Barebones system recommendation

S

stevensly

New Member
Hi all,
the motherboard on my PC went and it's about time to upgrade
Am currently running:

P4 3.4/800/2G OCZ Plat./Radeon 9800 pro/SB Platinum

I'm looking for the following items:

- motherboard with integrated video (must support DVI or HDMI)/NIC/audio (ATX FF) Motherboard must contain at least

one IDE and PCI slot.
- ram at least 4G (2x2G)
- CPU (quad core or newer) Intel or AMD plus heatsink/fan

All other parts I can salvage from my PC.
It's been a while since I've upgraded and am looking for something relatively new on a tight budget ($350 max), maybe an I7 is pushing it?

What are your thoughts? I've been out of the hardware scene for so long! :(

PS: PC won't be used for gaming, mostly home office work and running multiple virtual environments.


Thanks!
 
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128444
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808

Unfortunately on such a tight budget an i series set-up is out of reach. If you could save up a little longer then an i5 2500 would probably be do-able. Having said that though, here's what I believe to be a very good combination for the cost. I've always liked Gigabyte's boards. I've used them in 3 other people's computers as well as my own and have yet to have a hiccup (Which is impressive because I haven't been easy on mine :P). The 955 actually surprised me in how long its dropped. You can go into the bios and change the multiplier to 17.5 and you'll have a 970 too, so there's no reason whatsoever to spend money on a 965/970. The Phenom II's also come with a bearable stock HSF, especially in comparison to Intel.
 
Awesome, thank's for the links.
This will definitely do.
Time to shop around. ;)

CardboardSword said:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128444
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808

Unfortunately on such a tight budget an i series set-up is out of reach. If you could save up a little longer then an i5 2500 would probably be do-able. Having said that though, here's what I believe to be a very good combination for the cost. I've always liked Gigabyte's boards. I've used them in 3 other people's computers as well as my own and have yet to have a hiccup (Which is impressive because I haven't been easy on mine :P). The 955 actually surprised me in how long its dropped. You can go into the bios and change the multiplier to 17.5 and you'll have a 970 too, so there's no reason whatsoever to spend money on a 965/970. The Phenom II's also come with a bearable stock HSF, especially in comparison to Intel.
Click to expand...
 
Cardboardsword,
another member suggested the following:

Intel Core i3 530 Dual-Core Socket LGA1156, 2.93Ghz, 4MB L3 Cache, 99.88

Gigabyte GA-H55-USB3 Socket 1156 Intel H55 Chipset DVI/D-Sub/HDMI/DisplayPort 124.88

G.SKILL NQ Series DDR3 1600MHz (PC3-12800) 4GB (2x2GB) 47.99

Total: $272.20 before taxes

Would I see a noticeable difference going with the AMD over Intel? It's about a $35 difference between the 2.
 
The i3 will be stronger for applications that don't support more than 2 cores. I considered linking an i3 as well, but you wanted a quad core so I dismissed it. Personally I'd rather the 955, simply because it's a true quad (Whereas the i3 has two hyperthreaded cores.) The i3 is much faster clock for clock though, so if you feel that's the better option for what you do with your computer then go for that and you certainly won't be disappointed. For everyday use though there is effectively no difference. You only really notice a stronger processor in CPU heavy tasks.
 
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