13 replies to this topic

[Alex_is_Axel]

Good morning guys

So currently, i have:

AMD Athlon XP 3500 2.2GHz
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard
ATI Radeon 9600Pro
2GB DDR1 RAM

As you can see, this system is becoming really outdated and it has done me wonders for all this time but now its become apparrent that HD videos just arent able to play on this. I have been offered as a gift for christmas some new components. So i was thinking that i could perhaps get a new CPU, RAM and Motherboard but their limit is £150 however i could knock in £50 myself if there would be a huge benift.

I am wondering if someone could help me provide some guidance of a good setup i could buy which is best bang for buck and value performance for that £150-£200 budget. I would like at this time an onboard graphics card due to the fact i rarely game and at present, it isnt really a dire necessity, i could buy that at a later date. Other than that, there isnt really anything else im in need off except for the best performance possible

I currently have a case, hard drives and PSU which i hope to re use and my hard drives are Sata.

The PSU i hope is future proof to support the new motherboards because i know they have new pins and connectors:
COOLER MASTER iGreen Power 500Watt

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817171010

Any help and suggestions you can offer i would be so greatful for your time

thank you for your help

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Processor
Motherboard
Memory

I hope it stays within the budget, as I estimated the amounts roughly.
Let me know if it isn't

Edit

PSU is fine

[+PeterUK]

Or AMD could go will for your budget.

Gigabyte GA-F2A75-D3H
http://www.ebuyer.co...rd-ga-f2a75-d3h
Crucial 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz
http://www.ebuyer.co...3d1609ds1s00ceu
AMD A10 5800K
http://www.ebuyer.co...l-ad580kwohjbox

[Alex_is_Axel]

Many thanks PeterUK and Muhammad Farrukh. When i first was searching for some components, my first initial reaction was to get an i3 (or an i5 if that was within the budget) however, between the 2 that have been suggested, one was an AMD and the other was Intel. Which, of course the AMD is 3.8 and the i3 is 3.3 but which is the best performance out of the 2? Is the 500mhz a big bonus?

The AMD is a quad chip and the i3 is a dual core.. is that something i should consider for future proofing the processor?

Many thanks

[+PeterUK]

Its even to be uneven with the two AMD with built in graphics is better and better for some/most? 4 core stuff with Intel better for all single core stuff and can be better with 2 cores over AMD 4 cores.

No one really upgrades the CPU since if you did its out of data or them CPU's are not made any more but with Intel you can swap the i3 for a i7 the AMD is max out on the CPU.

[Alex_is_Axel]

thanks for that info peteruk

so what about the comparison between the Intel Core i5 3330 and the a10 5800k?

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Since you are not that much into gaming, 5800k is a great alternative

Here is a quote from an article on 5800k, which you might find informative

Quote

In our application tests, we were surprised how similarly the A10-5800K and Core i3-3220 performed. There was little difference between them in Excel while the Core i3-3220 provided superior WinRAR performance and the A10-5800K gave superior Photoshop CS5 results. Things were also close in our encoding benches, with the A10-5800K doing a tad better in Handbrake and slightly worse in TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress.

When gaming with a beefy discrete graphics card, the results were pretty close, but for CPU-dependent titles such as Civilization V, there's a clear case to be made for Intel's processors. On the other hand, when it comes to gaming on a budget using the integrated graphics, the A10-5800K is hard to beat providing playable performance in the eight games we tested at 1280x800, whereas the Core i3-3220 really only delivered in three of those titles.

During our stress test, the A10-5800K-equipped machine consumed roughly four less watts than the system outfitted with the Llano-based A8-3850. Although the A10-5800K is more efficient than last year's APU, we found that the new chip's performance lead was roughly equal to its clock speed advantage of 31%, so Piledriver has really just made Trinity faster than Llano by enabling higher frequencies.

