CPU, motherboard and ram for my cousin

Forums › Gaming › CPU, motherboard and ram for my cousin - $450 max budget

Nimma

98 posts

Master Geek

#53060 8-Dec-2009 12:01

Hi All

My cousin (14) is getting some money for Christmas to upgrage the old Althlon 64 3000+ system I gave him. He has $450 max to buy CPU, Mobo and Ram - he already has an ATI 4670 1 Jiggabyte video card so that's fine.

I think he plays fps and car games for the most part as well as general movies/internet etc.

Any thought on what to get for his budget? He has an old beige (!) tower case with a relatively new 400W power supply.

I was thinking

Athlon 2 dual or cheap quad (620) cpu since the cheap triple cores don't seem to be available here?
Some AM3 motherboard, I don't know AMD/ATI
4 G DDR3 ram of some sort.

He will get Win 7 X86 or 64 outside of this budget too. Also I don't think he's worried about noise so a box CPU cooler is fine.

Thanks for the help!

vinnieg

2260 posts

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#280380 8-Dec-2009 13:24

I would go for:

AM3 Box with retail cooler 640 X4 $154
Corsair XMS3 DDR3 2x2GB $157
ECS MCP61M-M3 $80 incl shipping
Coolermaster Elite 340 w/ 420w PSU $105

Opps, $46 over budget though :(
I just put the case in there, because I couldn't imagine putting new parts into an old case, if you skipped the case though, you could always add a new HDD into the mix :)

I have moved across the ditch. Now residing in Melbourne as a VOIP/Video Technical Trainer/Engineer.

deepred

495 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#280439 8-Dec-2009 16:53

For that sort of budget, the RAM and mobo would likely be limited to DDR2, since the more basic DDR3 boards typically go for the same price as a reasonably specced DDR2 board.

"I regret to say that we of the F.B.I. are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce." — J. Edgar Hoover

"Create a society that values material things above all else. Strip it of industry. Raise taxes for the poor and reduce them for the rich and for corporations. Prop up failed financial institutions with public money. Ask for more tax, while vastly reducing public services. Put adverts everywhere, regardless of people's ability to afford the things they advertise. Allow the cost of food and housing to eclipse people's ability to pay for them. Light blue touch paper." — Andrew Maxwell

deepred

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#280444 8-Dec-2009 16:58

Ragnor

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#280579 9-Dec-2009 03:47

Something like this works out under $450

AMD Athlon II X2 245 Processor 2.9GHz 2M
ASUS M4A77TD AM3 DDR3 ATI 770 PCI-E
SuperTalent Gold Series 2x2GB DDR3-1600

Have a muck aroud with the Computer Lounge combo builder:
http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/components/combobuilder.asp

Also what make/model is that 400w PSU that he has? Might be abit underpowered if it's a generic brand.

Nimma

98 posts

Master Geek

#281096 10-Dec-2009 08:26

Thanks for the feedback guys, An Athlon II X2 or X4 looks like the way to go and I might recommend a DDR2 board/ram so that he has money left over for a PSU should his current one be a lemon.

Just going through the process of returning a dead Asus P5N7A-VM motherboard through computerlounge myself so if that goes well I'll definitely recommend he get it there.