Haven't upgraded in ~10 years, looking for help with CPU/MB and PSU choice, £500 bgt

[MrSpankyPants]

Hi there.

Mods: If you'd like me split and re-post to separate sections please just ask. I'm happy to oblige.

I'm in the process of finally upgrading my system after about ten years of my current one and have most of my bits chosen:

• WD 1TB Blue Desktop Drive 3.5" SATA-III 7200RPM 64MB £53.39
• 1GB Gigabyte Radeon HD 7770 OC, 4500MHz GDDR5, 28nm, GPU 1000MHz, 640 Cores £90.92
• Liteon Ihas124 24x Dvd±rw (dual ±r)/ram Sata Drive (internal Black) £13.49
• Fractal Design Define R4 Black Pearl Case £79.97
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium w/SP1 £68.99
• G-Skill 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz RipjawsX Memory Kit CL9 (9-9-9-24) 1.5V £44.00

Where I come to a standstill though is in choosing the CPU+MB combination and a PSU. I've got my CPU choice down to either a Phenom II X4 965BE (125W) plus one of these MBs:

• MSI 970A-G43, AMD 970, S AM3+, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, PCIe 2.0 (x16), ATX, Xfire, USB 3.0, Gigabit LAN £55.16
• Asus M5A97 R2.0, AMD 970, S AM3+, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, PCIe 2.0 (x16), ATX £68.36
• ASRock 970 Extreme4, AMD 970, S AM3+, DDR3 2100MHz(OC), SATA III - 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, PCIe 2.0 (x16), ATX, USB 3.0, eSATA £71.96
• Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3, AMD 970, S AM3+, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, RAID SATA, PCIe 2.0 (x16), ATX £75.56

Or going down the FM2 route with a FX4300 Vishera and a MB which I haven't chosen yet. The ASRock FM2A75 PRO4 for £62.10 seems capable enough though.

The MSI seems ropey. I got badly screwed with a 754 Asus board in the past so am cautious but it does seem decent. The other two seem much of a muchness. The FM2 board gets good reviews.


My choices for PSU are (in order of price):

• Corsair Builder Series CX430 V2 (CP-9020046-UK) £34.50
• Silverstone Strider 500W (SST-ST50F-ES) £39.00
• XFX PRO550W Core Edition (P1-550S-XXB9) £45.06
• Antec 520W High Current Gamer (0761345-06205-3) £47.01
• Corsair Builder Series CX500W (CP-9020047-UK) £47.40
• OCZ ZS Series 550W (OCZ-ZS550W-UK) £47.46
• Seasonic 520W Modular (M12II-520) £65.42

The Seasonic is the nicest but I'm already over my budget of £500 so would like to choose a cheaper one if it's suitable. The XFX, OCZ and Antec are my current thinking, in that order. The Corsairs seem, well, a bit shonky and the Silverstone looks like an old design (not that I know if that's a massive difference).

I guess it would be helpful to list what I'm wanting from the machine so, in no particular order:

• It's a development (C++) and gaming (FPS) machine.
• I'm not bothered about playing Crysis4 or whatever in insane detail. Hell I'm still on a 1680 x 1050 screen
• Must not be very noisy in normal use, noise during high load is okay though.
• Case will be Fractal Design Define R4 so must cope with reduced air throughput.
• Integrated GFX is of no importance to me.
• Crossfire and SLI are of no interest.
• I run other OSs than Windows so compatibility is important.
• I'd prefer AMD to an i3 as the cores will help me in what I do WRT development work.
• I've no interest in SSDs, 7200 RPM is fast enough.

I've been looking at reviews, data and crunching spreadsheets for a few weeks now and to be honest I am sick to the back teeth of looking at hardware! I'm a programmer so all this dealing with lumps of silicon is just an unfortunate annoyance I have to put up with as infrequently as I can make it (as evidenced by my current system lol).

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Like I say, I've checked loads of reviews, data etc but am a bit lost in the quagmire now and would appreciate someone more knowledgeable than I to have a gander.

ATVB

--
Cheers,
Darren

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would go with an FX6300 and the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3. The XFX PSU is made by Seasonic.

The UD3 is cheapest at Amazon and Dabs:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-GA-...3539872&sr=8-1

http://www.dabs.com/products/gigabyt...200&origin=pla

I would get this RAM:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-Ball...3539888&sr=8-2

The WD Blue are not the fastest HDDs for the price too.

The FX4300 and FX6300 use AM3+ motherboards,and not FM2.

[MrSpankyPants]

Ahh crap. That's what you get for looking at so much information - confusion. Yes the FX4300|FX6300 are AM3+ *blush*.

FX6300 is simply not in budget unfortunately. It's a toss-up between the FX4300 and the Phenom. Is there really much in it between the two?

I do like the Gigbyte board as they seem to have a better service when the proverbial hits the fan. The Asus board has more reviews (that I could find). I'm running a decade-old ASRock right now so I do hold them quite highly. Do you find much between the boards these days?

XFX PSU it is. Thank you for that. One less thing to have to think about.

Yes the WDs are not the fastest but I've had the most success with them over the years. 1Tb at that speed for fifty quid is good enough for me

I'm wanting to keep my suppliers down to a minimum so this will be split between eBuyer and Scan. I've got free postage from both places and that counts for a lot. Saying that though - the Crucial kit on Amazon is a tenner cheaper. Shame it's out of stock for a month or two

Thanks for your help!

ATVB

--
Cheers,
Darren

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If you get 20 posts,you get free postage from Scan:

http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...tup-guide.html

Scan also has the 95W TDP Phenom II X6 1045T:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-p...che-95w-retail

However,it is out of stock.

There is also under a £9 difference between the FX4300 and FX6300 too. The FX6300 has twice the L3 cache of the FX4300 and has two more integer cores too. It is well worth the extra cost IMHO.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would get these bits off Dabs:

http://www.dabs.com/products/amd-fx6...-95w-8BXH.html
http://www.dabs.com/products/kingsto...-xmp-7N58.html
http://www.dabs.com/products/gigabyt...-atx-7JYQ.html
http://www.dabs.com/products/fractal...case-86VW.html
http://www.dabs.com/products/seagate...rive-7XD5.html
http://www.dabs.com/products/samsung...ack--7WXQ.html

The total comes to around £359.07 including postage.

Alternate source for the motherboard and RAM:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...A3P5ROKL5A1OLE
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

Scan also sell this Asus HD7770 too:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-a...-dvi-i-hdmi-dp

With the XFX 550W PSU,the cost should come to around £487.85 and with a copy of Windows it should be around £550 to £560 in total.

Edit!!

You can save money going for a Fractal R3:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/fract...oogle+shopping

You could also go with the XFX PRO 450W too:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/450w-...n-atx-v231-psu

That should save you nearly £25 in total.

[Bonebreaker777]

That configuration looks very capable. Will be building a PC for one of my colleagues and will most likely tempt him to go for a FX6300.

In terms of speed Seagate > WD (Barracuda 7200 vs WD Blue).

The XFX 450 can take some serious hardware so feel free to go for it (tested in TWO machines recently so...).

Wonder how is a FX6300 on a mATX board in terms of OC. In this case I would question the need for a mid or full tower. One HDD and one optical drive can be easily fitted into a mATX case, which would be much easier to bear for the eye. Personally I think.