Help with speccing my personal system

[joydivision]

My current system is:-

AMD X2 4200 AM2
2GB RAM DDR2 5300 (the max my board will support )
1TB Western Digital Blue SATA 6 HD (1 month old)
Nivida 8600 GT with 512MB DDR3 GRAM (about 2.5 years old)
M Audio Audiophile sound card
FSP 400W Power Supply.

My current system is fast enough, but it has a fault where it takes a few times to POST (this is actually a motherboard fault) at it is limited to 2GB of RAM and only has 2 SATA ports. Now I could just replace the board but I will still be stuck with legacy DDR2 RAM and an old AM2 processor so I want to replace the board, RAM and CPU and keep the rest including the video card.

So I need a new AM3 board and a processor. I was thinking the Athlon 260 XII which runs at 3.2Ghz might be ideal as I could upgrade to a quad core later on.

I would buy a single 4GB DDR3 Corsair stick with the view to adding another one later on.

I will also need a new Windows 7 licence as I am changing the board, but I currently have Vista 32-bit so that is not a major head ache.

So I have a maximum of budget of £220 to buy:-
Motherboard
CPU
RAM
Windows 7 64-BIT OEM

Now my existing hard drive is SATA 6 (but works fine on legacy SATA connections) is it worth buying a SATA 6 board (they cost about £30 more) so the hard drive gets the benefit or in the real world is the speed difference minimal? I don't play games or anything like that, but I do like a fast computer and my lack of RAM is getting to be a bit of a problem.

So what would you buy with a £220 budget? I am well out of the loop when it comes to modern hardware. I am keeping the PSU, case (probably), optical drive, video card and sound card.

The motherboard is four and a half years old btw :eek.

 

[Vicenarian]

With 220 Pounds to $345 Canadian Dollars:

I know it's not AMD (or in british currency) but this is my current budget build:

i3 2100 ($120)
H67 Mobo ($60-70)
Corsair/etc. 4GB DDR3 ($40)
Windows 7 ($100)

= Approx. $330

An AMD equivalent:

AM3 Gigabyte/ASUS mATX board ($80 approx.)
Athlon II X4 ($130 approx.)
4GB DDR3 ($40)
Windows 7 ($100)
=$350


The i3 will vastly outperform any Athlon, or even Phenom (Except maybe the most expensive X4, and X6). It's a hyperthreaded dual-core, and yeah, I love mine.

 

[joydivision]

That is another point, I still thought AMD offered the best bang for buick, is this no longer the case? E.g is even a basic I3 going to be much faster than a Athlon 260? I guess I need to check the benchmarks.

I just suggested AMD as I've been building them since 1998 and more familiar with them, although to be fair the last couple of machines I have built for clients have been Core 2 Duos, but I rarely build them.

 

[Vicenarian]

Yeah, it's hard to believe, but right now the Sandy Bridge Intels far outclass the entire AMD line as far as value/performance ratios.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/362?vs=289

Phenom II X4 980 @ 3.7Ghz gets pwned in most benchmarks by the i3 2100. The Phenom only outclasses the i3 (by a little bit) in very heavily multithreaded SYNTHETIC benchmarks. But remember, the i3 is built on a 32nm process, runs WAY cooler, uses WAY less electricity, and has better integrated video than any current AMD mobo AFAIK. Edit: and the PII X4 980 is like $70 more than the i3. If you wanted to spend a bit more, get the i5 2500K which has 4 physical cores, turbo boost, and overclocking potential with a P67/Z67 chipset.

 

[James_S]

Yeah, it's hard to believe, but right now the Sandy Bridge Intels far outclass the entire AMD line as far as value/performance ratios.

I second the Sandy Bridge i3 over a basic AMD build. The Intel setup just offers better performance and more features for not much more money.

