Help with budget build

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Yeah I don't need much GPU power as I'm not planning on gaming, just watching videos and some desktop effects. HD3200 should be more than enough for that
 
Well, I here people say, i dont need much in the area of GPU. Good idea to add to the onboard in anycase, if not just for the ability to take load off of your CPU because most NVIDIA and ATI cards have built in ability to handle movie playing and quality enhancements. You would be surprised just how much CPU power it takes to run a blue ray movie or any movie for that matter, and as for quality, its gonna be lacking with the onboard GPU that you have chosen.

In the same ranks, you dont need to go all out and buy something for gaming if you dont plan on doing so. Just pick yourself up a bottom end ati or nvidia capable of rendering codecs and taking the load off of your cpu.
 
Oh yeah, your definitely right dude, you need a case, dont be like me and buy the cheapest thing out there and end up smacking it every time it starts to rattle or becoming eneamic because you want to install or move your hd for better cooling(cheap cases always draw blood, sharp edges)
 
Got myself a decent case already, pc was overheating in the tiny HP case it came with so bought a new one last year which is pretty big and great cooling.
OK maybe it's worth going for a seperate GPU but would it be worth going for a cheaper motherboard without onboard graphics then?
Also was looking and is it worth getting the black edition CPU as I don't plan on overclocking it. I had a look and the only AM2+ Phenom II's were the X4 920 or the X4 940BE.
If someone could reccomend a good motherboard cheaper than the Gigabyte (£65.84) without onboard graphics:
AM2+ Motherboards
A good GPU that is cheap but can easily play back hi-def videos and do things such as desktop effects:
PCI-E GPU's
and finally am I correct that the only Phenom II's for AM2+ are the 920 and 940BE, is it worth the extra for the 940 if i don't plan to overclock at all?
AMD CPU's
Thanks, sorry for so many questions/changing my mind so much. Want to get the best for my money and make the pc last as long as possible.
 
Ignore my last post, decided to leave a GPU for now, if the onboard HD3200 isn't enough I'll buy a more powerfull GPU later.
Sticking with the 940BE aswell, its the fastest anyway and I can OC in the future if i want
 


Well, as for the PSU, the one that you picked is more than enough, I still to this day can never understand why and the hell people go all out in this area, yes, its important but unless your gonna be running a super computer, which the one you described isnt, then I recommend exactly what you picked. I myself like the OCZ Stealth series due to the quietness, wattage to price ratio but the 400 you picked is a decent one and will do more than enough.. Its a myth that you need any more than that unless your gonna be running a sly or crossfire system, your MB and CPU including memory and all its do dads are only gonna actually tax around 90(idle)-130(full boar). Hard drives now a days(7200 WD cool n quiet) uses around 10 watts cranking. well, after that, theres not much to take, so your only using tops 200 of the 400 watts...

Another thing that people dont think about,, PSU's have whats called an efficiency range, and the one that you picked is most efficient where you will be running it, its about 83% efficient at 150-200 watts, now if you were to be a not so intelligent person and go all out and buy a 750-1000 watt super duper PSU then your eff-range would be around 500 watts(depending on model and make).

My recommendation to you for a MB with GPU power that you would be happy with is the BIOSTAR TA 790gx, it comes with an onboard video that is capable of doing even decent gaming, so I take back my last post, I just had to do some research. It will handle all your HI-def needs and it will do HDMI and VID, dual displays also. I like biostar too, they have a great BIOS and they come phenom II ready.
 


Sorry dude, one last thing,, your buying a Phenom II, not a Phenom. Ditch that memory and only go for a speed of 1066. You will absolutely regret it if you go with that 800 series memory because the Phenom II is designed around a ddr3 platform. This translates into, you need memory faster than what current DDR3 ram is and the only ram that beats ddr3, is ddr2 1066. I recommend Kingston Hyperx 1066 memory, yeah, its a little pricey but at least you will be getting the most outta your Phenom II but opening that bottleneck.

Besides that, your ready to order your computer... BTW, my memory choice of brand is just my taste pick any decent brand you want, ive just used and abused Kinston for generations and I just happen to know it to be reliable.
 
Yeah I've found 2 X 2GB DDR2 1066 for only £10 more so was planning to get it anyway as it will help if I ever plan to OC.
You said the biostar mobo came phenom II ready,
does the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H come phenom II ready aswell or will I have to update the BIOS first (and if so how would I do that without a CPU?)
 
What you mean the biostar mobo came with the PII?

You can get the phenom II in a combo package with the new biostar 790gx board but, doesn't come with it free...

As to the 780g, no it doesn't come with the board in a combo, only boards i see with it are 790fx's/790gx's.
 
