Arcade Cabinet Budget Components check.

[roorooroo]

Pimping up my arcade cabinet a little and going to upgrade the Athlon Xp3000 in there so i can install Hyperspin and play some more demanding games.

How about these budget components? (i have a video card, case and hard drive).

http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=28326 E5300

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...A-II-Micro-ATX Motherboard

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500W-...asiq-Power-PSU Antec Basiq 500W

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139662 2 x1gb Crucial 800 Memory.

Probably OC the processor up to 3ghz 'cos it's easy

About £162 all in..what do you reckon?

Cheers, Roo

[Pob255]

I'd avoid the Antec Basiq psu's they are not great.

Do you need onboard graphics to have any real mussle?

I'd consider an AMD instead
Athlon II X2 245 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-A...MHz-65W-Retail
Asus M4A785d http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-M4A785D-M-PRO
PSU (does depend on what else you have in there)
OCZ StealthXStream 400w http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152505
or
Antec Earthwatt 430w http://www.ebuyer.com/product/120376

[roorooroo]

I'd avoid the Antec Basiq psu's they are not great.

Do you need onboard graphics to have any real mussle?

I'd consider an AMD instead
Athlon II X2 245 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-A...MHz-65W-Retail
Asus M4A785d http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-M4A785D-M-PRO
PSU (does depend on what else you have in there)
OCZ StealthXStream 400w http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152505
or
Antec Earthwatt 430w http://www.ebuyer.com/product/120376

Cheers Pob, might go for an Amd yet..not sure..

No i don't need any onboard gfx as i have my trusty x1900xt..having said that i probably need a beefier PSU..i'll have to recheck that as i recall those x1900's are power hungry. I can see this going over-budget

Ta, Roo

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Here is my suggestion:

AMD Athlon II X2 250 ~ £49

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

Asus M3A76-CM~ £44

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161330

This motherboard has the SB710 southbridge.

2GB PC2-8500 DDR2 RAM ~ £38

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/142405

Corsair HX450W ~ £49

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

This is a modular PSU with two PCI-E power connectors.

[Pob255]

Do you rate the 250 over the 245 CAT?
The 245 has a higher HT, more cache and is only slightly slower, while being £5 cheaper.

CAT's motherboard is a better choise as you don't need the onboard graphics.

Although your original choise of cpu & motherboard is fine as well.

You shouldn't need any thing more than a good 400w-450w psu, we're looking at relativly low power dual core cpu's and a x1900xt is around 110w under load (same as a 4850)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Scan specs for the X2 250 are wrong:

http://www.amd.com/us/products/deskt...omparison.aspx

The X2 250 is just the next speed bump over the X2 245 which is perfectly fast enough for the jon at hand too IMHO!!

If the X1900XT has the same power consumption as a HD4850 the OCZ 400w should do the job.

IIRC the AMD Athlon II are actually quite similar clock for clock to the E5*** series and are supposed to be a bit better for gaming as they are clocked higher anyway by default. I could have gone for a cheaper motherboard but you get what you pay for!!

[Pob255]

Ahh ok, I was wondering about the Scan listed specs, we should mention it to them.

Yes the Athlon II beat the e5xxx at stock, but the e5xxx can be overclocked more and then pulls ahead.
However I doubt any overclocking would be needed, so as often happens it goes back to motherboard.
The OP's found a nice g31 motherboard for £33,
Only 2 memory slots, but probably will not need more than 2gb anyway
Only 3 phase power, if I'm not mistaken, so it's not going to be great for overclocking, again I doubt it will be an issue.
Not very good onboard graphics, but not going to be used any way.
No pci-e 2.0, x1900xt isn't pci-e 2.0 so no matter, even if it was no way it could soak a pci-e 1.0 lane anyway.
One big down side is the layout, the ide port behind the 24pinpower connector is really bad placement, probably lose one of the 4 sata ports to the graphics card as well.

just re-read the OP, you should probably hit 3.0ghz on that board with an e5300 (as the e5300 is a great overclocker), but you might not.
probably need to look at one of the decent g43 motherboards and then you're pushing the price into £60-70 range

Tough choise, come down to how much roorooroo is willing to spend.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

There is this MSI 740G based motherboard with the SB710 southbridge for around £37:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/174002

Here are some specs:

http://eu.msi.com/index.php?func=pro...=&prod_no=1851

This is an interesting article comparing the Athlon II and the E5000 series:

http://en.inpai.com.cn/doc/enshowcont.asp?id=6700

[Pob255]

nice, but what is it about MSI and there attraction to put the eps connector in the middle of the board?

Yes and the resaults are pritty much as we said, they perform around the same level at the same clocks, while the athlon II have higher stock clocks the e5300 can be pushed very high with the right motherboard, 3.5ghz is not unknown.
And given that the 250 is now the same cost as the e5300 it's down to motherboard again

[roorooroo]

Ta for all the input Pob and CAT..appreciated as always
..as i say the system isn't going to be the most powerful i've ever had. OC to 3ghz should be easily enough too..the layout of the mobo really doesn't matter as I only plan on one ide or sata drive attached anyway.
The x1900xt needs around 30a on 12v rail and a few watts! So i'll double check on that now.

Cheers, Roo