Sata 3.0 would be nice for future-proofing but current HDDs don't really benefit from the extra bandwidth. Solid-state drives on the other hand would greatly benefit. An i3 2100 CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a small SSD for the boot drive makes for a smoking fast machine without breaking the bank.

The SSD would be out of your price range for now, but I would seriously consider it for a future upgrade. I tell everyone who comes into the shop that upgrading to an SSD for the boot drive is the single best upgrade you can make for a perceptible performance increase.

For the board, I like the MSI H67MA-E35 for the price point we're talking about. Only two memory slots, but it has two Sata 3.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports on the back. It has all solid caps, good layout, and no serious shortcomings that I've noticed so far. Where I work, we've built three machines with them so far with no issues.

 

[16k_zx81]

+1 to vince's build.

If you can possibly stretch the cash to an i5, definitely worth the extra!!

 

[joydivision]

I am going to go for an i3 Sanybridge, but I am going to wait for the AMD Bulldozers in case they end up being better value or bring the prices of the Intel chips down. I am in no rush. That MSI board looks fine for what I need, though 4 x DDR3 slots would be better as I intend to buy 2 X 2GB, then another 2 x 2GB later on.

 

[James_S]

I am going to go for an i3 Sanybridge, but I am going to wait for the AMD Bulldozers in case they end up being better value or bring the prices of the Intel chips down. I am in no rush. That MSI board looks fine for what I need, though 4 x DDR3 slots would be better as I intend to buy 2 X 2GB, then another 2 x 2GB later on.

If you're not in a hurry, then that is the way to go. I've been waiting for Bulldozer to swoop in and upset Intel's dominance but I'm starting to get worried since they keep having to delay it. We'll see I guess.

You're right about the memory slots on that MSI board. If it had four instead of just two at that price it would be an absolutely great board, but to get four memory slots you'll have to spend a bit more.

 

[Vicenarian]

Remember though that even when Bulldozer finally comes out, which may be a while, you will be looking at mobos with the new AM3+ socket.

With Intel's LGA1155, you could always swap your i3 for an i7 2600K later on too.


And finally, just as a matter of personal preference, I personally hate AMD's socket based system. The idea of having the pins hold the processor down in the socket is terrible. With Intel's LGA units, a plate holds the CPU into the socket. It may not seem like a big difference, but when you're dealing with dried thermal compound, the LGA platform prevents your CPU from being yanked out of it's place when removing the heatsink.

 

[James_S]

And finally, just as a matter of personal preference, I personally hate AMD's socket based system. The idea of having the pins hold the processor down in the socket is terrible. With Intel's LGA units, a plate holds the CPU into the socket. It may not seem like a big difference, but when you're dealing with dried thermal compound, the LGA platform prevents your CPU from being yanked out of it's place when removing the heatsink.

I have run into this before on old scrap machines where I wasn't being too gentle and out comes the CPU still attached to the heatsink. It sucks because the pins can easily get bent in the process. On the other hand, Intel's push-pin heatsink mount design is just as bad. Sometimes you have to push down on that last stubborn pin till it feels like it's about to break before it will click in. So I think they both have their ups and downs as far as the physical mounting systems go.

 

[sys-eng]

My current system is fast enough, but it has a fault where it takes a few times to POST (this is actually a motherboard fault) at it is limited to 2GB of RAM and only has 2 SATA ports. Now I could just replace the board but I will still be stuck with legacy DDR2 RAM and an old AM2 processor so I want to replace the board, RAM and CPU and keep the rest including the video card.

Replace the BIOS battery and see if that helps. If a setting in the BIOS is incorrect, it may be resetting to a default in order to start.
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I would buy a single 4GB DDR3 Corsair stick with the view to adding another one later on.

Memory sticks should match. That means same brand, model, voltage, specs, everything. Keep that in mind. I have seen 8-GB systems perform better after removing a stick because the two sticks were not matched and causing the memory controller to do extra work.
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I will also need a new Windows 7 licence as I am changing the board, but I currently have Vista 32-bit so that is not a major head ache.

