New Budget Rig for my brother ~£175 to spend
 

Hi Guys, I'm just after a bit of advice about building a rig for my brother. The 939 he has now is suffering from a dying motherboard and rather than replace it (it's already been replaced once and I don't think it's worth it anymore) He wants a new system. I'm only going to replace the board, chip and ram as everything else is ok. My main question is what to go for? I've looked at the 'Pentium E6x00' range of budget processors and they look pretty good and I can build a system with an E6600, 4gb DDR3 and a Gigabyte motherboard for around £175

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Intel...Core-Ratio-65W
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...-3Gb-s-VGA-ATX
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-(...-9-9-9-24-150V

I would like to do a bit of overclocking and from reviews I've seen of this chip it'll do around 4GHz. I will just be o/cing it to max stable, normal volts/normal power saving features still enabled as I think this will be enough for him.

I'm hearing alot about C2D being EOL so I'm a little reluctant about getting this system, Even though I don't think it can be beaten performance wise for the money.

What's everyone's opinion on the AM3 Athlon II x2 260? It's a bit cheaper than the E6600. I've failed to find any direct comparison between the two. Again I can build a system for around £175 and they look like they overclock quite well.

One really daft thing that almost decides for me is the 939 rig he has now uses an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 cooler which I should be able to re-use on the AM3 chip saving £10-15. It's his money afterall! :laugh:

Cheers

Why not consider PII x2? grab a 550/555 BE and see if you can grab a cheap SB710/750 board to unlock some of the cores, even as x2 they will easy match the e6600 and there is more of an upgrade path

I'd consider selling the part's out my second rig, CPU, Board & RAM + an 8800GT for a nice price.

Just a thought.

I initially discounted the 555BE as it's slightly out of price range but I've just noticed the board and ram that I would put with it is on special offer today! :) so it is almost within reach. Think I might order the board and ram then wait and see if the chip gets put on offer later in the week. :D

Anyone have any experience with this board?

http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=35547

Thanks for the offer but I think a nice shiny and new system is what he wants after years of getting my old cast offs. Plus he has my old 3850 o/c'd to 800MHz/1000Mhz so an 8800GT is not much of an upgrade. :)

I've got a Pentium e6300 (2.8ghz stock) that hits 3.7 ghz on stock voltage. I've had it nearly a year, only used it about 5 months.
PM if you're interested

rodneyhchef,

For around the same price you can get a Athlon II X3 and it would be much faster than the E6600. In fact the Athlon II X3 will be on par with your Q6600 in gaming.


You can also find some cheap AM3 native boards from £55 on ebuyer or AM2+ boards from £35 easy.


AMD Athlon II X3 440 3.0GHz 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 Retail Box Processor
Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz Memory Kit Unbuffered CL9
ASROCK M3A770DE 770 Socket AM3 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard

£188.63 with free delivery

AMD Athlon II X3 440 3.0GHz 512KB L2 Cache Socket ...
Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz Memory Kit Unbuff...
ASROCK M3A770DE 770 Socket AM3 8 Channel Audio ATX...

Why not a x2 550/555 and an unlocker board? you could end up with a 4 core cpu; I got an unlocker Gigabyte board from Scan last year for £50.

Basically my wife's board in specs, just a better "version" of it with better phases/vrm's and ddr3. You will love it!!!

Because now its pot luck, AMD's fabrication is becoming more accurate, the unlockable chips are not as easy to find these days. The Athlon II X3 may also unlock a core but if it fails atleast you've got a overall more powerful system than the Phenom II X2...for cheaper too.

Thanks everyone, I've ordered the board and the ram. Processor is still TBA. Will see what offers come up over the next few days! :)

Ended up getting the X3 445 as the 555 BE was out of stock. Not had time to play about with ACC yet, but fingers are crossed! Total cost was £179. :)

Wow, unlocking has gone far better than I ever could have imagined! :eek:

^ glad to hear.:)

I see you were also able to unlock the L3 Cache. Nice. Congrats. :toast:

I second that

How are your temps under full load after an hour or so? I noticed you had only been running that prog for only a minute and your temps seem a little high, just you may want to keep an eye on the temps :toast:

again... congrats on the unlocking the core's and L3 cache.

It had been running for a while when I did the print screen, half an hour or so. (1024k passed, 11 tests at 2-3mins each) So think it's going to be ok. 50°C at full load seems alright to me? Northbridge is higher than I'd perhaps like but I don't think my bro is going to be stressing it as much as me. :D

Really chuffed about unlocking the L3, means it's equivalent to the now defunkt X4 950. :toast: I had no idea these x3s were full Deneb cores.

Most of them aren't. Nice to see you got a good chip!

You need to test it longer than that. I wouldnt class it as stable if it couldnt do atleast 7-9hrs of stress testing in Prime without errors. Leave it over night.

And yes 50c is cool, I wouldnt worry until you start breaking 60C at full load and even then you're fine.

Fair Enough. :) I'll see if I have time to test it more thoroughly. He wants it back tomorrow! :rolleyes: