Athlon II x3 performance?

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mildgamer001

mildgamer001

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Thinking abotu upgrade to new computer, i need to use AMD if i want to stay within budget, intel is nto an option in my specific circumstances, as i have to re use a bunch of old components that use IDE connections, and the motherboard that will work perfectly for my needs is an AM3.

All i am looking for is if anyone owns an Athlon II x3 unlocked to a x4 phenom II, what are the average FPS in certain games? and at what point would it bottleneck a GPU? i was thinking unlocking the x3 because then it wil be a quad, it fits in the budget, and i cant go with a pentium or i3, and eve at my super low budget, a phenom II, that isnt the point though, im nto asking for build advice, i juyst want to know how well the athlon II x3/4 performs in games, im looking at a GTX 550Ti as the video card. will it bottleneck on the athlon? if so, how badly? and if i ever upgraded to a phenom II x4 in teh higher end range that fits in my mobo, would i be able to SLI another 550 Ti? anyone with a similar setup have any benchmarks/experience/frames per second info for me? i will EVENTUALLY UPGRADE IT, the athlon is mainly so i can have something better than my crap laptop to play LIGHT games on, and medium-high settings on normal games. price range maxes at like 300$ but i need the AMD because the only motherboards with IDE (the reason i could get away with such a tiny budget) dont support intel.
 
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mildgamer001

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well, i will probably be using a 15-17" monitor at 720p for quite some time, unless i find a larger used one really cheap somewhere... also i wont be playing any demanding games for a while, because after i buy the oart i will be pretty close to broke on spending money, and some of that also has to go to making my ancient recycled case look... respectable... again, and adding cooling, the thing looks like if i use it as a gaming case before adding cooling that it would be similar to a computer oven... that is what dremel tools, paint, and plexyglass are for though..

anyway, so it wouldnt bottleneck the 550? what about if i ever (unlikely, as i would also have to upgrade the motheroard) SLI'd the 550's?
 
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mildgamer001

mildgamer001

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thanks, and one of the links gave me another link to a very helpful benchmark, its between the athlon II 635 and the phenom II 720, but i might end up getting the thlon II x4 631 instead of the x3 because i found it on tigerdirect for 80$, same as the x3 was on newegg.
 
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mildgamer001

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i know brett, it is about a 50/50 chance it will. im not expecting the unlock, if it happens then that would be a nice little bonus, if not, i didnt pay for a x4 so that is that. Its nice of you to say that and make sure though :) and also not really related but i got 2 power supply options, i know they are more wattage than i need but i like to be safe and they are cheap.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817339024

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182200
 
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mildgamer001

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well from what reviews said and i am pretty sure the rosewill at least is a good company, i know not to skimp on psu. those fit in the budget and have lots of good reviews. and also i have hear dcorsaid builder series wasnt very reliable. i dotn have much coise abotu going over 60-65 $ on power supply though and those seemed like the best choices at that price range. everyone seems to have different oppinions of power supplies though so i dont know.
 
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wr6133

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I don't see rosewill over here in the UK so pretty much dismissed it out of hand maybe a US member can clarify on them.

I have a corsair builders series in the HTPC/Wife PC it runs a snoozedozer 4100 and a 550ti fine.
 
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mildgamer001

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hmm, do you happen to know anything about the HEC? most of the reviews were very good and i havent heard muhc bad talk, then again i hevent heard much at all btu sometimes those smaller companies surprize you with pretty good stuff. you never know, but there were like 200 5 egg reviews out of like 230ish on it and from specs it looks perfect, also it fits the budget very well.
 
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mildgamer001

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49.99 with shipping? or without? and i have never used rebates so i dont know how trustworthy they can be. also i actually can only spend max 250$ on all the parts i am getting (i have some of what will be needed already) because ill be going paintballing with some of my sisters friends soon but i have to pay for my own stuff for it. i might end up just being a stink to all this help and get the hec, it does have good reviews for the specific product on newegg so it isnt as much of a gamble as most lesser known brands are, and i do appreciate the help and i might end up getting a different one, but i have seen mixed feelings toward OCZ before when i asked about their PSUs in a differed thread,

u can see why power supplies and har ddrives are the parts i hate shopping for the most....
 
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wr6133

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I think you have to send in for the rebate after buying as to reliability on that I don't know we rarely get mail in rebates in the UK.

Personally I'd get the corsair over the HEC its $69.99 but if the mail in rebate thingy works you get $10 back so its then $59.99. I have an OCZ in my gaming rig and a corsair in my HTPC and no complaints on either. I'm wary as to lesser brands as my brother bought a "Powercool" over here it looked the part, had great reviews on the site he bought it from, was priced beautifully and proceeded to take out his Mobo the first time he turned it on.
 
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ohyouknow

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Rosewill are the products that Newegg uses as their in-house brand.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&file=print&reid=266

Is a review of one of their power supplies from Rosewill. Best of luck.
 
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woe96

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I have an athlon x3 445 unlocked to x4 at 3.5 ghz and it run games just fine. On the x3 mode tho on starcraft II on custom maps it can get laggy with alot of units.

but if unlocking your cpu you need an aftermarket i suggest a hyper 212+ for around $30.

i have no bottle necking problems with mine and i have a 6770
 
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mildgamer001

mildgamer001

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wr6, im talking more abotu the corsair builder series being unreliable, i looked into them once and just about everyone told me to look elsewhere, not sure about the other models though, also they said that corsair used to make goo dpower supplies but just rebrands cheaper ones mostly now. OCZ i cant really remember but i think it was like half and half on whether or not to buy.

woe96 its a 50/50 gamble with unlocking, and the one i am getting is the 455, i probably wont overclock/unlock until i get more money for cooling and a new case, as i am going to use a 15 year old case with little to no cooling and i am going to mod it heavily, i already modded a usb port into the floppy drive bay, i need to add some fans on the lower front end of the side panel, 2 80mm fan slots in the top, where sadly the power supply is going to be. (putting it on the bottom would take way too much modificatuions to be worth it. also i havent painted it yet... i can sence a lot of moving parts around in the future for all the upgrades i plan on. just dotn have the cash yet.

anyway i might look into some of the cheaper OCZ power supplies, i need minimum like 500W if i ever SLI the 550Ti with another. (if i ever want to save 250$ so i can upgrade GPU to one 550Ti and a hard drive, going to start with a IDE hard drive with windows xp already on it, saves 200 initially.
 
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mildgamer001

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speaking of my crap hard drive, i have neer had to copy an operating system to a different hard drive, which si what i plan to do eventually when i get enough for a hard drive, wikihow was totally useless, anyone know any good tutorials?
 
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esrever

esrever

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You should generally stay away from the 550ti, its pretty over priced. An athlon X3 is perfectly fine for gaming. Your GPU will be whats holding you back 90% of the time, especially if you buy a 550 ti. At the same price point you can get a 6790 for better performance or the 6850 for a bit more money for a lot better performance.

Also never SLI 550 tis, its not worth the trouble. You'd be better off getting a single card since the 550 ti is so overpriced generally.
 
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mildgamer001

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^ by better performance on the 6790, approximately how many more frames/s woudl i get in say, BF3 on medium settings? compared to the 550Ti? and also if you happen to know, APPROX. how many more with the 6850? btw i will be playing at very low resolutions for quite some time i think. monitors arent cheap and all i have is a 15" 4:3 and a 17" 4:3. hell, i wont even be buying the video card for a long time after i buy the other parts because i can play minecraft (only game i have right now for PC) fine on the motherboard's integrated radeon 4250. mugh better than my laptops integrated intel HD (not even hd 2000) and like i said, for a while until i get more (games/new har ddrive/ anything else i will need as soon as possible) i wont need much more. Minecraft plays at full settings on my grandmothers 6 year old desktop with athlon 64 x2 at like 45 fps haha, my laptop isnt half that at minimal settings.
 
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