AM2+ system for general use

[dream caster]

This will be kind of a tinkerer's toy. I plan to use it for internet, light gaming; I´ll try to run FreeSpace2 in virtualized W98 and I want to overclock some and experiment towards a fanless PC.
I live in Chile. In the USA you live in the paradise of computer buyers, my hardware list costs here the equivalent to about $340 US dollars; I suppose in USA it would cost about 40 or 50% less. And now after the crisis the component stock, that was rather good, has diminished a lot, specially what would be upper mainstream parts the cheapest and most expensive parts are easier to find.

I will be buying:
motherboard Gigabyte MA790X-UD4P
CPU X2 7750 Black Edition
RAM probably 1 2GB 800MHz PC2 6400, some more later; Buffalo seems the cheapest
DVD drive
Video card: a Radeon 4670; probably will be a Saphire, I will choose what is available locally

I have
PSU: Corsair VX 450W
some old IDE HDD (2 IBM DeskStar 20GB), one of them will do for now
PS2 mouse and keyboard
I will use an open case I'll make from mdf, some steel cut from old computer side panels and some aluminum

I contemplate some overclocking mostly to test heatsinks; first with stock cooler then I plan to try scratch make heatsinks.
As for now I have a 19'' CRT monitor and I eventually would like to have something like the Dell 2408FWP.
I would like to build this as soon as I get the motherboard that here is difficult ot get.
I plan to use Ubuntu and a virtualized Microsoft OS. I have W98SE, W95 and a legit DOS 6.2 (it has never been installed)

My deciding point has been looking at the Gigabyte MA790X-UD4P motherboard and feeling it is what I'm looking for; it must be durable, I want it long lasting; with connectivity and upgrade options, a rather easy way to cool mosfets and it should be not too expensive.

How will virtualization work? what memory choose?

 

[Dangman]

Memory wise, just go for the cheapest set of 1GB to 4GB DDR2 800 RAM you can find.

As for virtualization, what exactly are you asking for? How to set it up? etc

 

[dream caster]

I know the performance of virtualized OS depends strongly on memory and I have some general idea about it but I do not know exactly hardware requirements, I do not know if phenoms are different than Kuma.
I had planned two 1GB sticks but reading your advices I thought that one 2GB stick had better upgrade options.
What do you think about the motherboard?

 

[Dangman]

I know the performance of virtualized OS depends strongly on memory and I have some general idea about it but I do not know exactly hardware requirements, I do not know if phenoms are different than Kuma.
I had planned two 1GB sticks but reading your advices I thought that one 2GB stick had better upgrade options.
What do you think about the motherboard?

The motherboard is a good choice. CPU wise, just make sure that the CPU has virtualization extensions like AMD-V or Intel VT. The AMD CPU you chose does have support for AMD-V so you're set there in terms of CPU support.

RAM wise, I highly recommend getting at least 2GB of RAM.

 

[dream caster]

Okay I'll just pray that the motherboard comes here.

 

[dream caster]

I bought the GA-MA790X-UD4P May 15.
I didn't buy the processor until now cause i didn't have money nor time; have some more money now but I still want to stick to budget.

After wondering if the motherboard would boot with Phenom II X2 550 or would it need another CPU to update bios, today I bought the X2 550 and a stick with 2GB of PC6400 Kingston Value RAM. I found some guys that booted with other AM3 processors in this board the first days of May, so I decided to take the risk. I' ll receive those parts in two or three days.

Now i'm waiting for a radeon 4770 to be available here, i upped my plans; the 4670, the 4830, the 4850 and Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 are available here but 4770 is scarce here, it rarely appears. My plan is to use an old Matrox PCI video card (Matrox Mysthique; I do not remember 2 or 4GB), while waiting.
I prefer the 4770 because its performance is similar to the 4850 but needs less power, tough I have not searched about GeForce GTS 250.

What do you think? There will be any problem? any risk damaging any of these parts?

 

[lt_shiro]

newegg has x2 245 instock for $65 (supports AMD-V also)

edit main reason I got my Kuma was to do my MCSA laps on virtualization. I run 1 2003 server and 3 XP clients at the sametime.