Motherboards just blown, need to spec a decent replacement and thought I might as well upgrade while i’m at it.

So couple of quick q’s…

What AMD processor is good these days?

How much DDR3 Ram? Was thinking 4-6gb

Is it worth upgrading from a ATI 4860 512mb Graphics card?

Use wise its just a jumped up media centre but I want it to play big HD files seemlessly.

I’ll do the research tomoz but thought I might as well check to see if anyones done this recently and will save me the leg work 🙂

Wow it has been a while since I upgraded!! DDR3 is well cheap now and you can get a Radeon 6850 1gb for just over a ton….

AMD’s have got nothing on Intel these days, they lag behind significantly… Though if you must go AMD, then get a 6 core Phenom like the 1055T or higher.

Personally, would buy a new Asus Intel Sandybridge Motherboard, a core i5 2500k processor, 4Gig of RAM (easy to upgrade later anyway), and a new GFX card, probably something like a GTX460 or something… The core i5 will pee all over an AMD in bang for buck stakes, and unless you’re playing the very latest games at full 1080 resolution, then no need to spend hundreds on an amazing GFX card.

Cheers mboy. Haven’t reseached stuff for a while, i’ve always favoured amd and asus stuff just from experience really but happy to go with whatever.

Buy one of the core i processors that finish with the letter “K” on the end of the number… Core i5 2500K or Core i7 2600K. These are Intels chips with unlocked core multipliers. Other Intel chips have become very hard to overclock these days, but spend a few £’s more (literally only a few) and you get an unlocked multiplier, and literally 50% more performance readily available from a few tweaks!

Oh, and still only makes sense to buy a 4 core processor max really, hence go Core i5. Not much software can utilise more than 4 cores, so 6 core processors aren’t readily appreciated, and seeing as the 4 core i5 is as fast, if not faster than AMD’s top end 6 core Phenom anyway… Well AMD have lost massive market shares in the last couple of years, put it that way!

Pretty much agree with Mboy except I like Gigabyte mobos, used to use a lot of Abit and DFI but got sick of basically being a beta tester and have had a fair share of Asus failures.

To do what? Watch videos? I’ve a seven year old cruftbox here that streams HD movies to the 360 without breaking a sweat.

I’d suggest getting a respected brand motherboard (I’d use any of the ones in the previous post), anything else is a bonus.

With 6Gb you’re looking at a 64-bit OS; I’d check that your media software will run in this environment. Consider moving to Windows 7 (especially if you can get it from software4students.co.uk).

How do you know it’s the motherboard that’s faulty?

What does W7 offer in terms of large ram and lots of cores, Cougar?

Whats the crack with the software for students thing cougar?

Just had a quick look and it let me register as a parent of my 4 year old daughter who’s at primary school!

What does W7 offer in terms of large ram and lots of cores, Cougar?

192Gb of RAM on all the business editions. (Home is less, uh, 16Gb on Premium I think. Dunno about the others, I’d have to look it up).

In terms of cores, I -think- the business streams are dual physical CPU and the home streams are all single CPU, but in terms of cores it’s a lot less restricted; x32 is 32 cores IIRC and x64 is, er, more (-:

Caveat, this is from memory and may be fiction.

Whats the crack with the software for students thing cougar?

It’s legit, if that’s what you mean; it’s a Microsoft subsidiary, I think. I originally found the website on a link from MS’s site.

There’s restrictions on the licenses – it’s an OEM licence so you can’t move it when you get a new PC (though it comes with three non-concurrent licences IIRC, so that should keep you going for a while).

Gravitysucks… you (sorry your daughter) qualify to purchase software then (a single copy of each product), get in there and buy what you need. All above boards and totally legal.
Got Win 7 cheap as my g/f was doing a a course…

Beware of cheap Sandybridge boards on EBay:
Read this first.

Buy new as suggested you should be allright, or at least have someone to throw the box at.

TBH, if you’re going to buy a Kwality Komputerz motherboard off eBay for 99p with twenty quid P&P, you deserve everything you get.

Having just read the TH article (Cougar Point, ah, irony), I take that back. Good to know, cheers.

AMD’s have got nothing on Intel these days

That all depends on how much you spend, AMD offer better performance per ££ than Intel. Of course the hi end Intel i7 cpu’s are v fast beasts

Is there a tangible difference between cores hosted on the same chip and on different chips?

