Hman's upgrade time

[Hman]

So, with the Christmas holidays and a bonus looming on the horizon I think it's time for a upgrade to my trusty system.

Which comprises of:
AMD Opteron 170 (running @ 2.5Ghz)
Asrock 939 Dual SATA2
2GB of DDR memory (4x 512MB modules)

I'm willing to spend R2600 to upgrade my CPU, Mobo and Memory. I will be using my current 5750 in the system possibly getting another for Crossfire purposes later next year.

What I've eyed so far is the following (works nicely into my budget):

Sapphire PC-AM3RS790G AM3 Dual-Channel DDR3 CrossFireX
AMD Athlon II X3 AM3 Triple-Core 445 3.1GHz
Kingston Hyper-X 2x2GB Kit DDR3-1600 1.7-1.9v CL9


So, any suggestions or comments?

[KatrynKat]

just one question.... what is "tiem" in your thread title?
soz....

[Hman]

Internet slang. tiem = time

[Stuart]

Call me sceptical, but the Sapphire motherboard makes me nervous. No chance of getting something from Asus?

[KALSTER]

Yeah, Sapphire motherboards don't get very good reviews, though it probably won't simply die either. Asus do have some cheap mobo's, but if you are on a budget then I would suggest taking a look at Biostar. They come with a three year warranty and are generally good quality. They are sometimes short on ports at the back, but you get a lot of value for your money. My motherboard goes for just over R1000 for an 890 chipset board and is compatible with the latest AMD hexa cores and has 5 SATA 6Gbps ports (no USB3 though). I am very happy with it, though you won't be able to run crossfire later on.

Would you consider getting an Athlon II 640 CPU instead? Just a bit extra future proofing. You might be able to unlock the furth core with an appropriate chipset motherboard though.

[Hman]

Well, if I could get an Asus with Crossfire for the same price I'd buy it. At Prophecy I saw an ECS board with Crossfire but I don't trust ECS that much.

[Hman]

Would you consider getting an Athlon II 640 CPU instead?

Where?

[KALSTER]

Would you consider getting an Athlon II 640 CPU instead?

Where?

From wherever you are buying your components from.

LandmarkPC has them going for R1083.

[Hman]

Would you consider getting an Athlon II 640 CPU instead?

Where?

From wherever you are buying your components from.

LandmarkPC has them going for R1083.

Prophecy don't have them unless I'm just being blind. Going to check Landmark

[KALSTER]

The do have them, but they have it for R1188.

[Hman]

Now, I see this bundle at Landmark which is in my price range, but excludes ram.

Would anyone be willing to swap the coupon for 4GB of DDR3?

[Hman]

Lol, the Asus M4A88T-V Evo has the following statement on it's page:

**The PCIe x1 slot shares the bandwidth with the PCIe x16_2 slot. Due to the CrossFireX™ limitation, DO NOT use the PCIe x1 slot when you install two CrossFireX™ graphics cards on both the PCIe x16 slots to set up a CrossFireX™ configuration.

Thus I can't use this board as my TV Tuner uses the PCIe 1x slot.

[Stuart]

Personally, I'd be inclined to take an ECS motherboard over Sapphire. Though, as KALSTER says, try Biostar. I've used two Biostar boards in recent memory, and one of them had the shorting issue he mentioned, but with a little bit of wriggling everything worked and continues to work just fine.

[Hman]

From Landmark I can get the following:

MSI 790X-G45 AM3
Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 XMS 3 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600
Amd Athlon 2 x4 640 3.0GHz

And stay in my budget.

What's the general feeling about MSI mobos?

[Hman]

Or I could take the Asus M4A79XTD Evo and stay with the Athlon 2 X3

[Stuart]

MSI have a decent enough reputation, although they're not a personal favourite. I'd still take MSI out of all your options, though. Sadly, Gigabyte AMD boards are not easy to find in SA.

[Hman]

Hehe, I'm not a fan of Gigabyte. I've burned my fingers in the past with their products.

[Jonboy]

Hehe, I'm not a fan of Gigabyte. I've burned my fingers in the past with their products.

Overclock running too hot?

[Hman]

Hehe, running Athlon XP's didn't get that hot. The one board I had drew so much current that the PSU connector melted.

Luckily I had a old mobo I could canabalise the connector off and a old PSU to donate a new plug for the PSU.

I felt legen.... wait for it.... dary after soldering a new connector to the mobo and it worked.

[ADT]

From Landmark I can get the following:

MSI 790X-G45 AM3
Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 XMS 3 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600
Amd Athlon 2 x4 640 3.0GHz

And stay in my budget.

What's the general feeling about MSI mobos?

I love my MSI Mobo, nothing wrong with it - a good buy for what you pay