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What budget CPU to get

B

Bman123

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Dec 19, 2007
Messages
5,086
Ok here is the scoop. My buddy knows I'm building a rig right now and he is so fed up with console gaming and not having any options or any kind of mods so he wants to build a pcmso her can play cod with me.

The problem is his budget is super low; I'm talking rediculous low. He has about $100 to spend on his CPU. I honestly don't know what to tell him to get. We have a local
microcenter nearby and the CPU pricing there is always cheaper then new egg so we will get all his parts from there as he refuses to buy used pc parts, I don't know why but that's how he is lol..

He only plans on buying everything cheap except his psu and mobo. He will have me overclock his CPU and he is getting a aftermarket cooler when we are there even if I have to buy it for him lol. This is what he plans to do. Web surf, forums, facebook and email, play games like cod and fallout 3. The res will be 720p off his HDTV. His setup is almost the same as mine.

He said he cannot afford to spend any more then $100 on the CPU now so that leaves him with amd or a e7400 CPU. I think if I can get a beefy oc like 3.8-4.0ghz on his CPU that he will be ok playing cod and fo3. He can choose either the athlon x4 620 or the e7400. The athlon 620 is garbage tho so do you think the e7400 will be fine?

He said at Xmas when he gets money from everyone that he willbuy a q9550 or similar quad core as our local MC always has them and if not he can get one off eBay or whatever. I don't like the idea of him getting a s775 CPU now do to the end of life cycle but at the same time I don't want him to get a jank amd 620 CPU since the e7400 beats it in gaming benchmarks. At least with the s775 when he buys the q9550 or whateve at Xmas and I oc the crap out of it he will have a good quad core. I know it's eol but you can't say the q9550 isn't good for what he will be doing.

When he buys the q9550 it should last him for 2 years that way he can save up his money for 2 years and then buy whatever CPU,mobo ram and gpu that he can afford. That's if he even needs to buy a new CPU as a quad is a quad in my eyes I think if anything he will need a new video card.

So do you think that the e7400 is good for now with him getting a q9550 later this year? And if I can get a good enough oc on the e7400 do you think it will be good enough for cod and fo3 at 720p?
 
Just so no one says anything about him with the low budget and Xmas money he is 25yrs old I grew up him and he is disabled and can't walk. That's why his funds are low and the money he gets every month from the state is fucking pathetic, he lives at home with his mom and dad as he can't afford to live on his own.

I don't want him to get the amd 620 because it sucks, yeah it does have a upgrade path but if he gets the e7400 now and a q9550 at Xmas I don't see any reason in the world why a quad core at 3.6 or higher won't last him a few good years at that low res he will play at.

He said once he gets the q9550 he will save up his money so when the q9550 starts to not cut the mustard he can buy whatever is out at the time in his price range. From what I have seen online the e7400 overclocks like a beast, and should hit 3.6 or higher on air with a good cooler.

I would rather him get the e7400 instead of the 620 as he will have a more enjoyable experience gaimng on it now. I feel really bad for him and if I had the spare money to help him out with his CPU purchase I would but I just got back surgery and I am struggling myself right now anyways.

Just let me know what you think about this. I know this is hard forum and all but please keep in mind the situation here and what all he will be doing with the pc. Realistically he doesn't need a powerful pc and I think he will get really into the mods. We know how mods work lol look at css people still play that today. As long as cod and fo3 run good for him I think he might even play those 2 games for a long ass time plus whatever he game he may pick up incase he gets bored with those two. Thanks guys
 
Bman123 said:
The athlon 620 is garbage tho so do you think the e7400 will be fine?
Click to expand...
Why do you believe that? The X4 620 is a decent CPU for the money. There's nothing wrong with the e7400, other than it being dual core (which isn't a problem with CoD or FO3). At stock speed the X4 620 is faster than the e7400 in many games (including all this link tested): http://www.techspot.com/review/197-amd-athlon2-x4-620/page7.html

The e7400 will probably overclock better, but there's no getting around that it's still a dual core and what that means for future games.

If you're open to both options, get the x4 620.

You probably have a lot more options than these since you're going to Microcenter. Just keep an open mind and check the benchmarks and typical overclockability and you'll find the best available option for the price.
 
have you considered i3 and then leave room for i7 drop in down the road instead of qxxxx

since you mentioned he plans on buying a nice mobo anyway, and ram costing the same, I would scratch lga775 all together.

i3 oc's easily to 4ghz+ and at that speed multithreaded it performs better than stock lga775 quads and waxes the floor dual threaded.

