Help me spend my money

DaMaN · Post by **DaMaN** » Fri Mar 04, 2011 10:28 am

I have strict 400.00 credit @ newegg.com budget.

Help me upgrade refresh my system in my sig.

I want to replace the motherboard, cpu & ram only but am open to other ideas. I will be reusing the VidCard. / SSD's / HDD's / Case & PSU

System is used to game, encode video & audio and browse the net.

I was looking at this AMD setup but am not convinced:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130308

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104173

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103849

Thanks,

I am unsure of what I will do with the old setup but I guess I can sell some of the parts and use the proceeds towards the new build setup but am unsure what I can get for it.

I have a new notebook coming in soon so I can have the system down for a couple of weeks while I get things sorted out.

Thanks,

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Fri Mar 04, 2011 1:35 pm

Personally, I'd grab a full ATX motherboard myself since you never know when you'll want the extra slots (and since your case can take one).

Otherwise, it looks good to me.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri Mar 04, 2011 1:39 pm

Yeah, ditto. No matter how good it is, mobo manufacturers DO cut performance corners on their small form factor mobos to save space.

If you're using a full size case anyway get a full ATX mobo. I'd recommend getting a mature mobo with more than 8 reviews on Newegg, just in case.

Also, if you're going to be gaming, why buy a mobo with an onboard video chip? I assume you're going to put that ATI 5850 vid card in there.? That's a fine mobo for a media center PC but not for a main workstation used for gaming and video transcoding.

Not even a good price for a micro ATX. For $100 you can get a heck of a nice performance mobo. Don't get hung up on USB 3.0 if the mobo doesn't have it. An add-on PCI-E USB 3.0 card is $20 - $25

I personally like Asus nowadays. Here's the best rated boards on Newegg: http://shrunklink.com/heyn

Do yourself a favor and check the Newegg reviews to see what RAM someone else installed that is working properly with the mobo and didn't require any timing tweaking. You DO NOT want to order just any RAM that's on sale and then find it's not stable with your mobo (been there, done that!). What I usually do is go to Crucial.com and look up their recommended RAM for the mobo you're buying, and then check NewEgg, TigerDirect and Amazon to see if anyone is selling the same model RAM for less.

DaMaN · Post by **DaMaN** » Fri Mar 04, 2011 2:25 pm

your right, I guess I still have HTPC on the mind. Here is an alternative mobo choice albeit more $

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130274

Err · Post by **Err** » Fri Mar 04, 2011 4:08 pm

The following comes to $354.97 less shipping & Rebates. There's also a $20 rebate on the Rams and $10 on the Board.

ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMX8GX3M2A1333C9

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ955FBGMBOX

Optional: 6 Core AMD: $394.97 before rebates + free STALKER Call of whatever game.

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T Thuban 2.8GHz 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor HDT55TFBGRBOX

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri Mar 04, 2011 6:11 pm

If you want to do video transcoding, go for 6 cores.

DaMaN · Post by **DaMaN** » Fri Mar 04, 2011 7:16 pm

Thanks Err, I believe I got my new rig components, thanks. I will be going 6 cores as suggested FP. I think that this will serve me well. I would have loved to have gone Intel, but its too damn expensive!!

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Fri Mar 04, 2011 7:41 pm

Agreed, every time I think of trying to go Intel I just can't lay down the money for them. Not that AMD is all that bad. They're keeping up very well in the upper-midrange segment.

Err · Post by **Err** » Fri Mar 04, 2011 8:50 pm

Glad to be of help. Post pics when you get it all together.

VidmanII · Post by **VidmanII** » Fri Mar 04, 2011 11:52 pm

I like what you have listed. I'm using a MicroATX ( in a full tower case with 4 hard drives, 3 opticals, PCIE 1x RAID card, Vidcard, floppy etc etc. You'll be fine as long as you're not looking to do SLI or anything crazy like that.

The good MicroATX boards used to be about $85 but they all went up to about $100 since the new year.

if you do want an ATX board, Err's suggestion is a nice play........ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131646

and this ram will run 8-8-8-24/2T with it no problem and give you a 7.4 WEI score
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231277

I'll be happy to help you spend any other money you have burning a hole in your pocket.