30 replies to this topic

[BigBadVlad]

Agree on the G3258. If you have a board that will overclock it (which I think most allow now?) it was super easy to just set the multiplier at 45 for 4.5 Ghz on an affordable aftermarket air cooler ($20-$30?). Plenty of things still perform well with just a lot of clock speed thrown at it, even if it's only two cores. Yeah maybe it's not best for the person who always wants a half dozen different apps open but still the bang for the buck is there I'd say with a caveat: Budget on buying some kind of half decent aftermarket cooler. About $20-$30 should do nicely, I bought a Zalman CNPS5X, $20.

I'd say for budget gaming, can't be beat, unless you plan on playing some game that is proven to multi-thread very well.

[Gremlich Johns]

First off, ask your friends who has an older AM3/AM3+ mobo or Phenom II X4 955/965 or GPU that they can GIVE you (that they know works). Then, take nothing less that a GTX560/AMD equivalent GPU (which works just fine and yes, beggars can be choosers) The AMD FX-series go into an AM3+ mobo, but not in an AM3 mobo. The 955/965 will go in either mobo.

I've got a Phenom II X4 925 that I can give you - free.

That's what the forums need - a message board to get rid of our junk, errr, spare parts. People giving away parts should pick up the shipping to ensure that the components actually work.

[Hardin4188]

DV McKenna, on 09 March 2015 - 01:20 PM, said:

Well, im glad to say your wrong about the Pentium.

I think it's inappropriate to encourage someone to buy a dual core in this day and age. Quad cores or even i3s are a much more practical solution.

[xWiredx]

I had completely forgotten about the Pentium. Now that I'm reminded, go that route. We've got a few people that have contributed benchmark numbers from MWO using it at around 4.5GhZ and it's been pretty good to them so far. The other nice thing is if you grab a Z97 board for it to OC with, you can eventually upgrade to an i5 or i7 Haswell refresh chip.

[Bill Lumbar]

LOL... I almost seriously considered getting the dual core and the Z97 board before I got the I7, but I have been running on Quad and eightcores for so long now, I don't think I could bare it.

[Lulz Kev]

I second the Intel anniversary processor. My buddy just did a budget build and we were able to net 4.4ghz OC with a hyper 212.

SSD would be nice as well, but more of a comfort factor then performance in game.

GPU would be okay, but as the others have said you're going to run into CPU bottleneck.

I'd go for the SSD, then build a new rig when you have cash.

No sense spending money on middle of the road products that are already outdated. That will just put you in the same boat.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Hardin4188, on 09 March 2015 - 03:39 PM, said:

I think it's inappropriate to encourage someone to buy a dual core in this day and age. Quad cores or even i3s are a much more practical solution.

As someone who uses that dual core on a daily basis across not just MWO but Total War Atilla, has Web pages, teamspeak, Skype open it is perfectly capable of handling that.
It will outperform I3's no problem, and it still leaves you an upgrade path into I5/I7 territory.

The only thing I have found it doesn't do well is playing games and watching live streams, mainly because steams are highly CPU heavy.

[TVMA Doc]

If you only have $150 to spend, do you already have a good gaming mouse? That might be the best upgrade you can make. Turn the settings to low and hit things with precision.

[dr lao]

BigBadVlad, on 09 March 2015 - 01:49 PM, said:

Agree on the G3258. If you have a board that will overclock it (which I think most allow now?) it was super easy to just set the multiplier at 45 for 4.5 Ghz on an affordable aftermarket air cooler ($20-$30?). Plenty of things still perform well with just a lot of clock speed thrown at it, even if it's only two cores. Yeah maybe it's not best for the person who always wants a half dozen different apps open but still the bang for the buck is there I'd say with a caveat: Budget on buying some kind of half decent aftermarket cooler. About $20-$30 should do nicely, I bought a Zalman CNPS5X, $20.

I'd say for budget gaming, can't be beat, unless you plan on playing some game that is proven to multi-thread very well.

yes i like that one two.

[Catamount]

As far as I'm aware, the Hyper 212 Evo is still the budget cooler to get

http://www.hardwares...r-Review/1407/6

[Lord Letto]

Catamount, on 18 March 2015 - 09:16 AM, said:

As far as I'm aware, the Hyper 212 Evo is still the budget cooler to get

http://www.hardwares...r-Review/1407/6

the 212 Plus should be decent also, $3.01 Less than the EVO & you could combo it with Thermal Paste to get a slight combo discount (5 cent discount with AC MX4, $2.25 Discount with AS 5):


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($28.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $28.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-18 14:51 EDT-0400

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($25.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX4 4g Thermal Paste ($6.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $32.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-18 14:51 EDT-0400

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($25.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste ($6.89 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $30.63
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-18 14:47 EDT-0400

Edited by Lord Letto, 18 March 2015 - 10:54 AM.