I'm attempting to work within a budget of £400 , and I'm looking to upgrade, which requires me to update my motherboard, CPU and RAM. I've come to the conclusion of getting an AM2 CPU (probably a single-core as they're cheaper), so I'm looking for AM2 socket motherboards. Now, seeing asthough my budget is quite tight (and I already have an AGP Gfx card), I was hoping someone could point me to some decently priced AM2 AGP boards. I found this one: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=443859 and it seems ok, but not being totally great on hardware I'm not sure if its what I'm looking for. I'm guessing for an AM2 processor I'll be upgrading my PSU too, would 430w be enough? Sorry for all the questions and the hassle, but money is tight and it's needed for University, hope you can help! Thanks in advance. EDIT: Also another note, I've had problems with overheating in the past, is the standard heatsink + fan that comes with processors good enough?
"Hi" to you too Xaus, and welcome to the forums I believe those ASRock boards are the only AM2 boards which support AGP, so that one might be your only option? But since it's for uni... have you consider buying a laptop instead? You can get a brand new laptop for £400, and a laptop would be far more practical Laptops Direct offer a number of different Student Bundles for £400 (including desktops, as well as laptops)... but unless you're into serious gaming... a laptop would [surely] be all you need? Whatever you decide to do... you're welcome
I have to agree with Hazardous, a laptop would probably be your best bet for that budget (as long as you're not a gamer). Otherwise I'd say get a dell desktop and see what you can do from there, that'll have a PCI-e graphics slot on it, so you can soon upgrade it when you have a few more pennies.
If you're willing to go Intel, Asrock (Asus' budget label) also do a Core2Duo-compatable board (The Asrock 775Dual-VSTA). This mobo supports AGP or PCIe graphics*, and also DDR or DDR2 RAM* (*but not both at the same time obviously). Review at OCWorkbench here. Available from Aria for 37quid here. Aria will also do you a Core2 Duo 6300 for about 125quid here . Since you can recycle your existing DDR RAM & AGP gfx card with this mobo, I'd say that leaves you about 238quid under budget!
I agree on this advise as well. The only other board which can run AM2 & AGP together is ASRock's 939-DualSATA + a special AM2 adapter board. The 775Dual-VSTA + C2D is more practical choice.
I almost bought the Asrock board until I saw that the PCIe support is only 4x (not 16x) but I must say that I'm quite surprised at how well it did on the benchmarks (I guess PCIe 16x has a lot of extra headroom left). So I'd ask, what's your priority? games = go with Asrock 775Dual-VSTA & Intel e6300 (that makes it 3 votes) school work = practical budget laptop (for games like solitare) Since you're looking to upgrade I suspect it's for games. [OT] What ever made OCWorkbench think that comparing an AMD 4000+ to an Intel X6800 was a good comparrison? That's just being stupid! [/OT]
