tivme7

Hello, I am trying to build a desktop, but I do not know much.

So here's what's up.

All that I know for now is that I want to get AMD athlon II x2 250, or AMD phenom x2 550.

I do not know what to do for any other components.

I want about 4gb of ram for now(may be upgrade to 8gb later) and about 500 gb of hard drive.
For graphic card, i want geforce 9600gt or better.

for motherboard, i want to upgrade to x4 cpu later on, so I would want one that supports both x2 and x4 cpu's(if it is possible)

so would you guys please recommend me what kind of mother board, graphic card, memory(ram), hard drive, power supply and a case to get? Also please recommend me a cpu cooler if it is needed.

I would not want my parts to be all "too cheap" brands, but not too expensive ones. My budget is about $500, but it can be more.

Please help~

ultipig

First of all, I would like to say that you should get the Phenom 550. It has an insanely fast 3.1 Ghz bus speed, and a whopping 6mb of L3 cache, compared to 2.0 Ghz bus speed and 2mb L2 cache of the Athlon. Same price, very much better. And if you're lucky, you can unlock the other two cores and have max performance for the price.

Alright, what motherboard would I suggest for this processor? Probably the MSI 785GM-E65 AM3 motherboard. It can be viewed here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...SI%20785GM-E65. This board packs an incredible punch for a mini ATX board. It has HDMI, 8.1 channel audio, and DDR3 setup (Up to 16gb of DDR3, like you wanted ). It has one PCI-e slot. (let me know if you ever want to run two video cards, because this board does not support that) All that for $89.99 USD? Awesome.

CPU cooler? I'd choose the SilverStone NT06-E: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...pk=SilverStone NT06-E. This is a small, light, and quite neat cpu cooler. Make sure that if you purchase this, get the/a 120mm fan to go with it!

As for RAM... Probably this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148194. Now, I know you ask, "But this is two gigs! I wanted four!" Remember, this is DDR3. 2gb of DDR3 is faster (slightly) than 4gb of DDR2. Cool, huh?

Uhh.... oh yeah! Video card! http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-111-_-Product. This is a nice video card at a modest price. Inquire within.

Um, PSU. Here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817151031. Now this is awfully beefy for this build so far, but it has 5 years of warranty (No problems whatsoever), is of high quality, and has a modular design.

Hard Drive? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-445-_-Product. Good performance, good price. What more?

Last would be, the case. I'm not a master of cases, (Just hardware) so you could choose your own at this point. Keep in mind also that this could all fit in a small case, but what I suggest is the Antec 902 (nine-hundred-two). I have this case, and it is AWESOME! It won't fail you! Plus, there's plenty of room for plenty expansions. It can be viewed here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...pk=antec%20902

All of these products put you at $608.92 USD from newegg.com. Things can be changed if this price is a bit high.

Well, that's it for now. Tell me if you like it, and remember, you're the builder! This is just a recommendation.

Good Luck!

__________________
No, I'm just that awesome.
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ASUS M3N2-D
AMD Phenom II 9750 x4
ATI Radeon HD 4650

daisymtc

CPU - Phenom IIx2 550 is better than AthonII x2.
Have you consider Athon II x4 620? It should out soon.

Mobo - AMD 785G or 770 with DDR3 RAM. Better for future upgrade...

RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231277

HDD - Get Western Digital Caviar Black or Seagate Barracuda 7200.12

PSU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817341019

Case - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129042
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129021
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119137
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811112220

Video card - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-414-_-Product