While on the subject of clock speeds, it's worth noting that this is a K-series model with an unlocked multiplier. With a turbo frequency that already hits 4.2GHz, we weren't sure how much higher the A10-5800K could go. Using the Prolimatech Megahalems, we were limited to 4.5GHz using 1.5v and although we were able to load Windows at 4.6GHz, it failed to pass our stability tests. The overclock amounted to 18% over the 3.8GHz base clock frequency and only 7% over the 4.2GHz boost clock rate. Unfortunately this didn't really increase performance all that much.

As we found with Llano, Trinity appears to be a bit soft on the processing horsepower side - in spite of being a quad-core part - however its integrated graphics performance is currently unmatched.

Overall, Trinity appears to iterate on the success of Llano, providing an affordable package that offers enough processing speed for most users while supplying sufficient graphics muscle for most of today's PC games on modest settings.

[tsupersonic]

Alex_is_Axel, on 30 November 2012 - 09:46, said:

thanks for that info peteruk

so what about the comparison between the Intel Core i5 3330 and the a10 5800k?

Performance wise, I'd go with the Core i5. Since you don't game, either can deliver smooth HD playback. I would recommend a cheapo graphics card down the road, always best to have a dedicated GPU, even if it's not very powerful/not used for gaming.

[InsaneNutter]

Something else you might want to check - are your hard drives / optical drives IDE or SATA? If you have IDE drives you might struggle to find a new motherboard that will take them.

Quote

AMD Athlon XP 3500 2.2GHz
ATI Radeon 9600Pro
2gigs ram

I had a very similar setup back in 2003-2007, amazed it has lasted you so long!

[Alex_is_Axel]

haha Insanenutter, my friends have all said the same thing. Its done insanely (excuse the pun) well to be honest and its a shame to let it go. If it wasnt for HD, it prob would have lasted god knows how much longer. I use SATA drives which will be alright for future motherboards but thanks for reminding/checking with me

tsupersonic, the i5 is £144 whilst the AMD A10 is £93. Im struggling to find performance tables to compare between the 2 chips. Getting the i5 would stretch the budget alittle over the edge but what im curious is, is the performance increase over the A10 a big improvement since the price costs 33% more. Would i notice? Is there another AMD competitor that could be a similar price to the i5 whilst maybe be a higher performer? Or are those 2 chips my ideal products and then its a choice to decide between the 2? Would i notice a difference between the i3 and the i5 if i had 2 sitting side by side one another?

Many thanks

[L920]

Hi there

I recently bought the following & I'd very pleased with the system :

http://www.amazon.co...ils_o02_s00_i00

http://www.amazon.co...ils_o04_s01_i00

http://www.amazon.co...ils_o01_s00_i00



Best regards

[Alex_is_Axel]

hey nexusline.. many thanks for your links. 6 cores? heres me thinking im almost at my peek at running it down to 2 choice of the i5 and the A10 however how come the cpu you have in that bundle is cheaper than the other 2 that has been suggested and how does it compare?

for some reason i can hardly see any information with regards to the i5 3330 cpu. I did however find a video comparing the fx-6100 to the i5-2500 which shows that the i5 is a higher performer but costs quite a bit more. which is true in this instance of the version too.

Im starting to slide towards the A10 due to cost and performance however im hardly a gamer. would i still benifit at all? or is really the i5 the way to go?

many thanks

[Muhammad Farrukh]

If you are not a regular gamer, then A10 is the way to go

[L920]

Alex_is_Axel, on 01 December 2012 - 19:36, said:

hey nexusline.. many thanks for your links. 6 cores? heres me thinking im almost at my peek at running it down to 2 choice of the i5 and the A10 however how come the cpu you have in that bundle is cheaper than the other 2 that has been suggested and how does it compare?

for some reason i can hardly see any information with regards to the i5 3330 cpu. I did however find a video comparing the fx-6100 to the i5-2500 which shows that the i5 is a higher performer but costs quite a bit more. which is true in this instance of the version too.

Im starting to slide towards the A10 due to cost and performance however im hardly a gamer. would i still benefit at all? or is really the i5 the way to go?

many thanks

You're welcome mate. I am not a PC gamer or graphics intensive user, and I don't notice any difference between an i5 & fx-6100. For the money the fx-6100 wins absolute hands down I think.