# CPU and motherboard questions



## MrPhox (Jul 11, 2016)

Hello

Well I have a old, well I know its not recent but I don't know how old it it.

My new "not brand new" computer motherboard is a ASUS M2N SLI with my old AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual core 4200+ @2.20Ghz.

I know that the mother board can take soket AM2 @ 1000Mhz Athlon 64, Athlon 64FX, Athlon 64x2 and Sempron. So 1: I want to the difference between each CPU and 2: what is the max I can put in CPU power?

I know, if you have a week video card, the CPU wont do much. So my week video card is EVGA Geforce 210 1024MB. 

I know that the mother board can go up to 8 gig of ram at 64bits (I'm with 4 gig of ram at 32Bits) but the upgrade are for later.

I was just wondering about the CPU I can put in it.

My first upgrade will be a more powerful power supply. After that 2 good video card that are SLI compatible.

I got 3 HD, 2 x 500 and 1 x200.


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## Sergei Nóhomo (Jul 11, 2016)

MrPhox said:


> Hello
> 
> Well I have a old, well I know its not recent but I don't know how old it it.
> 
> ...



Mate holyshit that board is complete and utter trash with fucking DDR2 RAM. Just get a new PC considering your motherboard is going to be your biggest bottleneck unless you get an equally shit CPU, which then they'd both still be slower than a slug.

Seriously, you'll pay more to "upgrade" that PC than it would be to make a new one from scratch. DDr2 RAM is expensive as balls (upwards of 60$ per gigabyte)


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## Yakamaru (Jul 11, 2016)

*Looks at specs and cries uncontrollably*

Oh god, I can't imagine gaming with these specs..

Get a completely new system or get used parts that are maybe 1-2 years old.


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## MrPhox (Jul 11, 2016)

If I cold afford one I would have.

Beside the only recent game I have is Diablo 3 and its running fine on it.


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## Sergei Nóhomo (Jul 11, 2016)

MrPhox said:


> If I cold afford one I would have.
> 
> Beside the only recent game I have is Diablo 3 and its running fine on it.



Diablo is 3 _old
_
If you don't have the money for a new PC then don't bother trying to upgrade your current one. You'll just be throwing money down the drain as though you were buying a fursuit; both equally useless


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## MrPhox (Jul 11, 2016)

Yea. But I have some priority and I don't know when I will be able to buy parts for a better one


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## MrPhox (Jul 11, 2016)

Hmm, well there are some games that I would like to try, but this com is too week to run it. HOMM 6 and up.

Movies I can watch them with what I have, maybe a bigger monitor for 1080p would be interesting. Surfing the net is no problem or viewing movies on it. 

And no rush. But I would like to have something "new" but not a gaming computer. Don't need that, beside I would have little use for its power


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## Sergei Nóhomo (Jul 11, 2016)

MrPhox said:


> Hmm, well there are some games that I would like to try, but this com is too week to run it. HOMM 6 and up.
> 
> Movies I can watch them with what I have, maybe a bigger monitor for 1080p would be interesting. Surfing the net is no problem or viewing movies on it.
> 
> And no rush. But I would like to have something "new" but not a gaming computer. Don't need that, beside I would have little use for its power



Yeah no don't even bother trying for HD with that potato as you'll be lucky to have it even work at all. If you do somehow happen to have a compatible video card and monitor then you'll likely only be getting some silky smooth 15FPS!


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## Saiko (Jul 13, 2016)

-AlphaLupi is right. Instead of updating your current machine, which is practically ancient, you should just build a brand new budget machine. Chances are you'll spend the same amount of money as you would on upgrades, but you'll have far more flexibility and return on investment.

I do have two alternative suggestions, though.

One, I think you should try to save up about $500 first and buy all the parts at once instead of buying them individually. Unfortunately, sometimes you get defective hardware; and usually the only way to find out is to build the damn thing and find out the hard way. Buying everything at once will let you test for this without the warranties expiring, so you can get them replaced more cheaply (perhaps even for free).

Two, I recommend spending an extra $35 on an additional 4 GB of RAM (for a total of 8 GB), so you aren't too restricted. Unfortunately, a lot of popular modern software like Windows, Chrome, and Kerbal Space Program aren't all that intensive; but they hog RAM like you wouldn't believe. The extra $35 here will be an extremely cost-effective way of mitigating these kinds of issues. That being said, if the $35 is a problem, or if you're impatient, you can most definitely purchase -AlphaLupi's build as-is and upgrade it to 8 GB later.

Apart from those two suggestions, though, definitely go with what -AlphaLupi said. You'll be glad you did.


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## Electro⚡Spectrified (Jul 13, 2016)

-AlphaLupi said:


> In this case, I still think that building a new computer would still be the better choice, but you obviously don't need to spend mad money on it either. And again, no rush = take your time. It took me several months to build mine because I wanted a powerhouse $1000+ PC and was on a tight budget the whole time.
> 
> At first glance, $400 might seem like a lot of money. However, you do not need to buy everything in one sitting. Purchase what you can when you can. Found a $50 bill on the floor? Get the case. Made an extra $80 last week? Purchase the motherboard and power supply. Etc, etc.
> 
> ...


I agree, I think the first priority is getting a new motherboard. 2nd get a new graphics card. I don't think you should stress too much over a CPU. I run an Intel i5 and it hardly goes over 30% during gaming. I personally recommend spending over $100 on a decent graphics card. Literally yesterday evening my brother was at Best Buy and he called me and ended up buying me an AMD XFX Radeon R5 220 with 2GB DDR3, for $50. It replaced my AMD Radeon HD 5450, which came stock. I was kind of sorry I had him get it for me, because he didn't want me to pay him back but it doesn't perform much better than the previous card did, and that he didn't get what he payed for. (Or that I didn't get what I would have payed for) Keep in mind, AMD has crossfire, their own version of Nvidia's SLI. I think both companies are about equivalent. Just be very careful when investing in a graphics card!!


