Rate this cheap setup (please?)

[zimmer-frame]

Ok, see my sig for my main rig, but I need a secondary rig for "stuff".. Minimal budget...

So far, the old Take 2 website (now Takealot) seems the best pricing.. Budget deluxe!

Motherboard - Asus AM3 socket, has decent features:
http://www.takealot.com/electronics/asu ... rd,9656031
CPU - X4 645 @ 3.2Ghz - They don't have the Quad core 965 in stock I want:
http://www.takealot.com/electronics/amd ... m3,8661122
CPU Cooler - Deep Cool 200T - looks ok for the price:
http://www.takealot.com/electronics/dee ... er,9650818
RAM 2 x 2Gb Patriot 1333Mhz sticks:
http://www.takealot.com/electronics/pat ... mm,9600240

Comes to just under R2300 (to think one of my GTX-460's was this expensive 6 months ago )

I have a case, 550w PSU, extra HDD's and CD drives etc.

Don't tell me about i5's and SB, it's too expensive! Also, need onboard video unless someone wants to donate me a PCI-E GPU (and the box will run Linux without a monitor with some VM's hence keeping two more memory slots open for more if needed).

Suggestions? I can spend maybe R2800 at a push, so open to suggestions..

[THE_STIG]

What about going of a core 2 set up.....775 mobos are going for next to nothing these days, and so are the CPU's

[Ron2K]

Future proofing. It's possible (but not yet confirmed) that AM3+ CPUs may work in AM3 sockets. Can't say the same about the 775 boards/chips.

[THE_STIG]

Yea I know...but he is looking for a minimal budget PC so therefore is not interesting in future proofing

[StarBound]

I suggest:

http://www.takealot.com/electronics/int ... pu,9652328
i3 processor
http://www.takealot.com/electronics/msi ... rd,9724157
H61 socket 1155 board
http://www.takealot.com/electronics/pat ... mm,9600240
2x1333 ddr3 patriot ram.

Downside, pretty much same as the amd board, 1 pci-e 16x slot, no usb3, no sata6. Works out R2000 because you dont need to pay for the cpu fan.

[THE_STIG]

pretty good deal that, it might even be slightly faster then the AMD rig

[Sojourn]

I just ran some of your hardware past landmarkpc and it came out a lil cheaper... not much but still cheaper... seeing as the word "budget" is in the title...

[StarBound]

Takealot ...dammit Take2 why did you have to go change that name ... has free shipping on the first item and shipping free on any item over R350. Besides they are located in Cape Town so it is faster from them than other places.

Just wish CourierIT would listen and read the delivery notes.

[Ron2K]

Besides they are located in Cape Town so it is faster from them than other places.

That, of course, is dependent on whether the OP lives anywhere near Cape Town or not.

(I just collect from them. )

[StarBound]

I'm not close enough to collect. But if I was they would have a restraining order on me for the weekly visit

We had 3 deliveries in 2 weeks

[zimmer-frame]

I'm kind of keen to dip in to the AMD bin for a change, seeing as this won't be my main rig, although the i3 does pose a interesting dilemma (but gets a tad more expensive). Future proofing? I bought a socket 1366 board for my main rig...*snigger*.. Biggest problem is that I can't find a flippen Black Edition CPU, so I could clock it up just a little...(can't leave it standard now can I?? ).. If I could find a cheap 955 or 965 CPU it would be golden!

Most of my main rig I bought from Landmark. Had one bad, one good experience with them. With Take2^H^H^HTakealot, it's always been good, and I'm in CT anyway.

Only change I've done is upped to 8Gb ram, and it's still a hair's breath under R2600.. I suspect when running multiple VM's more ram would be better than a faster CPU.

[StarBound]

You say that you want to give AMD a chance but you know the i3 is compareable with the top AMD CPUs at current And that is where the snag comes in. When its apples vs apples or in this case cheap vs cheap with the better one being cheaper it makes it tough choice as to why your going for the opposition.

[zimmer-frame]

Yup, I agree with you StarBound.. That said, if I can find a Black Edition X4 955, I can overclock it, which will then come to the same price as the i3...no-one has stock though it seems...it's a proper 4 core CPU, vs i3 2 core...

It was easier picking my R16k rig in December than picking this toy

[THE_STIG]

yea but Virtual machines are not going to make use of the 2 extra cores so a dual core chip will be fine....and quality is better than quantity in this case when it comes to those cores. And yes the more ram the merrier......Vm's can be quite heavy on ram

[StarBound]

Just a question on the black though because you mentioned the athlon x4 which is inferior to the phenom 2 x4 cpu. As far as I know the black edition is the phenom 2 x4 and the 955 is around R2k for the cpu? So even when looking at it in that light the i3 with that cheap board loaded with 8gb ram is cheaper and faster than the amd alternative.

The amd offering has onboard radeon while the intel is on chip intel hd. You can easily buy a cheap okish geforce or radeon dedicated card with the R600 that is left over from the i3 setup.

But I am also curious as to how the i3 setup would compare to the amd setup

[THE_STIG]

I think it is time for PCF to do an ultra budget CPU supertest......

[StarBound]

Well more importantly I'd love to see these 2 rigs pitted against each other with something like a 570gtx or 6950 in them and compare them with costs to something lower end and then something higher end just to see what your extra R1k-R2k mobo and R2k-R3k cpu would make to benchmarks.

[THE_STIG]

Yea that would be nice.....maybe we should send this to KB

[zimmer-frame]

Prophecy lists the 955 Black Edition at just over R1200, cheapest I've seen so far, BUT no stock.
http://www.prophecy.co.za/phenom-quadco ... 37208.html

The 646 I spoke about is a proper 4 core cpu, running at 3.1Ghz (but locked multiplier).
http://www.prophecy.co.za/athlon-quadco ... 83530.html

I suspect everyone is holding off bringing in new shipments while waiting for AM3+ cpu's (makes economic sense).

[zimmer-frame]

Well, after much searching, this arrived :



When the rest of the components arrive I will do a full build log for the forum.