which CPU should i buy?

[n-ster]

bah, at 40% off, shipping shouldn't hurt as much anyhow, my grand-parents go to France a lot, and I have a lot of family in France, so shipping will hurt even less

 

[ste2425]

scrap the cpu's i want an obama toy!

 

[El_Mayo]

n-ster.. he's willing to sell you a pc
do you have paypal?

 

[hat]

Hat, support me on this....
you'll never get to use the cpu till the day that it dies!!! so OCing doesn't really matter!

what?
It's really the heat and voltage that reduces lifespan. At stock volts, a processor that runs 2GHz stock speed on the stock cooler and has a load temp of 60*c will last less than that same processor that runs at 3GHz oc'd speed with a load temp of 50*c. However, if the first processor runs 1.35v and the second processor runs at 1.4v for example, they will last about the same.

My Athlon64 5200+ ran overclocked for 2 years under my AC Freezer 64 Pro. Most of it's life was spend at 2.8GHz+ 1.4v under constant full load running Folding @ Home. When I bought my Phenom 9500, I had to buy a new motherboard because the overclocking options in my motherboard didn't work with that processor. So I bought a new board and retired the old motherboard and processor (athlon64 x2 and dfi lanparty) to my uncle who runs everything at stock with good cooling. He has the AMD heatpipe cooler on it with some of my MX-2 thermal paste. (unfortunately, my phenom died when I tried to run it at 2.65GHz 1.375v. kapow! bought this sempron and am very happy with it)

 

[hat]

scrap the cpu's i want an obama toy!

gotta love action figures of anti-gun Obama waving around shotguns and assault rifles

 

[El_Mayo]

right... i think i will get the 720BE cos money's tight atm lol
"Location: Unstable Socialist States of America"
lmao pure right wing

 

[Darren]

once again.. i've been told intel is much better from a close friend
he's almost always right

So just because you 'hear' that AMD is better you avoid them like the plague? Intel might have faster high end processors with the i7 but in the mid-high end AMDs X3s are where it is at.

You are going to buy a Q9550 and pay more money, around £80-100 more because you do not like the AMD's equivalent in performance.




Ok dude, waste your money at your leasure

Edit:

right... i think i will get the 720BE cos money's tight atm lol
"Location: Unstable Socialist States of America"
lmao pure right wing

Finally you see sense. What changed your mind price or performance?

Have you seen the reviews yet?

 

[Lozan]

1. You can go with the MSI Platinum because that's not too expensive and performs well.

2. The OCZ Reaper RAM is only around £120 for 6GB 1800MHz

 

[El_Mayo]

Finally you see sense. What changed your mind price or performance?

Have you seen the reviews yet?

erm yeah i saw a review for the 720BE
i looked at only the gaming benchmarks, cos like i said
i'm currently using an AMD Turionx2 (2.0Ghz) and that's good enough for my multitasking needs.. so an ultra high end cpu would be overkill
i think i'm going to get a Quad AMD however..

like this
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?AMD-P2920

or

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?AMD-P9950

or even

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?AMD-P2940

probably the 9950 though...

 

[Darren]

Avoid the Phenom 9950, they are the older generation with the Agena core opposed to the newer Deneb core, especially because the 9950 is the Phenom I

The Phenom II X3 720 is faster (and cheaper) than the Phenom 9950.

Also the II X3 can use both DDR3 and DDR2 so it is a better upgrade path. If you are content with quadcore opposed to tri-core I would recommend the Phenom II X4 820 or 955 because those can also use both DDR3 and DDR2.

 

[Darren]

refresh page for edits

 

[El_Mayo]

oh i see

how about
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?AMD-P2940

or

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?AMD-P2920

both are Phenom II.. so do they both support DDR2 and DDR3?

 

[Darren]

Indeed they are both Phenom IIs and hence they will be faster than the Phenom 9950.

But unfortunately the 920 and 940 only support DDR2.

The only Phenom IIs that support DDR3 and DDR2 at the moment is the 720, 820, 945, and 955.

But DDR3 memory is expensive, you would be better off skipping DDR3 memory and buying a cheap £50 AM2+ motherboard that supports DDR2 PC8500 and sticking in any of the Phenom II range.

 

[El_Mayo]

Indeed they are both Phenom IIs and hence they will be faster than the Phenom 9950.

But unfortunately the 920 and 940 only support DDR2.

The only Phenom IIs that support DDR3 and DDR2 at the moment is the 720, 820, 945, and 955.

But DDR3 is expensive, you would be better off skipping DDR3 memory and buying a cheap £50 AM2+ motherboard and sticking in any of the Phenom II range.

alright mate.. it's gonna be the black edition PII 940
black edition = more overclocking?
and i'll just get cheap DDR2 memory (GeiL Black Dragon)

 

[Darren]

alright mate.. it's gonna be the black edition PII 940
black edition = more overclocking?
and i'll just get cheap DDR2 memory (GeiL Black Dragon)

The Phenom 940 is a good CPU, black edition has the unlocked multiplier and hence overclocks easier.