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## Sergei Nóhomo (Jul 13, 2016)

Saiko said:


> -AlphaLupi is right. Instead of updating your current machine, which is practically ancient, you should just build a brand new budget machine. Chances are you'll spend the same amount of money as you would on upgrades, but you'll have far more flexibility and return on investment.
> 
> I do have two alternative suggestions, though.
> 
> ...



Wow okay ignore the first guy who already said it was shit and would cost more. I see how it is


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## MrPhox (Jul 13, 2016)

I was looking at some video card on ebay and found this one: Nvidia Quadro FX 4800

Also someone would build me a computer. here the specs

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-B150M-D3H (rev. 1.0) LGA 1151 Intel B150 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro AT
CPU:                  Intel Pentium G4400 Skylake Dual-Core 3.3 GHz LGA 1151 65W BX80662G4400 Desktop Proce
RAM:               G.SKILL NT Series 8GB 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2133 (PC4 17000) Intel Z170 Platform
Tower:            Rosewill BLACKBONE Computer Case - ATX Mid Tower, Black Steel & Plastic
Power supply:EVGA - 80 PLUS 600W ATX 12V/EPS 12V Power Supply - Black
Video card:   EVGA GeForce GT 710 DirectX 12 01G-P3-2711-KR 1GB 64-Bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 Low Pro


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## Sergei Nóhomo (Jul 13, 2016)

MrPhox said:


> I was looking at some video card on ebay and found this one: Nvidia Quadro FX 4800
> 
> Also someone would build me a computer. here the specs
> 
> ...


Mate don't go anywheres near dual core unless it's an i5 - i7. Most games now require quadcore+
You also want to stay away from second hand since that shit has no warranty and could break down at any moment

Minimum PC:

AMD Athlon II x4 640 @3ghz
Nvidia GeForce GTX 650
8GB DDR3 RAM; Ripjaw or whatever the fuck you want
ASRock 880GM-LE FX Mobo
Preferably a SATA drive at the very least or, if you want to experience nutbusting speeds, then get a SSD and put your OS on it

This shit can even run DOOM 2016 at ~20 - 25 FPS with everything set to minimum, so it can handle many other games. Hell it can even run Darksouls 2 at near max with a stable 40 - 50 FPS


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## MrPhox (Jul 13, 2016)

What I get is new build. As for the video card I was just looking at ebay for fun.

I heard of SSD, that seem interesting.


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## Sergei Nóhomo (Jul 13, 2016)

MrPhox said:


> What I get is new build. As for the video card I was just looking at ebay for fun.
> 
> I heard of SSD, that seem interesting.



Basically it goes like this:

HDD < SATA < < < < < < < < < < < SSD x5

However SSD are also much more expensive for the smaller amounts compared to SATA and I don't even know if it's possible to obtain a HDD anymore from legit sources


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## MrPhox (Jul 13, 2016)

Its easy to buy HHD. The biggest I have seen is 8TB. Bestbuy and other computer shop have HHD sata available for a faire price.  Seagate Desktop HDD 8TB 3.5" SATA6 256MB Cache OEM Hard Drive (ST8000DM002) $409.00 

Canada Computers & Electronics | Computers, Computer Parts, Laptops, Hard Drives, PC Hardware & Accessories Sales


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## Sergei Nóhomo (Jul 13, 2016)

MrPhox said:


> Its easy to buy HHD. The biggest I have seen is 8TB. Bestbuy and other computer shop have HHD sata available for a faire price.  Seagate Desktop HDD 8TB 3.5" SATA6 256MB Cache OEM Hard Drive (ST8000DM002) $409.00
> 
> Canada Computers & Electronics | Computers, Computer Parts, Laptops, Hard Drives, PC Hardware & Accessories Sales



Yes, that's a SATA


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## Electro⚡Spectrified (Jul 14, 2016)

The amazing thing is that I bought a 2 GB stick of DDR3 RAM for $1 from a used computer part store near me named RJM. It was on the bargain shelf. I took it home and installed it and it worked fine. Why would someone sell 2GB DDR3 RAM for just $1? You just never know what bargains you can find out there for computer parts.


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## Sergei Nóhomo (Jul 14, 2016)

Electro⚡Spectrified said:


> The amazing thing is that I bought a 2 GB stick of DDR3 RAM for $1 from a computer store near me named RJM. It was on the bargain shelf. I took it home and installed it and it worked fine. Why would someone sell 2GB DDR3 RAM for just $1? You just never know what bargains you can find out there for computer parts.



Because it's a huge gamble that it wouldn't be compatible with most other sticks. 2 GB RAM is nothing


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## amee2k (Jul 14, 2016)

Yeah


Electro⚡Spectrified said:


> The amazing thing is that I bought a 2 GB stick of DDR3 RAM for $1 from a computer store near me named RJM. It was on the bargain shelf. I took it home and installed it and it worked fine. Why would someone sell 2GB DDR3 RAM for just $1? You just never know what bargains you can find out there for computer parts.


Yeah... Most boards only have four slots, so with 2GB bars you're stuck at 8GB max, which is moderate by today' standards. Sticks that small often end up cheap because lots of people replace them with bigger ones after upgrading from 2x2GB to 4x2GB and now to 4x4GB or something. And DDR3 is about as cheap as it'll get (like 5$/GB new, even in large bars) since DDR4 is about to come out into the mainstream market


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## darien (Jul 15, 2016)

MrPhox said:


> I was looking at some video card on ebay and found this one: Nvidia Quadro FX 4800



The Quadro series are workstation graphics cards, they're meant for CAD and intensive 3d rendering, not for gaming.


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