[350-400 left to spend]

[350-400 left to spend] - Computers

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350-400 left to spend
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Posted by: bunnymanboy

Ok, I have gotten everything for my computer EXCEPT cpu mobo vid card, looking into 64, lets see what you can do.

Posted by: SiZcO

good luck in finding a good Motherboard and a AMD 64 CPU and a good Video card for 400 bucks lol

Posted by: Nubius

[quote]good luck in finding a good Motherboard and a AMD 64 CPU and a good Video card for 400 bucks lol[/quote] If you can't help...don't post. Simple rule, please follow it.

$400 will be a little tight man, depending on how good of a system you want. You have to decide if you'd rather have a weaker CPU or graphics card so you could determine what to spend more on.

You should have started with the mobo, cpu, vid card, and RAM as your first components THEN start buying everything else. You kinda went about it bass-ackwards on this one.

The current good socket 939 boards from good companies like ABit and MSI are around $125, the cheapest Socket 939 CPU I believe is the AMD64 3000+ which is $150 so there's $275 right there and you now have $125 for a vid card which isn't going to get you much.

A 'DECENT' card would be something like the 9600XT 256mb for $150 but even that isn't great and you won't really be able to play the latest games out with the that great of settings.

AMD64's are overrated right now. There's no need in getting a 64bit CPU when we're working in a 32bit environment. If you get a Socket A motherboard with a good Socket A overclockable chip you can get way better performance for a lot cheaper price, BUT of course it requires a little overclocking skills, but not much really if you're even slightly interested in learning.

Basically you'll only be able to afford the cheapest CPU in this scenario which in the big scheme of things, is crap considering it won't be fully utilized until around 2006.

Posted by: MST3kGeek

If you don't mind me asking, I was just wondering what you had already bought and how much you spent? just curious. :D

Posted by: bunnymanboy

Fine, this is what I got, super lanboy, some thermaltake psu, 160gb harddrive seagate, kingston hyperx 3200 512mb, ummm cd stuff.

Around 300-350$

Hmm im looking into a abit ax8 or av8, 99-120$, a 64 3000 90nm, and a 6600gt, but im pretty sure that stuff is at least 50bux over budgert

Posted by: jblaze725

i think you should consider buying a really good cpu and mobo and a graphics card that is just passable to get you through until you can afford a really good card too that way when youre done youll have a much better end result. you could of course do this in any combination such as good mobo and graphics card and lesser cpu, but i think the mobo and cpu should be what you get the best of. definitely dont go cheap on the mobo because that means when you want to upgrade you have to pull everything apart again. just my 2 cents hope it helps.

Posted by: Nubius

[quote]Hmm im looking into a abit ax8 or av8, 99-120$, a 64 3000 90nm, and a 6600gt, but im pretty sure that stuff is at least 50bux over budgert[/quote] $100 for motherboard (although that'd be rather cheap unless prices have just gone down), $150 for that CPU, there's $250, and a 6600GT is roughly $225 depending on manufacturer. There's $475 and you're going to hit $500 after taxes and shipping.

Posted by: bunnymanboy

But hey! I could still pick the xpm route that youre taking.

Posted by: Nubius

this is true. It's INSANELY easy to overclock those things. with an NF7-S v2 board and a 35w 2400+ XP-M or a 2600 XP-M all you have to do is raise the FSB up to 200 from 133, and adjust your multiplier. By stock it's 133x13.5 = 1.8GHz, but you could easily change it to 200x9 = 1.8GHz but now you have a 400FSB CPU with 512k L2 Cache....that's the 3200+ XP right there....BUT you're running at 1.8GHz whereas the 3200+ XP runs at 2.2GHz...

Still really easy to get it up to 3200+ XP speeds.

I'd say you could probably easily do 200x11 = 2.2GHz and it'd probably run it with a Vcore of 1.7, probably 1.75 at the most.

It's really easy to do, you can save cash, and my system at 2.5GHz will outperform most current systems, even AMD64's because of the simple fact we're still in a 32bit environment.

$80 for the mobo, $90 for the CPU, that's $170 and leaves you with roughly $330 for a card

Posted by: bunnymanboy

Ok, so whats the best HSF for **** socket a? and whats an average overclock estimate.

Is an overclocked xp-m betta than a 3000+ 64

Posted by: ak_smallz

at this point yes (refer to nubius' post, he explains it)

Posted by: Alex81388

MAYBE you should wait till after Christmas, and see if you aquire some more cash, and then you have a little mor leg room and the people here can open up with newer options.

Not to get pushy, but three of the four most important parts of the computer for that budget, ona 64bit system, its kinda close.

Either way - with what you have so far keep looking in 64 bit direction/.

Posted by: Nubius

[quote]Ok, so whats the best HSF for **** socket a? and whats an average overclock estimate.
Is an overclocked xp-m betta than a 3000+ 64[/quote] The SLK line from Thermalright is pretty good. It's what I've got and it's solid copper. Weighs a fair amount too. It doesn't come with a fan but generally good aftermarket heatsinks don't although there still are good ones like the Volcano 12+ Couple that thermalright with a vantec tornado and cooling won't be a problem, but sound will be. The tornado's are loud. I have a fan controller so I keep mine at halfway most of the time unless I'm gaming but then I have headphones on so I can't hear it anyway.

As far as estimated OC it generally varies from person to person of course, but I have yet to see a XP-M barton core that didn't hit ATLEAST a minimum of a stock 3200+ XP which is 2.2GHz which currently would be better than a 3000+ AMD64 which is stock 1.8GHz....the 64 however does have twice as much L2 cache but until a 64bit OS comes out to fully utilize that 64bit processing the 400MHz over that chip will be more noticable towards the speed of your system.

There's atleast 3 people here including myself that have an NF7-S v2 motherboard and XP-M chip and none of us had a problem hitting 2.2GHz. I'm sitting at 2.5 although I can get it to run 100% stable at 2.7GHz I choose not to run it that high because it requires a lot of voltage and a little more heat.

4W4K3 has the same board, but has a 5w 2600+ XP-M and he can hit 2.5GHz on a lower Vcore than I can. Also I believe Leonidas has a 2600+ XP-M and the same board and he also can hit the same speed with a little lower voltage.

At newegg the 35w 2400+ XP-M's are no longer on the website. Don't know why, but they were in high demand and the price kept going up. the 45w 2600+ XP-M will still OC as good if not better than the 35w 2400+ XP-M