IF you had to put an AMD based system together

[RC Agent]

If you were looking to put together an AMD system, what components would you get for the following:
a) Motherboard (less than $125)
b) CPU (less than $150, dual core)
c) Video card (must be ATI)
d) Memory (2GB or 4GB?)
No overclocking requirements.
System will be used for gaming.
TIA.

[Nowhere]

Well, I'm actually putting one together
Also for gaming (believe it or not)

a) Gigabyte GA-M61P-S3 s.AM2 NF6100, costs only 45€ and has everything I want:
- four PCI slots (I still want to use my perfectly good TV-card, WiFi card and music card...)
- did I mention cheap?
- motherboards don't really determine performance anymore and most have all needed connectivity (this one still retains not only 4 PCI slots, but also serial, LPT & PS2)
- integrated GFX (Geforce 6100), yeah, slow...but enough for many things and I don't need to buy separate GFX card right away

If you don't need integrated GFX, Gigabyte has at least two nearly identical and slightly cheaper (1-2 € difference...) models without it.

b) the cheapest there is!
Which means X2 4000+ for 47€ at the moment.

It seems to be enough for most games (they seem to be mostly GPU limited...) and it's in the sweet spot of Steam Hardware Survey ( http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html ). Plus, since it's AMD, I'll be able to upgrade for a long time by simply swapping CPUs.

c) No idea, I'm not buying GFX card for now and from what I know Nv is generally better choice ATM.

d) I don't think anything requires more than 2GB? Unless you plan to use Vista right away of course...
Anyway, I'm going with 2, mostly because I'm a cheap bastard


PS. BTW, one question from me, since it's very ontopic...is there any point in buying DDR2 800 instead of DDR2 667?

[Jammrock]

a) Whatever works. Gigabyte, Asus or MSI. Though the video card has to be ATi, so I would probably get an ATi chipset so I could go Crossfire in the future.

b) For $130 I'd grab the AMD X2 5000+ Brisbane core. That's the 65 W CPU at 2.6 GHz. Plent of juice, lower power requirements, room to grow if you OC.

c) It looks like you are building more of a budget gamer system, so I would go with an ATi HD 3870, or 3850, if you can find one in stock anywhere. They run $200-$250 and will give you performance on par with the nvidia 8800 GT.

d) 4 GB of RAM, hands down. Especially if Vista is in your future.

[Mehen]

a) Gigabyte GA-M61P-S3
b) X2 5000+ Black Edition $130
c) Sapphire HD3870 $250 (3850 for $180 as a cheaper option)
d) 4GB DD2-800 (4x1GB - its dirt cheap, something like 4-4-4-12)

If you want my advice though, games like Crysis, UT3, Supreme Commander all make good use of 4-cores.
I would go with Intel Q6600 & 8800GT. The 8800GT is a definite step above the 3870, especially at higher resolutions.

[GT98]

a) Gigabyte GA-M61P-S3
I would go with Intel Q6600 & 8800GT. The 8800GT is a definite step above the 3870, especially at higher resolutions.

The 8800GT is hard to find for under $300 bucks, you can get a 3870 (provided they are in stock) For $219-260

[Nowhere]

|Mehen|, I'm curious...I choose this motherboard because it's the only one available here with integrated GFX and at least 3 PCI slots. But since you also recommend it...is it known to be generally good?


PS. About this DDR2 667 vs. DDR2 800...anybody?

[Evildead666]

DDR2 667-800...it depends on what the fsb of the chip will be.

Frankly, unless you're doing video encoding/decoding etc, you won't notice a difference.
Gaming benefits, by about 4fps...

DDR2 800 will give you some headroom, get the fastest you can afford.
667 is low value ram, 800 is the sweet spot for the home user.

[Nowhere]

Well...AMD chips somehow don't have FSB. And this statement

...667 is low value ram, 800 is the sweet spot for the home user...

somehow contradicts itself

Now, no offense Evildead...it's just that you're that "uber-watercooling-overclocker" around here, so it's hard to accept you advice as...sensible/reasonable

PS. OK, the real point is - in around 2 years I'll upgrade to a CPU that will be both considerably faster and probably more than 2 cores...probably some descendant of current Phenoms. Anyone knows if this architecture is sensitive enough to bandwith to warrant DDR2 800? (yeah, I'm planning on leaving 2GB sticks in the machine "indefinetelly", and extending this to 4 - 6 GB)

[Mehen]

Its one of the better chipsets of the cheaper gigabyte boards. And its recommended on newegg.

[RC Agent]

Here's what the build ended up being:

Case: Cooler Master Elite 330 $30-$30 MIR(received) $0
Power Supply: Antec Earthwatts 500 $64-$30 MIR(denied?) $64
Seagate 320GB SATA drive $65
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H $100
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition $85
CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro $20
Memory: Corsair XMX2 2GB (1x2GB) $64-$40 MIR(pending) $64
Video: Onboard (included with motherboard)
Dvd Burner: Samsung SH-S203B $33
OS: XP Home $75

Total: $506 with possible $40 MIR.

I could have just bought a Dell!

[Mehen]

Yeah but look at the plus side - now you don't have a dell!

[UtwigMU]

HP dx2250 307€+VAT (with freeDOS)
videocard of choice