You can get i3/mobo combos for 180ish if you shop around.
 
If you live near a Microcenter, check to see if the X3 720 CPU is still available there for $100. It's faster than the E7500 while offering an additional core for those future games to use. If the Phenom II X3 720 is not available for $100, try to get the Phenom II X2 555 BE CPU. Either of those CPUs are faster than the E7400 and costs around $100.

Wait, does that $100 includes tax and shipping as well?

Out of curiosity, what's his budget for the rest of the PC? And how long will it take him to buy all of the parts of the PC?

In any case, I cannot recommend the E7400 despite your friend's current financial situation. Socket 775 is simply too old and outmatched by AMD's current AM3 CPU lineup. DDR2 RAM costs a bit more than DDR3 RAM these days. In addition, there's no guarantee that the Q9550 will be still be available in December 2010 at that $180 price range. More than likely the price will increase due to its EOL status. In addition, by that time, more than likely AMD will have either have a faster quad-core or hex-core CPU in that price range.

So while yes you're correct in that a Q9550 OC'd to 3.6Ghz will last a long time, you've ignored the high possibility of high prices for the Q9550 and the better price to performance ratio of current and future AMD CPUs.

As a side note, FO3 with a whole bunch mods will require a ton more power than FO3 vanilla.
 
They have the i3 530 for $99 it's a 2.9ghz dual core so it should oc like a beast atleast 3.8 I'd imagine. What i7 CPU fits the 1156 socket? That is a really good idea and thanks for the heads up man.

The rest of his parts are gonna be cheap, I figure if anything he will have me go and get his case,psu,DVD drive and hard drive first then next month I will get his mobo,CPU,ram, video card and windows. I think he has a mouse and keyboard already
 
Bman123 said:
They have the i3 530 for $99 it's a 2.9ghz dual core so it should oc like a beast atleast 3.8 I'd imagine. What i7 CPU fits the 1156 socket? That is a really good idea and thanks for the heads up man.
Click to expand...

Pretty much the only Core i7 CPU available for socket 1156 is the Core i7 860.
 
Doesn't the 1156 socket run off ddr3 but dual channel instead of triple channel? If so that will make the ram cheaper. So were gonna roll with the core i3 530 CPU but what cheap video card do you suggest? It's only 720p so it doesn't have to be a beast, do you think he should get a 9800gt? I don't know Jack about the low end video cards but I do know he wants nvidia as he's heard me complain about ati too much lol.

Thanks guys you've really helped out
 
Bman123 said:
Doesn't the 1156 socket run off ddr3 but dual channel instead of triple channel? If so that will make the ram cheaper. So were gonna roll with the core i3 530 CPU but what cheap video card do you suggest? It's only 720p so it doesn't have to be a beast, do you think he should get a 9800gt? I don't know Jack about the low end video cards but I do know he wants nvidia as he's heard me complain about ati too much lol.

Thanks guys you've really helped out
Click to expand...

Yes LGA 1156 only has dual channel DDR3 RAM support. Video card wise, even at 720P, I would not recommend the 9800GT for Fallout 3. I'd recommend the HD 4850 for Fallout 3:
$110 - PowerColor AX4850 1GBD3-PH Radeon HD 4850 1GB PCI-E Video Card

Unless you can get the 9800GT for $80 (512MB version) or $90 (1GB version), the 9800GT isn't worth getting for Fallout 3 at 720P IMO. Unfortunately, the 9800GT is pretty much the only cost effective cheap Nvidia card. In fact, the next cost-effective Nvidia card would be the $350 GTX 470.

And to provide a bit of background:
With my sig rig, my 8800GT (same card as the 9800GT) struggles a bit with Fallout 3 at 1280x800 at mostly medium settings, especially in the outdoor levels. And then once you start loading up the mods..eesh.
 
Here my i3 530.

CrysisMax4890GPU.jpg
 
Well the core i7 860 is $199 so that's not bad. All he will need to do is just drop in the CPU and he's got a good quad that's up to date.
 
