Cheap upgrade system for my sis (very cheap!)

[rodneyhchef]

My sis has had a socket 939 single core Athlon 4000+ setup for about 5 years and it just can't cut it anymore. I had a shop around and found that you can still get Socket 775 mobos brand new. Not a very good board admittedly but here it is:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-...-3gb-s-pcie-(x16)-graphics-on-board-micro-atx

i got it for £29.99 in scan's 'today only' sale at the weekend and an arctic cooling Alpine 11 pro for £8 while I was there.

Low end 45nm core 2 duo parts are being practically given away, and 4gb of ddr3 can be had for sod all. So I got an E7200 for £22 and 2x2gb Kingston DDR3 1600 for £12 on ebay.

Total upgrade cost: £72 but here's the good part;

I sold the mobo, ram, and chip from her old rig for £65 (minus fees I'm left with about £50). I didn't cheat anybody out of anything either, that was just the going rate of the stuff on ebay. Admittedly it was quite high-end stuff back in the day (An A8N SLI deluxe and 2x1gb corsair DDR400 CL2 ram) but why anyone would buy that old stuff when you can get the system I've built for a few quid more, I do not know.

I'm on the lookout for a video card upgrade, her 8800gs is the weak link now, but I'm thinking even an 8800GT/9800GT/etc would be enough, as I think it's the lack of vram that's the problem. Although she does play skyrim!

So anyway I guess the moral is if you are looking for a budget system now's a pretty good time to start looking at old 775 parts. I couldv'e got an E8x00 series processor for not much more, but the motherboard I bought only supports up to 1333MHz FSB, which means I wouldn't be able to overclock an E8x00 chip.

 

[de.das.dude]

i think you should have looked towards the AMD apu line! it would be perfect for the situation. better than the old stuff you got IMO

 

[brandonwh64]

775 is a dead socket now, I would atleast look into a AMD FM2 setup as they are quite cheap and can run circles around the low end C2D and they have decent onboard GPU.

Here is a good setup for your sister!

BIOSTAR AMD A55MD2 Ver. 7.0 (Hudson D2) Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Crucial Ballistix 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

AMD A4-5300 Trinity 3.4GHz (3.6GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 65W Dual-Core Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic AMD Radeon HD 7480D

Total= $131.97 which is not too far off from your original price.

Once You Know, You Newegg

 

[de.das.dude]

he already bought the board

 

[brandonwh64]

Well that sux. I would turn around and try to get what you paid for the board or more out of it on ebay then look into the current APU market.

 

[Jetster]

The 775 are going really cheep on e bay. I just picked up a E8500 for $29. And I saw a Q9650 go for $170. Anyway its not a dead socket just doesn't have the bang for buck anylonger.

Unfortunately the E7200 is barely twice as fast as a Athlon 4000+ set up. But it will overclock a lot beter

 

[rodneyhchef]

I don't think the E7200 is a bad as what you're all saying, especially when you're comparing it to an A4 5300.

I've been looking on cpu-world. I only discovered their benchmark results today.

http://www.cpu-world.com/benchmarks/

There's not enough there to decide for certain, but the E7200 has some better results even though it's running 900Mhz slower? I am planning on o/cing it as well, at least running it on a 1333MHz FSB.

Who cares if it's a dead socket - how long has 939 been dead? It's still got plenty of fans, least on ebay it would seem.

I didn't actually realise you could build the FM2 systems for so cheap brandonwh64. My only gripe is I'm pretty sure the 128SP GPU is slower than my sis's 8800gs, and it can only be paired with a 2nd rate last gen ATI card. If it could be paired with something like a 7750/70 I think that would've swayed me.

 

[brandonwh64]

Sorry but E7200 is quite old and slow. Even the now older FM1 A6-3650 is faster than the E7200 by a noticeable bit.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/62?vs=403

 

[de.das.dude]

I don't think the E7200 is a bad as what you're all saying, especially when you're comparing it to an A4 5300.

I've been looking on cpu-world. I only discovered their benchmark results today.

http://www.cpu-world.com/benchmarks/

There's not enough there to decide for certain, but the E7200 has some better results even though it's running 900Mhz slower? I am planning on o/cing it as well, at least running it on a 1333MHz FSB.