If you tell us the budget, we can find you components on the internet and help you find the best deal.


Edit:

ahh right
how helpful
the thing is however.. i can't afford the pc for a while (about 6months)
so atm i have about 4 budgets

1. 700 GBP
2. 600 GBP
3. 500 GBP
4. 400 GBP (very unlikely.. but this is incase i do something stupid like blow my savings xD)

i'm prepared to put aside any nvidia/ati/intel/amd bias.. i just want good performance
oh and those prices above INCLUDE a monitor (20" -22")
i'd like to do some gaming in 1680x1050 so.. no overkill (GTX 295 is a no-no)

£400 can easily build you a Phenom II with 8 GB of ram and say a ATI 4850. That will be enough to play any game at maximum settings for 2 years.

But in 6 months new CPUs and graphics cards come out, so there might be better deals, so this research process might have to be re-iterated.

 

[El_Mayo]

ahh right
how helpful
the thing is however.. i can't afford the pc for a while (about 6months)
so atm i have about 4 budgets

1. 700 GBP
2. 600 GBP
3. 500 GBP
4. 400 GBP (very unlikely.. but this is incase i do something stupid like blow my savings xD)

i'm prepared to put aside any nvidia/ati/intel/amd bias.. i just want good performance
oh and those prices above INCLUDE a monitor (20" -22")
i'd like to do some gaming in 1680x1050 so.. no overkill (GTX 295 is a no-no)

 

[El_Mayo]

£400 can easily build you a Phenom II with 8 GB of ram and say a ATI 4850. That will be enough to play any game at maximum settings for 2 years.

really? how any link/images to prove it?

 

[El_Mayo]

Yeah sure.

I've got to run to poundland in a few minutes.

But in about an 1 or 2 hours I'll be back with a few pricelists and components for a gaming rig under £400, you'll even have change.


Do you need a new hard disk drive and operating system too?

i will need a HDD (500Gb+)
but i can get a cracked OS

 

[Darren]

Do you need a power supply unit, case and CD/DVD drive?

 

[El_Mayo]

yes.. obviously!
lmao

 

[El_Mayo]

oh that's alrite lol
dvd drives are cheap anyway
but with the PSU.. should i get a high performance one like Corsair or OCZ.. or just a cheap value one?

 

[Darren]

Personally I'm ok with non-branded.

But usually I recommend branded for other people, performance wise it doesn't really matter, you're only paying for reliability, warranty, and low noise.

I haven't yet had a PSU fry or anything

 

[El_Mayo]

oh... i'd rather have reliability then

 

[Jadawin]

I would strongly recommend the Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition, a nice AM2+ Mainboard and lots of DDR2-RAM, preferably 8 GB. That will be enough RAM for several years and a very good Quadcore with overclocking potential. For most things except games this will be a monster machine. And for gaming just get a good gfx card. A 3 GHz Quadcore will be enough for most games in the next 3-4 years. And you will be able to use the new AM3-Processors from AMD in your AM2+ board, like the new Phenon II X4 955 and even faster ones.

Take a look at that, too:

http://translate.google.com/transla...ssoren_kaufberatung_mai_2009.html&sl=de&tl=en

As far as PSUs are concerned, only buy one with a 80PLUS certificate. That guarantees a good efficiency and to achieve that, the PSU can't be made from cheap crap parts. Well known brands usually have high efficiency.

 

[Darren]

XFX HD 4830 512MB DDR3 Dual DVI HDTV out PCI-E Graphics Card
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159719 £74.98

ASROCK N68PV-GS GeForce 7050 Socket AM2+ VGA DVI Out 6 Channel Audio MATX Motherboard
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161000 £42.03

AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz Socket AM3 6MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159071 £119.32

Seagate ST3500418AS 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158860 £43.34

Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 XMS2 Memory CL5 2.1V
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148816 £42.49

Arctic Power 600W PSU - With PCI-E, 3x SATA, 20+4, ATX12V, 8pin +12V Connectors - Retail Boxed
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124926 £34.99

LG GH22NS40 22X SATA DVD±RW/DL/RAM Black Bare Drive - OEM
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/151999 £15.85

Casecom KB-7720BK Black ATX Midi Tower Case - No PSU
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/108273 £12.99

Total inc VAT (free super saver delivery) £385.99

If you replace the Phenom II X3 720 with the Phenom II X4 940 from Novatech.com it will work out as £226.67 + £167.89 = £394.56

That rig is enough to play any game today at maximum settings. It should breeze through games for about 2 years. At most you'll only need to replace the GPU in the future.