hey all, so, the g/f will be needing an upgrade in the near future (late summer at the earliest. shes a graphics design major and needs a comp that will be powerful enough to do all the fun photoshop, illustrator and indesign tasks. im totally clueless on this when it comes to gaming, i have a fairly good idea on what to get. as far as this, i think its similar, but have no real idea on what to get. i know quad core would be great, 4gb of ram, a speedy main drive, with a 500gb storage drive. the new phenoms that just came out look like good contenders as i will not overclock them. but the heat and power consumption worries me a bit. i know im going to have to mod her case (apevia x-qpack) to fit a normal size psu, thats not a biggie, just grab a lian-li psu mounting plate, couple of spacers and its all set. im worried that if i do go with a phenom (as i would like to stick with AMD if possible) im going to have one hell of a time fitting in a decent cooler. as i really don't want to see this thing running at 50+*C. right now it runs at a nice and comfy 28-40*C with a 3800+ X2 man this is long winded for me. lolz. so, anyone have any ideas? any help is greatly appreciated.
Either a Phenom 9550 or a Q6600 would be great. The Phenom is slightly cheaper, the Q6600 is slightly faster. Though, be it noted that the Q6600 can be overclocked to 2.6 or 2.8 on stock cooling (though I know you said you didn't plan on OC'ing, I'm just throwing that in there so you know). The Phenom chips don't OC virtually at all. 4 GB of RAM is a definite go. It's so cheap nowadays there's no reason not to. Just find the cheapest one with decent latencies and a reliable brand/warranty. Though, as you mentioned you wanted to put a cooler on, I'd just like to mention that there's really no point in putting better cooling on a Phenom. On a Q6600 a $25 cooler will net you 3.0ghz on four cores and still keep you under 50*C. I know, no overclocking, but I honestly know of no reason not to in this case. You'll get a much, much better value and the computer will benefit quite noticeably. If price really is an issue, stick with the Phenom, but I have an incredibly hard time recommending it over the Q6600, which is arguably the best processor released in the last two years.
well, my major thing (and it may be unwarranted) about heat, is i hate seeing anything run over 45*C. i prefer any comp i build to stay under 40*C if possible,and most times thats easily accomplished. hence why i am hoping to find a cooler that will work. i do have a thermalright XP120 kicking around, but i don't think i'll be able to fit it and a fan in the case. unless i start cutting. which, as much as i enjoy modding, i'd prefer not to. as far as i know, it does fit LGA775, and AM2 with the required brackets but at the moment, i only have the K8 mounting bracket. as far as a motherboard, im quite restricted at what i can use due to the fact that it has to be micro-atx. also, im an AMD guy, so Intel is like talking gibberish to me. so, would be a good board for Intel? i know p35 is good, but i have yet to find a micro-atx board with that. do they even make it? also i am not sure i should go with an nvidia board or go with an Intel chipset. i have no idea. i feel like a noob all over again!
If you do end up with the Phenom, make sure you get a decent motherboard with at least 5 phase power regulation. The 125W Phenoms have killed a few boards with less power circuitry. The Q6600 will definitely run cooler, my brothers is about 30/35ish with the stock cooler idle. You could even go for the Q9450 as its built around the 45nm process, so it will run even cooler. They're not that great as overclockers as they have a lower multiplier, but your not overclocking so it doesn't matter. They are more expensive though. You would have to go for a G35 chipset for MATX.
