also, I realise not all 780G support multimonitor support, can anyone point me to the correct board? ***

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Asus M3A78-EM has 4+1 phase:

http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1...52&modelmenu=1

http://event.asus.com/mb/140w/

[scaryjim]

I believe 780G support 2 monitors, but not 2 *digital* monitors: so you can have one via VGA, and one via one of HDMI / DVI / Displayport (thanks to the M3A78-EM's huge number of display outputs!). If this is purely a data crunching machine this shouldn't matter though, and there's plenty of VGA connectable 24" monitors out there. Please note, however, that the DVI is DVI-D so can't be used with a VGA dongle - you will need at least one of the monitors to have a DVI port (this would rule out using 2 of the samsungs matty linked to, unfortunately!). The ASUS VH242H looks like it should do the job and is a good price.

Although while we're on monitors, can I ask why you want 24" in particular? If this machine is just crunching through a DB I don't see the need for 2 large high-res monitors, really...

If you want to save even more, you could look a little further down the motherboard scale at the 740G and 780V. They both still use the SB700, but have less powerful graphics cores: but since you don't plan on gaming or watching HD movies on your office machine (I assume, anyway!) that shouldn't matter! Ebuyer have a couple of examples of each chipset for < &#163;50.

[sawyen]

hmn.. okay, I must have got my info incorrect then..

So before I stick the order into the system.. can anyone confirm that Asus M3A78-EM will let me run dual screens..

Thanks! Back to the lab for me now...

Sod'ing experiments..