What do you think of this?

[PennySavre]

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131297R

Processor: http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10007855-OP&prodlist=celebros

Memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122

I'm aware that the motherboard and processor are open-box... worth the risk? I also haven't bought from ZipZoomFly before...

I'm just looking at motherboard, processor and RAM...

 

[PennySavre]

Think it would be better to get a new Q9400 over an open-box Q9550? I'm aware of the Phenom II also but get the impression the Q9550 might be a little better.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

I bought my current CPU from Zip Zoom Fly, no problem with it and it arrived the sameday as my other stuff I ordered from newegg(newegg was out of the e8400 at the time). Can't say anything about thier custormer support as I didn't need any, but thier delivery time was on par with newegg.

Open box CPUs, hmmmm. Heh, problably won't be any problems. Make sure whether or not the CPU is coming with the heatsink or not. I'd probably get the q9550 over the q9400.

The phenon II is about equal performance wise to the c2q 9550, it's the I7 that beats it.

 

[DOM]

im getting this motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128358

seen ppl with Q's get there FSB/OC up there vs high $ motherboards

and on the cpu it might not come with a cool/fan so do you already have a aftermarket one for it ?

open-box means it might just be the motherboards/cpu and nothing else

 

[PennySavre]

Whether it includes a stock Intel fan or not doesn't matter to me. I won't bother with the stock fan for overclocking.

 

[PennySavre]

I get the impression that Phenom II is the way to go. Do you think that the average 1333MHz DDR3 is better than some 1066MHz DDR2 with decent timings? I realize that which one to get might depend on the motherboard but I just mean in general.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

the actual advantage between DDR2 and DDR3 in extremely minimal right now. The only advantage DDR3 really give you is future-proofing

 

[PennySavre]

Currently I have an overclocked E4300... I kind of like to tweak but am not sure what I should go with as far as a new set-up. I think I'm fairly overclock/tweak savvy so I don't care if a motherboard's BIOS is a little complicated so long as I have a higher chance of getting good results.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

what is your computers hardware right now? How much money do you have to spend? What do you gonna use the computer for?

 

[PennySavre]

what is your computers hardware right now? How much money do you have to spend? What do you gonna use the computer for?

Right now for processor/motherboard/memory I have an E4300, a Gigabyte P965-S3 Rev1 which doesn't officially support Penryn last I checked, and 4GB of Corsair 675MHz.

I do gaming and non-gaming. I have a 4870 1GB for video card right now.

For a new motherboard, processor and memory I'm kind of looking to spend under $400 on it.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

ok, $400 for motherboard/cpu/RAM to match up with a 1 gig 4870. What kind of non-gaming uses do you use the computer for(just trying to figure out if a quad would benefit you or not)?

 

[PennySavre]

ok, $400 for motherboard/cpu/RAM to match up with a 1 gig 4870. What kind of non-gaming uses do you use the computer for(just trying to figure out if a quad would benefit you or not)?

Quad will probably benefit me a little because I multi-task and do things like photoediting which would probably benefit... I'm not completely closed-minded to a dual-core though.

 

[Darknova]

Take a look at my PC specs. Running with a 1GB 4870 I can max out any game I throw at it.

I'd personally grab an X3 720BE (DDR3 or DDR2, next to no perf difference) and a motherboard to match. You'll max anything.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131331

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103472

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231166

About $383 before shipping

 

[PennySavre]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131331

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103472

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231166

About $383 before shipping

Do you think that motherboard is better than the Gigabyte DS4H? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128352&Tpk=gigabyte 790gx

 

[BarbaricSoul]

They probably about the same. Personally, I put more faith in ASUS than Gigabyte, but Gig boards are good boards. It's just a personal preferance for me as to why I would get the ASUS over a Gigabyte board.

 

[PennySavre]

Hmm... well I'm pretty much just looking to have some tweaking fun lol. I think I can get an E7400 for $120 right now... the E5200 is also cheap.

How does AMD do a tri-core processor? Is it a quad with one core disabled, or specially made as a triple-core?

 

[Darknova]

Hmm... well I'm pretty much just looking to have some tweaking fun lol. I think I can get an E7400 for $120 right now... the E5200 is also cheap.

How does AMD do a tri-core processor? Is it a quad with one core disabled, or specially made as a triple-core?

It's a quad with one core disabled. In my experience (might be different for you), I've seen a significant performance increase in multi-cored/threaded applications over my old E8400. I do a lot of video encoding, this 8750BE is better than my E8400 was. The 720BE is better again.

the one thing I have found when overclocking and tweaking my system, is that AMD seem to be less...fragile, than Intel Core 2's were. I can tweak this thing to it's limit and get nothing more than a few errors, but my E8400 would throw a fit and take everything with it if just one timing was off.