PCFormat Forum Archive

Well I cant give a definitive yes or no as I dont know if it is good or bad. But as I said before if you want to be safe go for a Gigabyte, Asus or MSI. A few years back to would have told you not to touch an MSI because of the poor build quality but now those broads are just as good as Asus and Gigabyte, even if they lack a few extras.

What are these "extras"?

Well at the lower end of the range most boards do not have any overclocking features and lack any extra software utilities......But even the cheapest of Gigabyte mobos come with easy tune(an os based OC utility) and Gigabyte M.I.T(a bios based OC utility) and there are other things like easy energy saver and dual bios(useful if you mess up your bios)......Now the cheap Asus broads do come with a few of of those features. Cheap MSI broads do not, but I am not sure if they have changed that.

I don't like take risks with my hardware, hence I would not use the overclocking features that such boards come with.

Getting back to the CPU, I'll take whatever chip in the R1400-R1600 range performs best, irrespective of whether it comes from Intel or AMD.

In the light of the marked increase in the Rand:Dollar exchange rate, do you think that I should borrow money from my savings and buy the remaining parts that I need now, or wait and see what the exchange rate is like at the end of November?

buy it now dude! don't wait for November.

I see why you call youself thrillseeker.

StarPhoenix wrote:In the light of the marked increase in the Rand:Dollar exchange rate, do you think that I should borrow money from my savings and buy the remaining parts that I need now, or wait and see what the exchange rate is like at the end of November?

Well for the past few years I have noticed that the rand does get quite strong against the dollar during December/November.......plus there are usually specials on at that time

btw the silencio is a lovely case, I've got one, just 1 thing to note, the cable for the front usb doesn't mount to the motherboard header, you have to route the cable to the back of your case and plug it into the usb port out the rear. If you are not happy with that solution then do what I did and buy the adapter so it can connect directly to your motherboard

http://usb.brando.com/usb-3-0-20-pin-he ... 42d15.html

Kingston value ram is good too, you're not going to notice the difference between 1333 and 1600mhz.

thrillseeker75 wrote:btw the silencio is a lovely case, I've got one, just 1 thing to note, the cable for the front usb doesn't mount to the motherboard header, you have to route the cable to the back of your case and plug it into the usb port out the rear. If you are not happy with that solution then do what I did and buy the adapter so it can connect directly to your motherboard

http://usb.brando.com/usb-3-0-20-pin-he ... 42d15.html

Kingston value ram is good too, you're not going to notice the difference between 1333 and 1600mhz.

Irrespective of what motherboard I chose to buy? That's rather silly of Coolermaster. I'll probably opt for an ASUS motherboard-one of the less expensive Z68s, I think.

Indeed it is silly of them. I've got the basic z68 asus board and it has a lot of features.

I shall have to see whether I can find that adapter locally.

Goodluck with that. I bought it from that site. Cost about R140 with shipping.

Thanks. If I cannot find one locally, would you be able to get me one if I sent you the money needed for the converter and shipping?

Have you never bought anything online before? its really easy but if you need help just send me your address and stuff and I'll order it for you if and when you require.

I have bought from local online stores, but I don't have a credit card and therefore cannot buy goods from overseas etailers.

thrillseeker75 wrote:Goodluck with that. I bought it from that site. Cost about R140 with shipping.

Found it!

Right......provided that I am not pleasantly surprised by AMD FX [ie the FX6100 performs well and is prioced to sell], my likely Intel parts for this build will be:

Intel Core i5 2400
MSI X68MA-ED55
4GB DDR3-1333 RAM