Little upgrading

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MindoverMaster

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Hey, A few months ago, I updated my server to an AMD Athalon 64 X2 5200+ board/cpu combo. Specs in sig under the name Nexus. (except it now has 2GB RAM)

Have Ubuntu Desktop on it. Streams movies and shares 2 other drives over the network.

So now, we come to July. I am running my MC server on it, and it takes a lot of ram, leaving me little room for me to fiddle with it. So, ho-hum, go looking for DDR2 RAM. As my board has only 2 memory slots, I'd need 2 x 2GB. The cheapest? $50?! So I go look at DDR3. $35?! Geez, they're trying to sell out DDR2.

So a few days ago, I saw a promo code for $10 off a 2 x 2GB set of G.Skill Rip Jaw X DDR3 1600. And free shipping. Would have been $45. So a good deal. Bought.

So since my board can't accept DDR3, I need a new Mobo and CPU. Combo or not, I want to keep this cheap. I see several combos on newegg, but I looked around and found some better boards.

What I wanted, is a Micro-ATX, but with 4 RAM slots. Saw this one right away: Newegg.com - ASUS M4A78LT-M AM3 AMD 760G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Now, I saw that the Phenom II 555 was $88.

Together that is $157 shipped. The 555/mobo combo would be 164 shipped.

But, really, do I need a Phenom II, just to lower the price a little bit?

I want to stay around $150. I can reuse my Rosewill heatsink, I think. Or, just get something better.
 
So since my board can't accept DDR3, I need a new Mobo and CPU. Combo or not, I want to keep this cheap. I see several combos on newegg, but I looked around and found some better boards.

That's funny. You save a little money on higher end RAM vs the lower end, but opt to upgrade two other components that will cost you more? I guess that makes sense seeing as you were planning to updgrade, anyway.

What I wanted, is a Micro-ATX, but with 4 RAM slots. Saw this one right away: Newegg.com - ASUS M4A78LT-M AM3 AMD 760G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard.

I had that very same board at one point and never had any problems whatsoever. I'll vouch for it.

Together that is $157 shipped. The 555/mobo combo would be 164 shipped.

Overall, it looks like you found a steal. What are you waiting for? :)
 
Mind why not look at this before going for the phenom II X2 route.

Newegg.com - AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition Heka 2.8GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Processor HDZ720WFK3DGI - Processors - Desktops
74.99
Newegg.com - MSI 760GM-P33 AM3 AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
54.99

Total 130.00

This here I wish I would have saw back in late april while redoing my intel build for my mother this spring.
Newegg.com - XIGMATEK LOKI SD963 92mm HYPRO Bearing CPU Cooler bracket included I7 i5 775 1155 AMD and dual fan push pull compatible
24.99
All of that total will bring you to 154.99 which seems very worth it, but the choice is up to you though.
 
You missed my point, Mike. I want 4 memory slots, not 2. I still want it Micro-ATX though. The reason I pointed to the one above.
 
You missed my point, Mike. I want 4 memory slots, not 2. I still want it Micro-ATX though. The reason I pointed to the one above.

hmm, well even though this is 69.99 would you mind settling for this then ?
Also that last mobo I showed you will support upto 8gb's of ram, since you said you bought some DDR3 at a capcity of 4gb's I figured that would hold you over until a another major sale hit it's you later.

Newegg.com - MSI 880GM-E41 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
Total for that and the cpu is 144.99
I want you to highly consider looking at both options I provided, I don't know what your budget is for mobo and cpu, but if your going for 160.00 and nothing more that will help you out greatly.
I was going to suggest a Athlon II X4 oem, but their prices seem to be neck and neck with midway upper phenom's II as of late.
 
The ASUS is the same price. I'm iffy on MSI. I just love ASUS, can't lie.

I never know what I'm going to do with it. Maybe some day I need the 16GB, who knows..

As I said above, I want to keep this around $150. A few bucks more won't break my wallet.
 
The name and layout looks awesome. ASUS FTW.

Holy Mary... I think Mike is wrong. The Athalon II x4 630 is better than a Phenom II x2 555.

The Athlon is at par with a Q8200 in benchmarks (3DMark Vantage High). Also 22 CPUs up from the Phenom.


Charts, benchmarks Desktop CPU Charts 2010, 3DMark Vantage High

That does look better. Thanks, Trotter.


In synthetic benches sure, however in the real world you will find that the larger cache of the phenom is a great increase to performance. Very few apps take advantage of more than 2 cores and Amd has shown itself not to be as good as intel at spreading the workload onto all 4 cores. I feel you would be more satisfied with the Phenom and its larger cache.
 
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