Here

This PC Spec is really good, it got 5/5 in PC Pro mag.

AMD’s have got nothing on Intel these days

That all depends on how much you spend, AMD offer better performance per ££ than Intel. Of course the hi end Intel i7 cpu’s are v fast beasts

Precisely, personally I don’t have much so I’ve gone for an AMD Phenom X2 555 Black Edition, Gigabyte MB, 4GB DDR3, 600W PSU, ATI 4890. The Gigabyte MB comes with the Core unlock feature enabled so I should hopefully end up with a Quad core CPU running at around 3.3Ghz for < £70.

Total cost for everything above ~ £250 – which will probably be the cost for an Intel i5 and Motherboard alone.

If all you’re doing is watching HD videos, Intel i5 and i7 = expensive overkill IMO.

Is there a tangible difference between cores hosted on the same chip and on different chips?

I guess there could be tighter use of sharing of L2 caches with them all on the same die. Putting the shared cache off die has got to be slower.

In the real world who knows 🙂

I’m in a similar situation but I heard there is a new bios replacement coming out this year – startup times similar to Apple. Anyone know when this is due – would it be worth holding on for that?

TBH, if you’re going to buy a Kwality Komputerz motherboard off eBay for 99p with twenty quid P&P, you deserve everything you get.

Yeah agree 100% (been there done it binned it) but to be honest I was more worried about people offloading decent brand boards rather than kicking up a fuss with their retailer to sort it out.

I’m in a similar situation but I heard there is a new bios replacement coming out this year – startup times similar to Apple. Anyone know when this is due – would it be worth holding on for that?

Dunno, but my Macbook Pro doesn’t boot all that quick – I just never switch it off. SSD boot drive would be a better bet, plenty of fans on here to point you to a good one.

Precisely, personally I don’t have much so I’ve gone for an AMD Phenom X2 555 Black Edition, Gigabyte MB, 4GB DDR3, 600W PSU, ATI 4890. The Gigabyte MB comes with the Core unlock feature enabled so I should hopefully end up with a Quad core CPU running at around 3.3Ghz for < £70.

Total cost for everything above ~ £250 – which will probably be the cost for an Intel i5 and Motherboard alone.

Serious question – where are you pricing this? Getting a 4890 into £250 sounds a bit tasty. I’m not going AMD as hackintosh no likey (going to give it a shout now that Mac appear to be opening up their kexts with more variations on the graphics card, and there are more ‘known good’ boards).

You could do a lot worse that call round some of the more reputable indie builders – to at least get their recommendation. They should also ask you want you want to do short-term and long-term and help you figure out what to do. If they don’t then be careful of being sold to.

Personally I’d recommend calling Chillblast. Loads of their machines get raves reviews and they’re very good honest folk. I bought a custom PC off them in Dec and am proper impressed.

Can’t do any harm to ask around …

ok I’ve actually managed to get the motherboard to boot, reset the bios and where back in business.
Now the REAL question….

It needs upgrading, no doubt about that.
The Missus thinks its kaput.

Do we come clean or get that upgrade thats duly needed… ???

AMD are still OK at the low-end, but the Intel Sandy Bridge stuff is streets ahead if you’re spending a bit more.

Arstechnica did a new system guide the other day, their “budget box” is fine although no need for such a nice GPU if you’re not gaming. They go for a AMD Athlon II X3 450 on a ASUS M4A88TD-M.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/guides/2011/03/ars-system-guide-march-2011-edition.ars

DDR3 memory is bonkers cheap at the moment and apparently due to go up – as 8GB is only about £75 I’d probably go with that.

Serious question – where are you pricing this? Getting a 4890 into £250 sounds a bit tasty.

Yeah, forgot to mention the 4890 is used, but the rest is new, MB, RAM from Scan on today only deals, CPU from Aria on a Supersaver deal, can’t remember on the PSU source at the moment.

It needs upgrading, no doubt about that.
The Missus thinks its kaput.

Do we come clean or get that upgrade thats duly needed… ???

Get the upgrade man!! Seriously though, I was hoping to build mine tonight but the GF has decided to work from home which scuppers that plan – she doesn’t know I bought it all yet.