Holy crap 4.4ghz on the i3 530!!! What seems to be the avg oc on the i5 530's? You must of gotten a good chip or do most of them oc like that??
I didn't even think about it being 32nm so it probably isn't terrible on heat either. What cooler are you using...
 
Definitely bro yall will be very pleased. :D For a dually the thing screams. I went that route from prior e3200 & q6600 both oc'd @ 3.4. When I got the i3 I dropped it in and jumped to 200x20 right out the box starting @ 1.3v and after tuning was able to get @ 1.264vc/1.17vtt with all power saving settings on, 2x more headroom to go on the multi, & using an AC7freezer pro rev2 at the time. When I started doing things to push it to the limits it just kept cutting through them like a razor blade slicin butter without stutter. Like slapping on a turbo, for such a good deal. Great choice man :D
 
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So i3 530 it is. What mobo and speed ram should i look into getting? I want a good overclocking board and ram.
I don't know Jack when it comes to overclocking the i3/i5/i7 CPUs I see there are different things now to adjust it's not just the fsb lol. Please help out with that and I'll be extremely happy. Maybe you can send me a pm or just post it here whatever works for you man..

Thanks a million guys I totally didn't think of goig with a I3 530 and dropping in a i7 later you saved us alot of cash!!
 
edit: wow sandy bridge performance part is going to be on LGA 1155 instead of 1156... that's just cruel. Do they really expect their server customers to take this? Admittedly I'm an AMD fanboy, but Bulldozer will be AM3 on 870 compatible, and thats AMD's ace-in-the-hole atm. As dannybui suggested you can get the Phenom II X2 550 and unlock it to X4 and try to clock the hell out of it. --But again, more and more these days I seem to be an AMD apologist.

In terms of the GPU and motherboard what are their respective budgets? Do you need RAID?
 
There is no special needs for the mobo. He's just gonna hook up the Ethernet cable and the dvi cable to the video card lol. No raid, fire wire. Just plain and simple.
He will have 1 hard drive, 1 DVD drive, video card, psu, CPU, 2 sticks of ram, mobo and the case. It doesn't get any simpler then this I'm tellin ya lol.

I'm the same way tho, in my eyes less is better that's less stuff to deal with and if I have a problem it is easy to solve since I barely have any components lol...

I see majority of the boards for i3 are matx, I haven't used a matx board ever.
 
Budget will be $100 for the video card and $100 fir the mobo. I think he should be able to get a decent gigabyte board. I am extremely biased towards gigabyte boards. I have tried 2 gigabyte boards and 2 asus boards on s775 before and the gigabyte boards overclocked so much better. I used the same components both times and the gig boards worked better for me. I got my old e8400 to run at 4.2 stable and that sucker flyer on my p35-ds3l

I did think about getting one of the dual core amd CPUs and unlocking the cores but it's not guaranteed from what I have read and I don't like amd CPUs from past experience with a athlon 64x 2 5000+ CPU that thing sucked.
 
Good Gigabyte mobo in that price range:
$105 - Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 Intel P55 mATX Motherboard

Good Video card in that price range:
$110 - PowerColor AX4850 1GBD3-PH Radeon HD 4850 1GB PCI-E Video Card

Now how much for the PSU?

Also, current AMD CPUs are now pretty good these days. In fact, many of them outperform your current E8400.
 
Bman123 said:
Holy crap 4.4ghz on the i3 530!!! What seems to be the avg oc on the i5 530's? You must of gotten a good chip or do most of them oc like that??
I didn't even think about it being 32nm so it probably isn't terrible on heat either. What cooler are you using...
Click to expand...

Yea most i3s easily overclock to the 200mhz bus speed. So for the i3 530 the multiplier is 22 x 200mhz bus speed equaling 4.4ghz, and for the i3 540, the multiplier is 23, so 23 x 200mhz bus speed equaling 4.6ghz. The one I currently have maxes out at 4.8ghz with HT disabled. The motherboard I have is a Gigabyte H55M-UD2H its really easy to OC with it.
 
In terms of PSU's I found something kinda suprising: the difference in energy costs (your electrical bill) is such that an 80% PSU will pay for the difference of initial investment over a 70% PSU in a time thats on the order of 3 years. This is in BC where power's cheap (< $6 CAD / kWh), with more expensive power (like say that on the east coast of the US) it'l pay itself off much sooner.

So going with an ultra high efficiency PSU really is a good idea long-term.
 
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