better mobo?

newguy5

newguy5

New Member
i got a deal of buying a 3500+ athlon 64 and an ecs motherboard for $100 together (the k8m890m). but the way they did the purchase, they charged $60 for the cpu and $40 for the motherboard, so i can return the items individually and get some money back, although when i bought them i had to get them together.

i will keep the 3500+, i'm just wondering how much better my performance would be if i got a better board from fry's? the other specs are 1gb pc5300 RAM, geforce 7600gt. my 3dmark06 score was just under 3000, so assuming i got a better board around $100, approx. how much could that 3dmark score improve?

i'm just trying to decide if it's worth it to tear the computer down already and get a better motherboard at this point. i don't do a lot of extreme gaming or work on my computer, but i'd like to keep it mostly compatable with the rest of the components, and if the mobo is severely lagging my system, well, it just makes sense to get something else then.
 
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The main problem with FRYs is the lack of variety in the pc dept. as well as some of the better deals that come along with other vendors at times. You were in good shape for a bundle just for a budget build. But if you are trying to look at performance values then you are forced to step up somewhat.
 
PC eye said:
The main problem with FRYs is the lack of variety in the pc dept. as well as some of the better deals that come along with other vendors at times. You were in good shape for a bundle just for a budget build. But if you are trying to look at performance values then you are forced to step up somewhat.
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i decided i hate fry's. they are always out of items in addition to never having much for high quality. i wish there was another store when you could buy these things. online purchasing i don't like because it's a hassle and a half if you need to return anything.

the other problem i have is that my HDs are all IDE, and a lot of better quality mobos are all about SATA.
 
Not necessarily all sata. I'll correct you there fast. Sata is simply a faster but not better just because of a faster speed. Sata arrays like SCSI and RAID controller cards were originally about increasing speed when additional drives were added for storage. The increased speed allowed for faster access times to retrieve files and data stored on them. When SCSI first came out you were seeing 20mb and 50mb hard drives on the average. Now Seagate has a 750gb model seen.

I run two 250gb ide drives here. I make my selection of the board to go with by make and model according to the specifications seen. When you go with a good vendor any exchanges or returns go fast. But they specialize in computer related products between complete and special ordered builds to the small accessories.

A place like Frys throws a few boards on shelves when stocking detergent on the next to give you that analogy. Well at least you have something onhand for system cleaning anyways. "oh crap that janitor in a drum got spilled on my new... :eek: !" :P
 
PC eye said:
Not necessarily all sata. I'll correct you there fast. Sata is simply a faster but not better just because of a faster speed. Sata arrays like SCSI and RAID controller cards were originally about increasing speed when additional drives were added for storage. The increased speed allowed for faster access times to retrieve files and data stored on them. When SCSI first came out you were seeing 20mb and 50mb hard drives on the average. Now Seagate has a 750gb model seen.

I run two 250gb ide drives here. I make my selection of the board to go with by make and model according to the specifications seen. When you go with a good vendor any exchanges or returns go fast. But they specialize in computer related products between complete and special ordered builds to the small accessories.

A place like Frys throws a few boards on shelves when stocking detergent on the next to give you that analogy. Well at least you have something onhand for system cleaning anyways. "oh crap that janitor in a drum got spilled on my new... :eek: !" :P
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so do you guys avoid places like fry's and just order all on newegg.com instead? i think i'm actually going to buy my RAM at best buy. they have pc5300 1gb for $90 right now.
 
newegg is a very good place to buy from. The two rigs I've put together I've ordered everything from newegg and everything arrived in perfect condition, and you can get hell of good deals compared to actual stores. I highly recommend you consider newegg or zipzoomfly as an option.
 
I wouldn't recommend Zipzoomfly after the complaints heard about it. That's from people I know that were burned when trying to return ddefective items. Other places like TigerDirect and mwave hold better reps. And not everything at newegg is always a bargain. The wise shopper is a price comparison shopper who looks around when going to order individual or bundles to see who has what for what.
 
PC eye said:
I wouldn't recommend Zipzoomfly after the complaints heard about it. That's from people I know that were burned when trying to return ddefective items. Other places like TigerDirect and mwave hold better reps. And not everything at newegg is always a bargain. The wise shopper is a price comparison shopper who looks around when going to order individual or bundles to see who has what for what.
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true that. fry's sells the e6300 in-store for $183, newegg has it for $190.
 
And ewiz has it listed for $184.37 http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=E6...ca6d85de3625e4307a0710af5d6ea86702d1f23a15346 compared to newegg's $189 not $190 seen now.

Mwave has it for slightly more at $194.24 seen at http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA22887 The winner goes to TigerDirect claiming they are selling the same cpu "at cost"? for $191 and even include a pc game(Ghost Recon) at http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2503366&sku=CP1-DUO-E6300%20P
 
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