CPU/MOBO/RAM Best Bang?

K

Kaizer

Gawd
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Jul 9, 2001
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I guess ive decided Im going to replace the cpu/mobo/ram in my sig with a system. My board has died, and it seems rather difficult to find just a replacement board that will take DDR2.

I have a Frys and a Microcenter near me, so I can take advantage of either. I dont need top of the line.. but I dont want bargain basement either. SLI isnt that big of a deal to me as I will never SLI.. but the possibility of using a physx card is always out there as I upgrade video cards.

Im using win 7 ultimate 64bit, so 4gb at minimum would be nice. Other than that, its going into a CM690 case.

It will be used for Diablo 3 when it comes out.. maybe some TF2 and the like. I dont care about Crysis (shocker!).

Im leaning towards i7 unless someone can convince me otherwise. I dont really want to go over 500-600 for the 3 items. Less would be awesome :)
 
The i5 760 is just as fast as the Core i7 950 in gaming as shown here:

The 2.8Ghz Core i7 930 only provides about a 2 to 5FPS difference as shown in this review:
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/gaming_the_core_debate,1.html

Additional proof: The $1040 3.3Ghz Core i7 975 Extreme Edition CPU is only 15% to 30% faster with only a specific set of games and video cards:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/cpus-and-games-2010.html

So considering the the i7 975 is faster than the i7 930 and yet only provides 15% to 30% under ideal conditions, the Core i7 930 is definitely not gonna be that much faster than the i5 750 or i5 760. In addition, There's very little real world difference between triple channel and dual channel RAM in real world apps and games.

So since you live near a Microcenter, pick up the i5 750 or i5 760 for $170, or whichever one is cheaper.

As for the mobo and RAM, please answer these two questions:
6) Will you be overclocking?
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
 
I don't overclock much anymore. Stable and quiet is usually my goal. I don't really require much on the board. 6 USB ports or more headers so I can plug in the case USB slots. No fans on the board, they are always loud and break :(. I'd like it to be able to handle 8gb or more of ram.
 
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why not just replace the mobo? Here are a few very reasonable options,

GIGABYTE GA-G41M-ES2L LGA 775 $46.99 + free shipping

BIOSTAR G31D-M7 LGA 775 $39.99 + free shipping

just saw you would like 8gbs ram support, if thats on a new board thats easy, but if you were just going to replace the mobo here are a couple more options;

ASRock P43DE LGA 775 Intel P43 $59.99 + $2.99 shipping

BIOSTAR TP43ECombo LGA 775 Intel P43 $69.99 - $10 mir + free shipping

GIGABYTE GA-EP43T-UD3L LGA 775 Intel P43 $79.99 - $10 mir + $8 shipping
 
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hossdaddy said:
why not just replace the mobo? Here are a few very reasonable options,

GIGABYTE GA-G41M-ES2L LGA 775 $46.99 + free shipping

BIOSTAR G31D-M7 LGA 775 $39.99 + free shipping

just saw you would like 8gbs ram support, if thats on a new board thats easy, but if you were just going to replace the mobo here are a couple more options;

ASRock P43DE LGA 775 Intel P43 $59.99 + $2.99 shipping

BIOSTAR TP43ECombo LGA 775 Intel P43 $69.99 - $10 mir + free shipping

GIGABYTE GA-EP43T-UD3L LGA 775 Intel P43 $79.99 - $10 mir + $8 shipping
Click to expand...

If you go with the EP43T-UD3L, you will also have to replace all of your RAM since that mobo is DDR3 only.
 
E4g1e said:
If you go with the EP43T-UD3L, you will also have to replace all of your RAM since that mobo is DDR3 only.
Click to expand...

yeah I was thinking he could spread out his upgrade path, by getting newer ram that he could use later hes decreasing how much he will need to spend when he updates the socket and cpu. I meant to mention it but, life pulled me away :D
 
Thats why I was leaning towards just upgrading it all. If I have to buy a new board.. and most likely new ram, why throw money into the past.

And holy crap I shouldnt post from my iphone at 3am. More than just a few typos.
 
From Newegg:

Xeon X3440: $220
2 x 4GB RAM (8GB total) : $150
M/B: 1156 ATX mobo of your choice, $80~$160 depending on how much you want usb3 , sata6, or x16/x16 crossfire/sli. Just avoid micro atx and anything that doesn't have a heatsink on the mofsets.

Approx total: $470. Unleash that beast at folding@home and it will net you quite a few points. You can probably hit 3.4~3.6Ghz at stock voltage w/o increasing temps significantly.

Don't go i7. Not worth it when the Xeon is $100 cheaper for the same thing.
 
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Heh, I almost forgot the Xeons even existed. Ill check out that chip. Do the i5 chips use shared ram? might be interesting to use the onboard video for a third monitor.
 
you dont have to buy new ram at all, most of the boards I linked you to would use the ram you have now. ddr3 isnt much faster than ddr2 anyway. I mean go ahead and upgrade if you want to but, if I were faced with the option of a $50 mobo or a $300+ upgrade I would get the new mobo and see what happens. Your rig should be fine for a while yet. That is unless you feel that its not performing well enough for your applications.
 
If you wanna try AMD, best bang for buck are the AMD cpu/mobo bundles @ Microcenter:
http://www.microcenter.com/specials/promotions/AMDbundlePROMO.html

pick a mobo that supports your current DDR2 ram, then splurge on the video card. maybe even a SSD.

The $169.98 Biostar TA790GXBE AM2+ 790GX ATX mobo with Phenom II X4 965 BE cpu..should work well for you..does crossfire tho, not SLI..you have $400 left over for a single video card anyway.. not a fan of CF/SLI either, but thats another story..
 
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