The motherboard is four and a half years old btw :eek.

You can replace a 4 year old motherboard and not have to buy another license. Microsoft is quite lenient about that. In your case, you do not want to install Vista again.
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Now my existing hard drive is SATA 6 (but works fine on legacy SATA connections) is it worth buying a SATA 6 board (they cost about £30 more) so the hard drive gets the benefit or in the real world is the speed difference minimal? I don't play games or anything like that, but I do like a fast computer and my lack of RAM is getting to be a bit of a problem.

So what would you buy with a £220 budget? I am well out of the loop when it comes to modern hardware. I am keeping the PSU, case (probably), optical drive, video card and sound card.

I know this may be a shock but many tests show the 3-GB drives/interface perform better than the 6-GB. SS drives will probably be different story. Keep in mind, the physical drive (platters + electronics) do not come anywhere close to pushing the 3-GB interface.

If you do not play games, I would not install the video card and see how it works. The on-board video controllers have improved a lot in the last 3 years. Video cards generate a lot of heat and are prone to driver issues.

 

[joydivision]

I would like the ability to play games, I did buy the latest GTA a couple of years back, but it was a bit laggy, the diagnostics suggested my graphics card was fine, but the processor was not up to the job.

The question would be how well will my 8600GT compare with the Sanybridge built in graphics?

 

[gikstar]

Don't expect Intel to be standing still while AMD thinks they are going to be coming out with a faster chip.
Intel got caught with their pants down when AMD came out with their dual core cpus and Intel vowed to never let it happen again. Usually there is a 6 month or so cycle between the introduction of new processors, but Intel came out with their dual core, quickly brought out their core 2 duals and then their core 2 quads.

I'm looking forward to a new round of processors with a faster GPU later this year - I've passed on the Sandy Bridge for now and am still using the I7-860 which is fast enough for my needs.

Yup, if you wait long enough, something better and faster will come along.

 

[James_S]

The question would be how well will my 8600GT compare with the Sanybridge built in graphics?

According to AnandTech, the onboard graphics on Sandy Bridge is close to the Radeon HD 5450. The 8600GT is better than the 5450 for performance, discounting DX 9 vs 11 and such, so I would say that the 8600GT would be better than the onboard but even a relatively cheap card like the HD 5670 would blow away both for only $70.

 

[Vicenarian]

And btw, the HD6670 is the same card as the HD5670, just rebranded. Just like the "new" 6770 is the 5770 rebranded. You can get a nice 5850 for like $130 now.

Edit: with a 400W PSU, I would stick with a 5770 or 5670

 

[KompuKare]

The SSD would be out of your price range for now, but I would seriously consider it for a future upgrade. I tell everyone who comes into the shop that upgrading to an SSD for the boot drive is the single best upgrade you can make for a perceptible performance increase.

jd, if you end up going with S1155 see if you can stretch to Z68. That SSD caching seems to work very well (Windows-only AFAIK though) and if you get a larger than 60GB SSD, I think you can still partition it so that you allocate 60GB to caching and the rest to something else.

Had to look it up to double check, but yes the i3 2100 has HT while the 2500K does not, strange. I Intel and their market segmentation! At least most Intel CPUs finally have VT-x now...

 

[sys-eng]

I am going to go for an i3 Sanybridge, but I am going to wait for the AMD Bulldozers in case they end up being better value or bring the prices of the Intel chips down. I am in no rush. That MSI board looks fine for what I need, though 4 x DDR3 slots would be better as I intend to buy 2 X 2GB, then another 2 x 2GB later on.

If you are intereseted in overclocking, then look at the i3 models carefully. Some will not overclock more than about 5% while others have much capability.

As for your graphics adapter, I stick with what I said before. If you are satisfied with the performance of the onboard video controller, I would not install the graphics adapter. It may make a difference however if you have a large monitor.