No sorry I should have explained better, I meant will the Gigabyte mobo work out the box with the Phenom II or would I need to update the BIOS first
 
I did some research and as it stands that is a little older chipset you are rolling the dice on it. It all depends on when the MB was produces as to how or when the bios was established, in other words, you may or may not have to update the bios. No worries though, cuz even if the BIOS that you get with your MB is older and does not automatically identify it as a phenom II then it will simply identify it as a Phenom I series cpu and all you will need to correct it after installation of the os of your choice is upgrade the bios to the newer one(as i said, this only being the case of you receiving an older bios).
I myself do not recommend Gigabyte brand, thats cuz i work on computers every day and i have had issues with gigabytes and early death due to many different things, of course in the past Asus was one of the best and has of yet frequents my shop daily. I find biostar my top recommended brand name due to the ease of use and the fact that i know when i build a system with there boards even in the event of catastrophic failure there RMA department is top notch. I put gigabyte 3rd on my list of quality, but then again, there cheaper.
The main reason that I recommended the Biostar ta 790gx to begin with is that I didnt want you to have the annoyance of updating your bios and it is one of the only chipsets that come with a bios that is a sure shot on no need updating for under a 150 bucks with the onboard video that would make your setup complete. My second choice for your needs and my second choice in quality to cash ration is the MSI 790fx-gd70, or the EVGA 113-m2.
The evga comes with a geforce 8200 i believe and it has the bios you need. As I said, it doesnt matter which board you buy, i just picked the ones I would pick so my customers would have no issues even if they had to put it together themselves. I like easy, and i like time to be quick, cuz they both mean money.
Happy computer building
 
Thanks but the budget isn't quite going to stretch to a 790gx board.
Had to cut back as it is, now going for the x3 720BE cpu and the RAM I was looking at is now out of stock and the next cheapest was £35 when I could get 2 x 2GB 1066 for £4 more so gone for that.
 
All ordered
So my build so far is:
AMD Phenom II X3 720BE - £134.49
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H - £65.84
OCZ 4GB PC2-8500 DDR2 1066MHz Gold Dual Channel (2x2GB) - £39.04
Corsair 400W CX - £36.74
640Gb Western Digital WD6400AAKS SATA - £55.49
LG GH22N40 22x DVDRW-RAM SATA - £17.48
Delivery - £7
Total = £357

Thanks to everyone who helped, can't wait to get this now.
Will be posting back either with how great it is....or any problems (hopefully not lol)
 
Yeah should be straight forward putting it all together, my current pc is made from parts from a few different older pc's in a new case so done it all before.
 
Man, Im starting to feel as bad as people used to feel in Mexico about there currency,, HAHA. I was reading the price tag in el euro's and it about made me have a stroke, doing the math i paid about 600+ american peso's for the same computer. Funny and so so sad, just reminds me of how much i love my country, not only do we impose our will on the rest of the world, we'll make our people broke doing it.
 
Well it's all arrived and built and working brilliantly apart from 1 thing, only just noticed that the OS is only showing 3.3GB of RAM (should be 4GB), it's a 64bit OS.
Tried another OS and it showed 3.4GB and also came up with a message while booting
Code: 
Aperture is pointing to E820 RAM
Your BIOS doesn't leave a aperture memory hole.
Please enable the IOMMU option in the BIOS setup.
This costs you 64MB of RAM
I have looked in the BIOS but can't see anything about IOMMU or similar.
Also when the pc boots up it says:
Code: 
Testing Memory - 3668928K + 512M Shared
Memory Information - DDR2 800 Unganged Mode 64 Bit
The RAM is OCZ 4GB PC2-8500 DDR2 1066MHz
I've had a look in the BIOS for anything to do with RAM, it says:
Code: 
Base Memory 640K
Extended Memory 3582M[code]
and the only options in the BIOS to do with RAM are:
Set Memory Clock (which can either be "auto" or "manual", if set to manual you can set it to x2.00, x2.66, x3.33, x4.00 or x5.33) which was set to auto and was showing "x4.00 800MHz"
and the only other thing option was:
DCTs Mode (which can be "Ganged" or "Unganged") and it set to Unganged Mode
 
I thought thats what it might be 3.4GB +513MB is pretty much 4GB, strange that a different OS only showed 3.3GB though.
Also the RAM seems to be coming up as DDR2 800 when it's DDR2 1066, do I need to change the "set memory clock" option to "x5.33" (guessing this is the setting I need to change as it's currently on auto which has set it to x4.00 800)
 
You'll need to manually set the RAM speed/timings/voltage to the manufacturers specs in the BIOS if you want it to run at DDR2 1066 speed. Does this look like your RAM?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227362

I realize you got it somewhere else, but the specs should be the same. If that is your RAM, you need to change the "Set Memory Clock" to manual @ 5.33, set your RAM timings to 5-6-6-18, and set the RAM voltage to 2.1v.

You might need to press "Ctrl + F1" when you enter the BIOS to unlock the advanced settings including RAM timings.
 
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