[Nick]

I'm upgrading my socket 939 and am hopefully ordering today or tomorow. Does anyone have anything to say about:

Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3 AMD 770 Socket AM2+ 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard - Ebuyer

Kingston 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/pc2-6400 Hyperx Memory Nvidia SLI- Ready Unbuffered Cl4(4-4-4-12) Non-ECC 2.0v - Ebuyer

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core 8450 2.1GHz Socket AM2+ 2MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor - Ebuyer

Is the tri core worth it or should I just save money and get a good x2?

Thanks

[saltynay]

I like tricores in htpc builds where a background task of ripping a dvd or recording multiple streams whilst playing a game warrants the extra core..... I think swapping to intel might be best though with this combo
KustomPCs.co.uk - Intel Pentium Dual Core E220 775 2.2Ghz CPU
KustomPCs.co.uk - Asus P5QL-PRO Motherboard
KustomPCs.co.uk - Team Elite 2Gb DDR2-PC6400
when combined in a combo deal would allow enough to get a Arctic freezer 7 or don't go to the pub this weekend and get an Ultra 120 extreme lol

[Nick]

Ah thanks, I've got a Zalman CNPS9500 so I'll stick with that. The RAM looks good too, as I said if my dad aint too tired I'll buy it all tonight

Cheers.

[saltynay]

With the extra change (of not buying a hsf) you might want to upgrade that cpu to one of the newer C2D then as they have some extra on die memory which does give a noticeable speed increase.

Btw Kustom has a great little forum of UK members which you may want to join

[Hussein19891]

Triple Cores are kind of like the AMD chips no one cares about lol.
If your going to get an AM2+ chip why not a quad? Since the 9600 Phenom is like $120~ anyways.

Newegg.com - AMD Phenom 9600 Agena 2.3GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 2MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 95W Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

Or go with the E5200, you should be satisfied with both. The 9600 will handle multitasking well. While the E5200 will overclock as far as 3.5ghz stable 24/7.

[Nick]

Here the amd quads at cheapest are £115 or $230 for you guys so that's kinda out of the question, I was only really interested in the tri cos I havn't really seen much of them. I'm still undecided whether to go for AMD or intel though

[Nick]

Right I'm bumping this bad boy up

I have decided to go with AMD, may be to yoru disgust but it's what I want. Now I would like to ask:

This board:

Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 Socket AM2 Nvidia MCP55P PCI-E 8 Channel audio ATX Motherboard - Ebuyer

or this board:

ASUS M2N-SLI nForce 560 SLI Socket AM2 Gigabit Ethernet FireWire onboard Audio ATX Motherboard - Ebuyer

Thanks, and I should be coupling one of those with a 5600+. Money is a really big problem for me so please don't start recomending quad cores and the like

[Nagasama]

if you can find a 590sli mobo, try and get it instead. best chipset for AM2. although if you cant find one, that gigabyte 570 is a pretty good board.
i would go for the 5400BE and overclock the crap out of it. its also a wee bit cheaper than the 5600.

[Nick]

Couldnt find a 590

however I found this:

Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H 780G Socket AM2+ onboard graphics 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard - Ebuyer

Worth the extra £15?

[Nagasama]

if you are using an AM2 cpu, i'd stick with the 570 unless you are planning an AM2+ upgrade any time soon. i think the 570 will OC better than the sb700.