New system. Which one to go for?

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beluga

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Hi. im upgrading my system and as its been nearly 3 years since i last owned a PC ive lost track of all of these new parts.
My previous setup was:
Intel conroe E6600 Core 2 Duo
2 gigs of 667mhz ram
and a Radeon 1900XT
Asus P5b mobo.

Firstly, i prefer Nvidia over Radeon. All my problems have been with radeon always.
Secondly when i had my Core 2 duo i understood it was better and faster than the AMD athlon X2s at the time.

I have a few choices for my next mainline computer. I just need help with the choices.

Setup 1

Gigabyte GA-P41-ES3G Intel LGA 775 (i could use the 2 gigs of ddr2 800 i have on this setup on this new one and save money) 62.9€

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.5GHz 155€

Asus ENGTS250 DK/DI/512MD3/WW Dark Knight World of Warcraft Edition 133€

Setup 2

Asus P7H55 Intel LGA 1156 105€

Intel Core i3-530 2.93GHz 128.9€

Kingston HyperX 1GB 1600MHz DDR3 CL9, 9-9-9-27. 33.9 x2 €


Setup 3

Asus M4A77 AMD 77.9€

AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition 3.2GHz 116.9€

Use my ram i have now.

i could consider the AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition but its 190€.



So any thoughts, ideas, comments are welcome
 
what do you use your pc for?

if it's for gaming, i'd probably go with the gts 250 from setup 1 with the cpu and mobo from setup 3 and use the ram you currently have. if you wanted to go with a quad in setup 3, you could look into the slightly lower end phenom II's like the x4 810, x4 925 or x4 945 which shouldn't cost as much as a x4 965.

if it's just for like general multitasking, then it would probably be setup 3, but change the cpu to an athlon II x4 quad.

in any instance, i would just ditch the lga775 cpu and mobo from setup 1 as an option all together just because both amd and intel have either a new socket and/or new cpus that offer equal or greater performance as lga775 cpus while costing less.
 
ok that makes sense. I do lots of things on the computer...gaming (company of heroes, FSX, bf2, assasins creed). Photoshop, some video editing....

Is there a big difference in quad core and dual core? If i understand correctly most programs know how to use dual core but not quad core.

And i would really want the CPU and GPU be equal as in not bottle necking each other. I understand the Intel i3 has a built in graphics chio at 733mhz, does it help alot?

also can somebody explain to me AMD athlon vs. Phenom. Also i just dont get ATis card markings. I mean you would think the higher number the better but it isnt always like that. I thought when i got a radeon 4670 it would be good, turns out its really low end, seems to be worse than my mobility radeon 4570.
 
And i would really want the CPU and GPU be equal as in not bottle necking each other. I understand the Intel i3 has a built in graphics chio at 733mhz, does it help alot?

the i3's do have an integrated gpu, but i don't understand what you mean, does it help alot with what?
 
Actually, a 4670 is better than the 4570, especially a mobile version... Not sre who told you otherwise.

The Phenon is the newer chip, though still same socket, like the conroe and wolfdale of intels. Heres a toms hardware articlre:
AMD Phenom vs. Athlon Core Shootout : Is Phenom Really Faster Than Athlon?

Now as to which setup, I'd go with the i3. Basically your setup, but the newest version... So it should be around along time with upgradeability.

Now AMD has been smart and kept there socket the same and allowed new boards to hold older chips, and older boards to run newer cpus... kinda smart actually, but AMDs aren't as powerful as intel... but cost less, so they win in a dollar to performance setting.

Its about your money, the AMD saves you some cash now, but the intel can allow alot better performance upgrades...
 
^ i think he might've meant the difference between the more recent athlon II's vs phenom II's, in which case the biggest difference would probably be the lack of l3 cache on the athlons.

I mean you would think the higher number the better but it isnt always like that.

yea, that's definitely not the right way to compare cards, but that kind of confusion isn't just something that could happen with ati cards.

like someone who doesn't know the differences or doesn't take the time to research the differences between cards might think that a 9500gt is better than an 8800gt just because it's got a larger number.
 
beluga said:
also can somebody explain to me AMD athlon vs. Phenom.
The main difference is L3 cache. The Phenom II's have it, the Athlon II's don't. For basic computing you would never notice a difference, but serious computing (such as gaming) makes use of L3 and would give better performance.

The other differences are different cores (Propus/Deneb) and clock speeds (the Phenom II's are a little higher clocked than the Athlon II's).
 
Okay things are starting to get clear. Id seriously look at the Intel i3 (even tough its dual core) and Phenom x2...maybe if i have the money upgrading it to triple or quad... i guess.
I read somewhere that in the ATi mobility series a 3650 or something beats the 4570? i think?
So if i had a price range of about 200€ for the graphic card i think its about 250us dollars, or a nvidia GTX260. What would be a seriously good equivalent? Radeon 5770? or a 5830?
 
Ok so from a bit of research most likely this would suit me best:


Asus P7H55 Intel LGA 1156 105€

Intel Core i3-530 2.93GHz 128.9€

Kingston HyperX 1GB 1600MHz DDR3 CL9, 9-9-9-27. 33.9 x2 €

Also i figured ive had my western digital caviar SE 160gig for about 5 years that id change it....

Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB SATA 6 Gb/s 7200 RPM 64MB 97€

Should i then opt for a different motherboard cause the asus p7h55 says SATA 3gigs?
 
well, if you want to take advantage of the sata 3.0 (6gb/s) hdd, then you should probably get a mobo that supports em.

if not, then you could just get the sata 2.0 (3gb/s) version of the caviar black, which should also save you some money.
 
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