939 showing its age

E

erf

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 13, 2005
Messages
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I'm in a gaming pickle....

My 939/x2 4200 build is finally starting to show its age and I need some help/suggestions with doing a budget upgrade.

My main goal is to be able to play Borderlands maxxed on a 19" LCD (1280x1024).

I'm sure my 9800gt will tide me over for a while longer so am manily concerned about the mobo, cpu, and ram.

What would be my best bang for buck at the moment for mobo, cpu and ram??? If possible i'm trying to keep my budget under 150.

Thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions.

btw i'll still be running Win XP if that makes any difference.
 
Kaos_Drem said:
150 for a cpu mobo and ram is gonna be tough, not going to lie to you at all.
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yeah.....200 is probably going to be my max, it just means i'll have to wait a little longer to make the upgrade. i'm just not sure where to start because i've been out of the loop for so long.

i've started to browse newegg but am just not sure where to start as far as where my best performance increases will be had versus money spent.
 
are you selling your old equipment? You might get an extra $75 from a 939 combo to add to the pot.
 
939 X2 CPU's are bringing in a pretty penny, or atleast were a few months ago both on EBAY and on the FS/Trade forum here as there were/are still lots of people with sinlge core 939's that wanted a dual core upgrade. With that tight of a budget, you'll probably still have to stick with the AMD side of things as Intel is slightly more expensive.

Sadly the cost of DDR2 has increased quite a bit in the last few months. It wasn't uncommon to find 2x2GB DDR2 800 sticks for <$50 but the cheapest available at newegg currently is $74.99 which is half your budget and you still need a CPU/board.

Buying used will probably yeild the best results with a tight budget.
 
I'm not advertising for them but Tigerdirect has fantastic mobo-cpu-ram deals all the time. Prices obviously vary daily. I've seen $150 combos that include basic mobo, 2gb DDR2, modest CPU.
 
kirbyrj said:
are you selling your old equipment? You might get an extra $75 from a 939 combo to add to the pot.
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neh...i'm gonna keep my old stuff to piece together another comp for my wifey.
 
You can get that same combo with the 785G board instead of the 790GX for about $20 cheaper.
 
What tricky said looked good to me and probably what i would go if i was on your $200 max budget (i see you said $150 as well) but both the amd combos are not bad.

As for the intel suggestion i have been out of the scene for a bit and dont know if the new cpus from amd compete with it or beat it, but the E5200 was one hell of a cpu when i had it, i even got a bad batch and still overclocked decently. Funny enough i was gaming like you with the system and i never felt the need to upgrade until i went and got a bigger screen.
 
As for the ram, do not get that set of crucial ballistix. You can try getting some ram off the forums to save on $$. A great brand to get would be OCZ because their lifetime warranty goes to whoever has possession of the ram.
 
dennisjai said:
As for the ram, do not get that set of crucial ballistix. You can try getting some ram off the forums to save on $$. A great brand to get would be OCZ because their lifetime warranty goes to whoever has possession of the ram.
Click to expand...

Until the last person that owns it gets fed up with it and decides to just throw it in the trash.

Never was inpressed with OCZ RAM... had one too many bad experiences with faulty OCZ RAM to use it anymore.
 
With that budget your best bet is waiting for Black Friday/Cyber Monday and jump on some hot deals for some AM3/DDR3 components. Going with AM2+/DDR2 or LGA775/DDR2 setup at this point is like repeating the S939 situation all over again. New CPUs supporting AM2+ will stop being produced in a year, and 775 is already dead. On the other hand next gen AMD CPUs supporting socket AM3+ will in all likelihood be backwards compatible with AM3/DDR3 setup which is what you should be looking to build now.
 
4GB (2x2GB) Crucial DDR3 RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148262
-$70

Athlon II X2 240 (2.8 GHz)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103688&cm_re=amd_240-_-19-103-688-_-Product
$60

Gigabyte 770T-UD3P
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...392&cm_re=gigabyte_770-_-13-128-392-_-Product
-$70


This is an alternative to the microATX motherboard that bigddybn suggested. You basically pay $20 more for the full size ATX. If you don't need the space, I'd rather go with his microATX + 240 combo. The RAM is what pushes the price limit here so if you're okay with 2GB, that's about $30 cheaper.
 
Zoogle said:
4GB (2x2GB) Crucial DDR3 RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148262
-$70

Athlon II X2 240 (2.8 GHz)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103688&cm_re=amd_240-_-19-103-688-_-Product
$60

Gigabyte 770T-UD3P
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...392&cm_re=gigabyte_770-_-13-128-392-_-Product
-$70


This is an alternative to the microATX motherboard that bigddybn suggested. You basically pay $20 more for the full size ATX. If you don't need the space, I'd rather go with his microATX + 240 combo. The RAM is what pushes the price limit here so if you're okay with 2GB, that's about $30 cheaper.
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i could live with just 2 gigs....that would put me under 200......hells to the yes!!! now i've just got to get the money saved.
 
Have you considered overclocking your x2 and waiting until your budget goes up a bit? I would think 2.7-2.8 would be very reasonable and drive that 9800gt better.

If you are upgrading, the am3 785 boards and an athlon II are the only way to go
 
Toaster Oven said:
With that budget your best bet is waiting for Black Friday/Cyber Monday and jump on some hot deals for some AM3/DDR3 components. Going with AM2+/DDR2 or LGA775/DDR2 setup at this point is like repeating the S939 situation all over again. New CPUs supporting AM2+ will stop being produced in a year, and 775 is already dead. On the other hand next gen AMD CPUs supporting socket AM3+ will in all likelihood be backwards compatible with AM3/DDR3 setup which is what you should be looking to build now.
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I'm surprise your the only one who mention this.

I was thinking the same thing. Don't put OP in another 939 situation you guys.

I'll try to come up with some combos for OP.
 
ridiculous? their are market prices. Low demand as AMD/Intel has both move onto DDR3, prices will only go up as time past.
 
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