Thinking about building a computer around the Athlon II x3 440
- Thread starter phenom01
- Start date
FATALiiTYz
New Member
For $400 I would be build a PC based around the Athlon x2.
CPU - AMD Athlon X2 240 2.8ghz
Case - Rosewill Blackbone
Motherboard - ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO (inbuilt HD4200/possibly hybrid crossfire w/ hd4xxx series)
HDD - Seagate Barracuda 500gb
GPU - Gigabyte 4550 512mb ($20 after $20 rebate)
RAM - G.Skill 2gb(2x1) ddr3 1333mhz
PSU - OCZ ModXstream Pro 500w
Before rebates: $396
After rebates: $351
CPU - AMD Athlon X2 240 2.8ghz
Case - Rosewill Blackbone
Motherboard - ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO (inbuilt HD4200/possibly hybrid crossfire w/ hd4xxx series)
HDD - Seagate Barracuda 500gb
GPU - Gigabyte 4550 512mb ($20 after $20 rebate)
RAM - G.Skill 2gb(2x1) ddr3 1333mhz
PSU - OCZ ModXstream Pro 500w
Before rebates: $396
After rebates: $351
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The tower itself minus the cd-rw, keyboard, mice, and HDD.
Drenlin
Active Member
That makes things easier. Got some questions though:
What type of cd drive is it? You'll want something that can read DVD's, since most new games are on them. CD/DVD burners are cheap...
What's the model of the hard drive? If it's an older model I'd upgrade. A slow hard drive can have a huge impact on how fast the system runs.
What type of cd drive is it? You'll want something that can read DVD's, since most new games are on them. CD/DVD burners are cheap...
What's the model of the hard drive? If it's an older model I'd upgrade. A slow hard drive can have a huge impact on how fast the system runs.
i have a CD/DVD-RW 16x and a 80 gig Western Digital HDD 7200 rpm
its Black edition IDE
Drenlin
Active Member
It's IDE? Yeah, time for an upgrade then. This is about as powerful of a machine as you're going to get for $400:
If you want to forgo the hard drive in favor of a bit more power, drop it and change the CPU and GPU to these:
CPU- Athlon II x4 620- $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103706
GPU- Sapphire Radeon 4850- $95
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102824
Drenlin said:
If you want to forgo the hard drive in favor of a bit more power, drop it and change the CPU and GPU to these:
CPU- Athlon II x4 620- $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103706
GPU- Sapphire Radeon 4850- $95
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102824
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Drenlin
Active Member
Microcenter, right? Nice. The AMD prices are about the same as Newegg though...and at $500 that's what you'll want.
I think if you just take the build I posted before and add the upgrades at the bottom, it should come out ok. Although, if that store has a non-OEM Phenom II 720, I'd grab that instead of the Athlon II 630. That takes it to $518 shipped/bought, $473 after the rebates. However, the motherboard's rebate offer ends on the 31st...
I think if you just take the build I posted before and add the upgrades at the bottom, it should come out ok. Although, if that store has a non-OEM Phenom II 720, I'd grab that instead of the Athlon II 630. That takes it to $518 shipped/bought, $473 after the rebates. However, the motherboard's rebate offer ends on the 31st...
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bomberboysk
Active Member
$500? You can get a pretty decent rig for that:
HDD: Seagate 7200.12 250gb, one of the faster hard drives out there.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148451
Case: $29.99, free shipping, decent budget case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147109
PSU: $39.99 After rebate:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341016
Mobo: ECS A785GM-M,ive used these in a couple builds and they are amazing boards for the price. $69.99 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135241
Memory: 2gb of G.Skill 1333mhz cas9:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231150
CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 630, $99:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103704
GPU: Powercolor HD4850 $89:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131162
$484.93 Before Rebates
$434.93 After Rebates
Now...If you dont mind the budget being $500 after all rebates, you could switch up a few things:
Case: http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10011785
Memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226113
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103656
With, which those three changes would put you at $514.93 after rebates (Would stay under $500 after rebates if you elected to not switch either the cpu or memory)
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Drenlin
Active Member
^ Heh, that's almost exactly what I said. 
Listen to this dude, TS...he knows his stuff.
edit: However, the Mushkin RAM is $103 after the rebate....$3 more gets 4GB of the formidable G-skill Ripjaws DDR3 1600:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277
Listen to this dude, TS...he knows his stuff.
edit: However, the Mushkin RAM is $103 after the rebate....$3 more gets 4GB of the formidable G-skill Ripjaws DDR3 1600:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277
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bomberboysk
Active Member
Gskill is nice too, just to note though the A785GM-M doesnt officially support ddr3-1600, however both times ive used it ive been able to get 1600mhz cas8 memory working in it just fine. The mushkin uses higher quality ic's IIRC(although, you are guaranteed 1600mhz with the gskill more or less).^ Heh, that's almost exactly what I said.
Listen to this dude, TS...he knows his stuff.
edit: However, the Mushkin RAM is $103 after the rebate....$3 more gets 4GB of the formidable G-skill Ripjaws DDR3 1600:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277
hows this build for overclocking?
bomberboysk
Active Member
I'd recommend staying with the x4, its technically more total processing power, and on an air cooled or stock cooling setup the overclocks will be close. Plus with the ECS A785GM-M, it doesnt support ACC(yet, ive sent a few emails to ECS about it though) so no chance of unlocking a tri core.