Alrighty, I have an idea for a micro case but wanted to run the components through the wonderful bit-tech "battery" of information. My plan: CPU: AMD Phenom 9950 Black @ $189 MOBO: GIGABYTE GA-MA78GPM-DS2H @ $95 Optical: Sony Slot Loaded Burner @ $73 GPU: SAPPHIRE 100236HDMI Radeon HD 3650 @ $65 MEM: 4GB HyperX DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 @ $65 PSU: KDM Nickel Coating 480W @ $55 And other non-imperitave parts @ $125 All from Newegg Xcept the PSU So thats roughly $600. I kinda like that number, alot, and I may be able to push it to $750. But, is that a good rig? I want to play the "new" games and I really dont care about "full" settings. My main question is the GPU. It has to be low profile, and I would prefer HDMI out, but thats not necissery. If there is a bad combonation in there, please dont flame, just tell me why it is a bad combo. Once all is bought ill toss up a new project log for you to follow if you wish. And yes... it is this old project posted below.
have you looked at intel cpus? for the same price of $95 on newegg you could get a Foxconn G45M-S motherboard with hdmi out. which could potentially rid of your desire of having a gpu with hdmi out. also core2quads require less power than phenom x4 which would reduce power consumption and heat. which case you could overclock the cpu which the board allows. mobo: Foxconn G45M-S = $94.99 cpu: Core2Quad Q6600 2.40Ghz 65nm or Q8200 2.33Ghz 45nm = $189.99 or for better gaming Core2Duo E8400 3.00Ghz 45nm or E8500 3.16Ghz 45nm = $164.99/$187.99
Well I thought the same, but most reviews do say it runs cold even w/ stock cooler. Im not gonna use that though. Anyways, Is that a good Low-Profile Gpu or is there another at similar cost thats better? Ive never understood GPU's Specs that well...
At least below minus 50. Of course there's always the 9350e which is 65W as opposed to 125W... I'd look at the 4850e myself, I had a 4200 in my old rig, used to play most games on it. Also, since the board already has an ATI 3300 on-board isn't the 3650 a bit redundant; there's not going to be much increase in performance between the two.
asus make a low profile hd4550 with hdmi out which is what im going to be putting in my htpc. you should be able to find one for about the same price as the 3650, they're less than £45 over here.
what is the performace comparison between the 3300 and 4550? Also, Whats the technical difference between 64 abd 128- bit? And, Whats the technical difference between 40, 80, and 120 Stream Processing Units. Im looking at: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102799 @ $60 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121281 @ $50 Which is better without price involved. And is is worth the upgrade from a ATI 3300 on-board, Which I think is 256 ddr2, 64-bit 40 SPU.
Okay - let's see... The 3300 is exclusively an integrated graphics chipset (i.e. it's only included built into select AMD motherboards). It's okay for *very* casual gaming, but much more than something like World of Warcraft at medium resolutions and it will struggle. That alone is much, much better than almost any other integrated graphics chipset out there, but for decent gaming it still sucks. You'll want a separate card for decent gaming, and as far as low-profile cards go, the 4550 is as good as you'll get. Stream processors are essentially cores. You know, like dual-core and quad-core is in CPUs. Graphics cards have been massively parallel for years and years now because graphics is a task (and one of the only tasks out there) that's very easily broken down into many little pieces that can be handled simultaneously. More stream processors generally translates into a pretty linear performance increase in power (in the same GPU series, at least). Hence why the GeForce GTX260 Core 216 has approximately (216/192) = 112.5% of the power of the 192-core standard GTX260. 64-bit, 128-bit, 256-bit, etc. refers to memory bandwidth - the number of bits of data that can be moved through memory in one clock cycle. Again, more is better here (not enough bandwidth and GPU waiting on the memory can become the performance bottleneck), although it's not generally as important as raw clock frequency, etc. However, given that the two cards you're looking at are identical in every specification outside of the rear ports, neither stream processors nor memory bandwidth should be influencing your decision in the slightest. What it really comes down to is which low-profile configuration suits you better. The ASUS's low-profile bracket appears to be double-width, with the second slot having a space for the VGA port you would have otherwise lost, leaving you with 1x VGA, 1x DVI-D, and 1x HDMI. The Sapphire's low-profile bracket is single-width (which might be more useful, depending on whether or not you have or plan to have another expansion card next to your GPU), but it will leave you with only 1x S-Video and 1x DVI-D on the back. HOWEVER, it also includes adapters for DVI-D to VGA, DVI-D to HDMI, and S-Video to Composite Video (R, Pg, and Pb - analog hi-def, really, but not useful unless you absolutely need to hook it up to a HDTV that only has that spot open on the back). So what it really comes down to for you is 1) whether or not the dual-slot low profile adapter on the ASUS will interfere with anything, and 2) whether or not the monitor outputs beyond a single DVI-D or HDMI are all that important to you. If neither of those are influential factors, maybe take a look at what reviews say about fan noise (I was too lazy), but outside of that it's purely a financial decision. - Diosjenin -
