Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 or Athlon x2 4600

[Athalus_nubie]

Double post??!!??

 

[gOJDO]

E4400.

 

[Athalus_nubie]

Hey guys and girls, time for my ten cents
im sure all of you read the system builder marathon (since its linked in here allready ;p)
Based on that, clearly if your looking for a gaming PC on the cheap, then get a 3800 X2 pair it with some cheap DDR2 667 ram (at least one gig!!)
and the most expensive graphics card you can get. if your into OCing, then dont skimp to much on the mobo, otherwise you will run into problems like exploding capacitors etc later on maybe, not to mention the fact that you wont get all the OCing options.
Plus you should be comfortably able to OC the 3800 to 4600 speeds ;p
oh and spend the extra on a good CPU cooler too if your going to OC. might add a few years of life onto your cpu
Thats what i would do anyways, well i wouldnt because i never build on a tight budget these days, but if i was ;p

 

[jaffa]

Have just completed a similar system for a good friend of mine, we looked at the following options:

AMD System:
AMD AM2 Athlon 64 4600 + Windsor Core, Dual Core 2.4GHz, 2x 512KB Cache, Energy Eff' Retail - £75.19
Gigabyte GA M61SME-S2, NF405, AM2, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 400/533/667/800, SATA II, ATX - £33.32
1GB CorsairXMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-12 - £45.40
Total - £160.94 inc p&p

Intel System
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300, Socket 775, 1.80 GHz, 800MHz FSB, Allendale Core, 2MB Cache, Retail - £73.17
Abit IB9 i965, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA II, ATX - £64.50
1GB CorsairXMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-12 - £45.40
Total - £190.09 inc p&p

Either add another 1GB later or swap 1GB for 2GB:
2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-12 - £80.65

Or if that's still too expensive, change the ram for the cheaper:
1Gb Micron Major, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-12 - £31.71
Which will take about £15 off the price, or £20 if you go for 2GB.

256MB Sapphire Radeon X1950GT, PCI-E(x16), Mem 1200MHz GDDR3, GPU 500MHz, 36 Pipes, RoHS - £86.96

1GB AMD with X1950GT - £247.90
2GB AMD with X1950GT - £283.14
1GB Intel with X1950GT - £277.05
2GB Intel with X1950GT - £312.30

These prices are from scan.co.uk. You could also try microdirect.com, or ebuyer.com. overclockers.co.uk is another good site in the UK.

Just thought this might be of interest. When you do decide to buy, price up your system at each of the sites i mentioned, depending on the offers at the time you may well get it cheaper at any one of those sites.