400 dollar budget

[Trotter]

Great deal on that PSU.

The CPU will come with a stock heatsink and fan. I seriously doubt you will be doing any overclocking on it, so the Core Contact Freezer would be completely optional.

That CPU and GFX card are in a combo, so it will save him $10 if he orders before the combo expires.

To save a little money, swap out the motherboard for this one:
Newegg.com - BIOSTAR A770 A2+ AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards
It's not crossfire and all, but I doubt that will be a concern. #30 cheaper.

Swap out for this RAM:
Newegg.com - Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory
$17 bucks cheaper. I doubt that he will need the heatspreaders and other higher-end stuff if he is playing WOW.

*EDIT* Gee, I must be getting slow... Besides, I seriously doubt there will be any overclocking, like I said.

 

[tastegw]

thx trotter on those finds and that combo deal (i missed it ).

the one thing on that heatsink that comes with the 7750, its garbage.
i see alot of ppl complaining about 40-50c idle with that cooler, and i thought it would be best to fix a problem before it happened lol
thats why i suggested the sunbeam.

side by side comparision lol sorry, just got the sunbeam in, its purdy.

 

[hikaricloud]

I'd actually recommend this mobo:

Newegg.com - BIOSTAR TFORCE TA780G M2+ AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards

The onboard video will handle WoW no problem. It's about on par with an 8500GT or so, WoW will be no problem.

Also, later on you can buy a cheapo 3 series Radeon and do the whole Hybrid crossfire thing and it will greatly increase your video performance. And it's only about 4 bucks more than that other Biostar 770 board, AND has a mail-in rebate. the 780G is a much better chipset for the cost.

This way you can throw out buying a video card right away, and grab one later.

So with these parts:

Newegg.com - AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 2.7GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Dual-Core black edition Processor - Processors - Desktops

Newegg.com - BIOSTAR TFORCE TA780G M2+ AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards

Newegg.com - PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS500 500W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Power Supplies

Newegg.com - G.SKILL PI Black 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

That's 282.93 with shipping, then minus 35 bucks in mail-in rebates. That's way under the 400 bucks...and if you wanted to, you could throw that extra money towards a video card or the core contact cooler. Whatever floats your boat. ;D

 

[tastegw]

hikaricloud

you say onboard can handle wow, thats pretty nice.
how much of a boost in performace would the hybrid sli do for him when he gets a card.

 

[hikaricloud]

hikaricloud

you say onboard can handle wow, thats pretty nice.
how much of a boost in performace would the hybrid sli do for him when he gets a card.

I'm going solely on what other people have told me...basically, the hybrid just sticks the performance of the onboard and the video card together. So basically, if he got say, a 3450. Just add that performance with something on par with an 8500GT. Lawl. That's the best I could do to explain it. I've seen some gaming benchmarks, linked here:

Sharky Extreme - AMD 780G Chipset Review

It beats anything intel has ever put on their boards, that's for sure.

EDIT: They call the onboard HD 3200. If that gives you a better idea.

 

[tastegw]

not bad, a few extra fps is decent.
wonder how much of a help it would add to a 3dmark06 score.

 

[hikaricloud]

Did you check out the benchmarks? I think it's a **** good addition to the onboard, just a cheapo 3450 almost doubles performance. It's not bad at all for super budget gaming machines.

 

[insanepsycho]

well wow isnt the only game he plays so do tank into consideration the top end games just not maxed settings also i was talking about my friend liking amd also his current gfx card is rly old to give u a sense its agp also i think i nice mobo with 2 pci x16 so he could hybrid later would be great bc he has a budget but could save money for later

 

[tastegw]

Did you check out the benchmarks? I think it's a **** good addition to the onboard, just a cheapo 3450 almost doubles performance. It's not bad at all for super budget gaming machines.

my bad, i just looked @ the first page. a decent 600 point jump in the standard test. that isnt shabby at all.

 

[hikaricloud]

You can hybrid with that board, just buy a better card. If you buy the one that was mentioned earlier:

Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100265L Radeon HD 4830 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

It will hybrid with the onboard and give you ever better performance. Still under 400 bucks; will cost you 350 after rebates.