Motherboard Processor combos

nthren · #1 (**permalink**) 12-29-2006, 07:20 PM

I would like to purchace a new motherboard and processor. I am on kind of a tight budget and would like to spend between 50 and 150 dollars. Im looking for something with high processor speed and I would prefer 4 slots for RAM, SATA slots would also be a bonus. I dont know much about motherboards or processors so I would like to know which would be my best options for the money.

Thanks.

**Ash** · #2 (**permalink**) 12-30-2006, 01:12 AM

Hey nthren,
Welcome to CompuForums. It's great to have you here and I hope that you post here often in the future

So, are you looking to buy a mobo with a CPU included for $50-$150?
What sort of stuff are you planning on doing with your new motherboard+CPU, and what parts do you already have [+type]

Thanks,
Ashley

guyladouche · #3 (**permalink**) 12-30-2006, 05:06 AM

First, I have to say that I've always been biased towards AMD. I think for PC's, they're the best bang for your buck if you don't want to break the bank. However, if I could build a new system now, I'd go Core 2 Duo until AMD releases their new CPU's.

So, my recommendation is go go AMD. If you're not going to be doing anything hardcore like overclocking, your best bet is to go budget. I have an ASRock motherboard (the "budget" ASUS boards) and I like it--it even has various overclocking features, plus I'd say it's pretty good and dependable--I've never had any problems. I don't think I spent $60 on mine. It's a socket 939 AMD motherboard--Dual939-SATA2 is the name of the board. It has both AGP and PCI-Express x16 slots (if you have an AGP video card and don't want to upgrade just yet, it's perfect--plus if you want to upgrade your video card in the future, you don't have to buy a new motherboard). It has two SATA sockets and one SATA2 socket, and takes DDR ram--up to PC3200 with four slots in dual channel mode. I believe the 939 AMD processors are quite affordable, and are very good performers for their price range. I'd recommend that you go a bit outside your budget and get a dual-core processor, though any socket 939 AMD processor will work in this board. I see from pricewatch.com that a socket 939 AMD Athlon XP 3000+ processor is up for $54.99--quite a good deal. This is the processor I had before I upgraded to dual core (I'd recommend that if you have the dough, though). And a 3700+ is up for ~$75.00. In case you're not familiar, with AMD single-core processors, the number with the "+" after it means that the processor operates at or above a Pentium 4 processor with equivalent freqency in MHz--so the 3000+ is as fast or faster than a P4 3.0 GHz. That's probably the best bang for your buck, though you'll also have to consider buying ram--the ASRock Dual939 takes DDR memory, which has gone up considerably in price since DDR2 became more mainstream.

So, to summarize, you could get the ASRock Dual939-SATA2 and the AMD Athlon 64 3700+ for a total of about $140 before taxes. You could always go cheaper, but a 3700+ with decent RAM will be plenty fast for pretty much anything that you can get for $140. In addition, to plug the motherboard again, should you choose to go dual core in the near future, AMD released dual-core socket 939 processors, so you wouldn't have to buy a new motherboard.

Can you be more specific about what you're going to be doing? Light use--word processing, surfing, music, etc., or more cpu-intensive things like video editing/converting, etc. If it's the latter, I'd suggest going with a beefier system--dual core, Core 2 Duo preferably.

nthren · #4 (**permalink**) 12-30-2006, 07:58 PM

First let me thank both of you for answering my post. I have an older HP system 1.8Ghz. I was planing on just replacing the motherboard and processor and just using all the other parts out of my old computer. To answer the other question I have a large DVD collection I would like to back-up. My wife also uses the computer to make videos with pics and clips from her digital camera. Those are the main things I will be doing in the near future.

guyladouche · #5 (**permalink**) 12-30-2006, 08:42 PM

So for backing up your DVD collection, do you mean to copy the DVD's onto other DVD's, or to convert the DVD's to video files, like AVI? The faster the processor, the better.

Also, depending on what program your wife uses for making movies, I know that at least Nero is mult-threaded for video-creating, so getting a dual-core processor would really really help here.

Also, keep in mind that you'll have to buy at least DDR ram for most newer motherboards now (if not DDR2). If you have anything like PC133--or any type of SDRAM, it won't work in newere motherboards.

Given the cpu-intensive work that the computer will likely be doing, I'd really recommend spending the extra money and go for a dual core processor. The Core 2 Duo processors are quite good, but still quite expensive. I'd recommend going with a socket 939 AMD dual core processor (denoted by the X2 in the model numbers). They're around $180-250 US, but I guarantee you, they're worth the money if you're going to be doing things like video ripping of DVD's and video encoding for making your own movies from pictures and home videos.

So it seems that if you're going with newer hardware, the only components you'd be likely to keep are your CD/DVD drives, Hard drives, and perhaps a video card--everything else would have to be purchased like RAM, CPU, Motherboard and Power Supply. I'd even recommend going with a newer SATA or SATA2 Hard drive, but it's not necessary.

You could just go for newer hardware than what you have but not that new and think you'll save money--so you could retain things like your power supply and RAM, but it's not really that worth it--prices aren't that good for older hardware as compared to mid-range newer hardware, so you might as well upgrade to something a bit more like the newer hardware (but not necessarily the newest), so you don't feel like you'll have to upgrade again in the near future.

I'd say, and it may not be feasible, to budget around $400 US for the motherboard, processor, and RAM (I'd recommend at least 1 GB dual -channel RAM if not 2 GB dual-channel ram, though a 2GB kit would run near $250 itself for good-quality RAM) in order to have a decent computer by today's standards worthy of DVD ripping and video editing. You'll really see a difference, believe me. I was a bit skeptical myself until I recently upgraded, and the difference is like the difference between night and day.

Hope it all goes well. Please feel free to ask more detail if you need it.

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