Building a new computer: Compatibility check please!

[GreenSpade]

A buddy of mine is going to be buying my old all onboard mobo+chip+ram that I'm currently using, hes looking for a decent system to run some basic games at a lower end price.. as mines a couple years dated I seen it as a good opertunity to upgrade my computer

That being said, I haven't worked on the hardware aspect of computers in some years, I've built mine a couple family memebers and some co workers/jobs years ago, but was years ago.

What I'm looking to buy, is not a package, but just the mobo & chip, I already got a case ect for alot of things, extras include power supply/Ram(prob wana start with 1x1-2gb)/Harddrive(Under 70, over 500mb)

So, basicly me looking around with my now dated and noobish eyes, am looking into the realm of quad to six core cpus and mobos, verse my amd dual core that I'm currently using. I'm kinda cought up betwen the difference's betwen the athlon II amd3 socket quad cores and the AMD Phenom II socket amd2+ quad cores with L3 Cache 6mb or/and L1 Cache 4 x 128KB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2%2050001028%2040000343&page=2&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&CompareItemList=343|19-103-471^19-103-471-S01,19-103-706^19-103-706-TS,19-103-704^19-103-704-TS,19-103-809^19-103-809-TS

So I've heard that, that athlon core verse the phenoms xtra L3 and L1 cache, when clocked to same speed runs at 95% efficent as the phenom, I would need a confermation of this however, but this would suggest that I go with an athlon II to save the xtra 1/3ds price, just as I don't need the best one out there, I'm looking to get the most out of my money and 5% doesn't deem a 33% rise of price if this logic is followed and true, in my books.

Asuming the athlon II core is what I'm going with,
( Newegg.com - AMD Athlon II X4 630 Propus 2.8GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Processor )
it brings me to the difference's betwen the two, ones 2.6 quad others 2.8quad, both amd3, aside of that I found no difference, thus I should pick the higher one and it should work in any one of these mobos:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2%2050001315%2040000022&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&CompareItemList=22|13-138-182^13-138-182-TS,13-128-394^13-128-394-TS,13-128-408^13-128-408-TS,13-131-595^13-131-595-TS,13-131-608^13-131-608-TS

Truth be told I can't really tell most of the difference's betwen them, I mean most of the 49 buck ones got all the same stuff as the 69-79 ones, in theory the only things I need to look for are athlon II socket and pci-e orginal (1x I asume?) as I don't feel like buying another vid card, mines ATI 512mb, so I'm looking at ATI onboard video as I don't want to deal with nivida onboard.

Apon looking at the list, I was thinking this mobo:
Newegg.com - ASUS M4A785-M AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
Or
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

So that would be the top (or bottem) mobo with this chip:
Newegg.com - AMD Athlon II X4 630 Propus 2.8GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Processor

I was also need to know if this stick of ram is compatable with the cpu and motherboard:
Newegg.com - Kingston HyperX 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory Model KHX6400D2/2G

And this harddrive:
Newegg.com - SAMSUNG HD754JJ 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

So .. The motherboard says it has athlon II as well as it says it covers DDR2 1200 (OC) / 1066 /800 / 667 in my theiroy it should all workout and be fine if I use 800 (higher=faster tho at same gbs?). However, it also says that the cpu is 95wat and that the mobo is 125wat, does this mean max wat.. or is that cpu not going to work with it?

Recap:
Looking to spend around 100 tops on mobo and cpu each, so I'm looking for my best value within those lines, I don't want to say cheapest I can go, but cheapest I can go with still making a good system, I don't need that top xtra 10-5% for a large amount more, looking for the best overall value of proformance verse price, however I'm only getting a couple hun for my gear so I don't want to brake my own pocket book paying xtra ontop what hes giving me for this, so I can upgrade.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

That RAM should work, it is DDR2 and both motherboards support DDR2 up to 1200 speed. The DDR2 800 will work, but you'll get better performance if you go up (the board supports up to 1200, though you may only ever achieve that with overclocking). Also, I'm pretty sure that CPU uses a dual-channel memory controller, so you'll want to buy RAM in sets of 2 (either buy 2 sticks or 4 sticks, don't buy 1 or 3). This provides faster memory access.

The watts means how much power each part uses, it doesn't affect compatibility but you must take it into account when buying a power supply (add up the wattages of each component, your power supply must be more than that to adequately power the system).

The biggest thing I can say is stay away from onboard video. While the onboard chip may be from a newer series than your old card, onboard chips are the most basic of basic and are usually incapable of playing most games without lag. They're good enough for running 3d desktop effects or simple/old games, but they won't run any modern games well. For $100 get a dedicated graphics card by either nVidia or ATi, it will beat the onboard chip by miles. For gaming the video card is the single most important thing you can buy as it affects 3d performance and quality. Most games are much more GPU intensive than CPU intensive.

For graphics cards you want PCIe x16 (the long ones). PCIe x1 is the short one, it isn't really for graphics cards, it's for lower speed devices like serial ports, usb ports, network cards, sound cards, etc. Make sure that your existing graphics card is a PCIe x16 card and not an AGP card. AGP is an older graphics card slot that was replaced by PCI Express, they are not compatible.

I would get a cheap motherboard that does not have onboard video and then get a $100 video card or so. If you plan on re-using your existing ATi card you generally can't use the onboard card with it (the onboard is disabled or at least unused, it can't be crossfired with another card). If the card you already have supports CrossFireX and is still for sale, buy a second one for a cheap performance boost.