Who cares if it's a dead socket - how long has 939 been dead? It's still got plenty of fans, least on ebay it would seem.

I didn't actually realise you could build the FM2 systems for so cheap brandonwh64. My only gripe is I'm pretty sure the 128SP GPU is slower than my sis's 8800gs, and it can only be paired with a 2nd rate last gen ATI card. If it could be paired with something like a 7750/70 I think that would've swayed me.

are you kidding me bro. you can pair the newer trinity ones with current gen 7series. also, they are definitely on par with the 8800gs by themselves.

 

[RCoon]

are you kidding me bro. you can pair the newer trinity ones with current gen 7series. also, they are definitely on par with the 8800gs by themselves.

This.
The FM2 APU's will nom nom through anything, better than your E2700. Yes they HYBRID crossfire with last gen 6670's etc, but you can still put them together with the current 77xx series. Look here: http://techreport.com/review/23662/amd-a10-5800k-and-a8-5600k-trinity-apus-reviewed/11
The APU is perfectly reasonable while gaming with a dedicated GPU, but is also very competent at gaming with it's onboard. I remember AMD bragging 60fps on Sleeping Dogs.

 

[rodneyhchef]

Sorry but E7200 is quite old and slow. Even the now older FM1 A6-3650 is faster than the E7200 by a noticeable bit.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/62?vs=403

3650 is probably faster than the 5300, the 5300 has only 1mb of L2? Show me some benchmarks of the 5300! Also, the overall score is almost the same in that review. The 7200 wins big in some, looses big in others...

Yeah I was talking about hybrid crossfire, I know you can put them with any GPU you like, it's just IMO a feature they could have rolled out to more GPUs

I can't say for certain, as we are comparing GPUs from vastly different generations, but it is my understanding that the GPU in the 5300 has 128 VLIW4 SPs, which is ballpark similar to a GPU with 160 VLIW5 SPs, half a 3850 if you will (with half the mem bandwidth) The 3850 and 8800GS are on a par with one another as per the TPU review of the era.

 

[Sasqui]

The 775 are going really cheep on e bay. I just picked up a E8500 for $29. And I saw a Q9650 go for $170. Anyway its not a dead socket just doesn't have the bang for buck anylonger.

Agreed. Puck up a used CPU for less than $50, hell even $25 for a E6x00.

Spend $100 on a 6850 and you'll be rockin in the free world.

Good thing it's DDR3, you can find a decent 8GB kit for $30.

 

[brandonwh64]

3650 is probably faster than the 5300, the 5300 has only 1mb of L2? Show me some benchmarks of the 5300! Also, the overall score is almost the same in that review. The 7200 wins big in some, looses big in others...

Yeah I was talking about hybrid crossfire, I know you can put them with any GPU you like, it's just IMO a feature they could have rolled out to more GPUs

I can't say for certain, as we are comparing GPUs from vastly different generations, but it is my understanding that the GPU in the 5300 has 128 VLIW4 SPs, which is ballpark similar to a GPU with 160 VLIW5 SPs, half a 3850 if you will (with half the mem bandwidth) The 3850 and 8800GS are on a par with one another as per the TPU review of the era.

From what I could find on the 5300, the gaming is like a 955BE CPU wise

 

[Jetster]

Good thing it's DDR3, you can find a decent 8GB kit for $30.

I know DDR2 prices are like gold. They keep going up

 

[rodneyhchef]

The chip arrived today! So far so good at 333x9.5...

 

[brandonwh64]

I am glad it works for you.

 

[Dent1]

I had a shop around and found that you can still get Socket 775 mobos brand new. Not a very good board admittedly but here it is:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-...-3gb-s-pcie-(x16)-graphics-on-board-micro-atx

i got it for £29.99 in scan's 'today only' sale at the weekend and an arctic cooling Alpine 11 pro for £8 while I was there.

I hate to seem negative. But you can get socket AM2+ and AM3 for as little as £30 too. You would have a larger selection of CPU's from low end to high end. You would also have an upgrade path upto the Phenom II X6.

But I like the idea of flipping something old into something useful, so +1