Ethereal_Dragon
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Hey again guys (if any of you remember me, LoL)!
CLIFF NOTES:
I got my dad a game for Christmas, and it just won't run on his old Dell machine. I have been bugging him for years to get a new PC, and he now finally has a reason to do it. He is currently running an old Pentium 4 Dell, and there just no point in upgrading it. A guy at work has given him an Micro-ATX motherboard and AMD CPU to use, even though they are quite a few years old, but I think it will be sufficient.
Here are the details for the game:
Trainz Simulator 2010: Engineers Edition (Page has sound on it)
Here is what we already have. At this point, I know that it's quite a few years old, but this is a nice step up from the Pentium 4, and it's free, this is what we are going to run with. I haven't done much research lately, but are the AM3 processors backwards compatible with socket AM2 motherboards? Just thinking possible CPU upgrade path for the future, should there be a need.
Motherboard: ASUS M2A-VM-HDMI ....... Review: ASUS M2A-VM HDMI 690G Motherboard - HotHardware
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 x2 4800+ - (specific model isn't clear at this time, we think it's a 4800, but not 100% positive)
This is what I am looking at to have him order for the machine. Things not listed are OS, Windows 7, which we already have taken care of, opticle which is a DVD burner which will be recycled from the old Dell, no need for Blu Ray at this point, so no worries there. Hard drive will be one of my old 500 Gig Seagate SATA drives that I swapped out with 2TB drives a while back, so that will all be no cost.
The place where I get stuck now, is the GPU. I REALLY REALLY REALLY HATE the GPU naming conventions that are out there. It's just do dang confusing. Especially when you don't read reviews for a couple years, and you just don't know what compares to what.
GPU Info:
I was thinking about a fanless card, but there are no Nvidia cards that look decent in the sub $150 range, they all look pretty low end, I think. ATI has some cards that might be good, a Sapphire 6670 (100326UL) for $105 ($90 with rebate), and a Gigabyte 6770 (GV-R677SL-1GD) for $139.
So here I am stuck. Those are just 2 options, fanless ones, but that doesn't have to be the case. I just don't want something that is going to be one of those screaming loud annoying cards, because that will annoy the heck out of him, and in turn it will annoy me. I also don't want to find some old 8800, because this way at least he has some parts which can be used if the motherboard & CPU get upgraded, so something midrange right now is what I am looking for. From what I saw on the Nvidia side, I see the GTX 550 Ti and the GTS 450 in the right range.
Thoughts?? Opinions?? (Side note, UGH, sorry for the long-winded post).
EDIT:
Fail.... Guess I should have taken 3 seconds to google the AM3 CPU in AM2 socket... At least if the Wiki is right. Anyone have REAL WORLD experience here??
CLIFF NOTES:
- Are AM3 CPU's backwards compatible with AM2 Mobo's?
- What is a decent, fairly quite GPU in the sub $150 range?
- I understand the CPU will be a bottleneck in the system
I got my dad a game for Christmas, and it just won't run on his old Dell machine. I have been bugging him for years to get a new PC, and he now finally has a reason to do it. He is currently running an old Pentium 4 Dell, and there just no point in upgrading it. A guy at work has given him an Micro-ATX motherboard and AMD CPU to use, even though they are quite a few years old, but I think it will be sufficient.
Here are the details for the game:
Trainz Simulator 2010: Engineers Edition (Page has sound on it)
Minimum
Recommended
- Windows XP (SP3)
- 1GB RAM
- Pentium D 3.4GHz (or equivalent)
- nVidia Geforce 7200/128MB (or equivalent)
- 15GB Free Hard Drive Space
Recommended
- Windows Vista/Windows 7 (64bit)
- 2GB RAM
- Core 2 Duo (or equivalent)
- nVidia Geforce 8600 (or equivalent)
- 15GB Free Hard Drive Space
Here is what we already have. At this point, I know that it's quite a few years old, but this is a nice step up from the Pentium 4, and it's free, this is what we are going to run with. I haven't done much research lately, but are the AM3 processors backwards compatible with socket AM2 motherboards? Just thinking possible CPU upgrade path for the future, should there be a need.
Motherboard: ASUS M2A-VM-HDMI ....... Review: ASUS M2A-VM HDMI 690G Motherboard - HotHardware
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 x2 4800+ - (specific model isn't clear at this time, we think it's a 4800, but not 100% positive)
This is what I am looking at to have him order for the machine. Things not listed are OS, Windows 7, which we already have taken care of, opticle which is a DVD burner which will be recycled from the old Dell, no need for Blu Ray at this point, so no worries there. Hard drive will be one of my old 500 Gig Seagate SATA drives that I swapped out with 2TB drives a while back, so that will all be no cost.
- Memory: CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
- Power Supply: OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W Modular High Performance Power Supply
- Case: COOLER MASTER Elite 330
- Case fans: Scythe SY1225SL12SL 120mm "Slipstream" Case Fan - Allows 5x 120mm, will likely get 3.
- Keyboard: LITE-ON SK-1688U/B Black 104 Normal Keys USB Wired Standard Keyboard
- Mouse: To be determined, not a big deal yet.
The place where I get stuck now, is the GPU. I REALLY REALLY REALLY HATE the GPU naming conventions that are out there. It's just do dang confusing. Especially when you don't read reviews for a couple years, and you just don't know what compares to what.
GPU Info:
- Minimum: 7200
- Recommended: 8600
- Budget: $150 (for GPU)
- Monitor: Dell 19" LCD (might be a 20", whatever), and sometimes a 46" Samsung LED LCD TV.
- Output: Needs DVI & HDMI
- Needs to be a quiet card, NO WATERCOOLING, I am not going to bother with that, too much of a headache for me.
I was thinking about a fanless card, but there are no Nvidia cards that look decent in the sub $150 range, they all look pretty low end, I think. ATI has some cards that might be good, a Sapphire 6670 (100326UL) for $105 ($90 with rebate), and a Gigabyte 6770 (GV-R677SL-1GD) for $139.
So here I am stuck. Those are just 2 options, fanless ones, but that doesn't have to be the case. I just don't want something that is going to be one of those screaming loud annoying cards, because that will annoy the heck out of him, and in turn it will annoy me. I also don't want to find some old 8800, because this way at least he has some parts which can be used if the motherboard & CPU get upgraded, so something midrange right now is what I am looking for. From what I saw on the Nvidia side, I see the GTX 550 Ti and the GTS 450 in the right range.
Thoughts?? Opinions?? (Side note, UGH, sorry for the long-winded post).
EDIT:
Fail.... Guess I should have taken 3 seconds to google the AM3 CPU in AM2 socket... At least if the Wiki is right. Anyone have REAL WORLD experience here??
/EDITSocket AM3 processors are able to run on Socket AM2 and AM2+ motherboards with appropriate bios updates, but not vice-versa. AM3 processors have a new memory controller supporting both DDR2 and DDR3 SDRAM, allowing backwards compatibility with AM2 and AM2+ motherboards. Since AM2 and AM2+ processors lack the new memory controller, they will not work on AM3 motherboards.