Help choose AMD AM3+ Motherboard bundle. ideally up to £200

[ranj]

Hi Folks

 

My PC of nearly 8 years is finally going down the pan, its an old Pentium Dual Core D830 which I custom built. I am having a few issues with Hard drives continuously dropping out of the OS even though I have tested the disks which are all ok, blue screen of deaths etc. I have even reinstalled from scratch the OS.

 

I now am looking to purchase a motherboard CPU and memory bundle so I can rip the old kit out and freshen it up a bit. I don't want to spend too much as I only use the PC for internet and work which may comprise of me logging onto the corporate VPN but also I may want to run some test virtual machines using VMware workstation for R&D purposes and have very limited requirements for gaming, the only game I will probably play is via Steam and that is Counter Strike Source.

 

So I have been looking at a few options and because I dont want to spend loads, I think the AMD option would be the route to go for my budget.

 

This is what I have specced so far:

 

AMD FX-6300 6 core Socket AM3+ processor

8GB 1866Mhz DDR3 CL10 HyperX Fury White Memory

Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 990x Socket AM3+ ATX Motherboard

 

This is coming around £235 mark which is really a bit more than I want to spend, want to keep it to about £200 if I can.

 

I have the case, 3 Hard drives which includes 1 SSD, 500W PSU and a PCI-E graphics card which I plan to reuse with the new bundle.

 

As I dont reall keep in the know with PCs, I just wanted to get others opinions on this, ideally if there is anything out there for around £200 that could be better or same of what I specced that would be ideal. I have concentrated my efforts looking at Novatech, Amazon, Ebay, Scan, Aria and ebuyer for the parts. I can built the bundle myself also and dont need it prebuilt, if that will save some cash..which I think it will.

 

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. I been looking at second hand good via ebay, would these come recommended?

 

Thanks

[sonofsanta]

I'd say an i3 (dual core with HyperThreading) will be much more capable (and quiet, and cool) than the AMD 6 core (that's only really 3 cores with hardware HyperThreading, but the IPC is worse).

 

You can get an i3 for <£90, 8GB RAM for £50, and motherboards from £40 (I prefer Asus, GIgabyte are also solid). That's £180. If you want to push the boat, for £50 more you can either get an i5 (genuine quad core) or a pair of 8GB sticks - so at £230, either way you've got a much better proposition than the AMD + 8GB above. FWIW, I think more RAM would be more help with VMs.

[3s-gtech]

As you're not into modern gaming, AMD's APUs fit this bill pretty well as an alternative.

 

AMD A8-7600 3.1GHz Socket FM2+ 4MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor - Ebuyer

Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-D3H Socket FM2+ VGA DVI HDMI 7.1 Channel Audio mATX Motherboard - Ebuyer

8GB 2133MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL11 DIMM XMP HyperX Savage - Ebuyer or 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 DIMM (Kit of 2) XMP HyperX Savage - Ebuyer

[ranj]

Thanks for the replies... Another question I had on this was if I brought a Haswell i3 CPU do I also need to change the power supply or can I get away with my 5 year old 500W PSU?

[HTCPCP]

If i'm building a new machine, I always buy a new PSU for it too! After about 5 years, your PSU will probably be rather dusty, and has a higher risk of failure too.

 

I wouldn't buy a cheap unbranded or not very well known brand, but something like Antec VP-Series 450W Fully Wired Efficient Power Supply - Ebuyer (others are available).

[ranj]

Thanks after much looking around at researching and trying to meet my budget as well as salvaging any parts I can from my old machine

 

I have decided to go with Socket 1150 Model supporting Haswell

 

Intel Core i3-4160 - System Build - PCPartPicker United Kingdom

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/ftwTRB

 

 

Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor

Gigabyte GA-Z97P-D3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard

Corsair 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory

 

Also would I need to purchase a CPU cooler or doesnt the processor come with one included?

 

If I need to purchase one I am thinking of the

 

Zalman CNPS 7500 AlCu LED Ball Bearing CPU Cooler

 

This comes in around £212 which I am happy to go with.

 

On the PSU question, I brought a 550W PSU about 3 years ago and would prefer to use that. Its a Winpower ATX-550L PSU HEC WinPower Win 550UB PSU Review - PCSTATS.com. Would this be compatible with the gigabyte board I am about to buy. On my current board which is an ASUS P5ND2-SLI socket 775 board I believe it uses the 20 pin plus 4 pin.

 

With the new components I plan to install some existing kit, this will consist of:

 

1 X SATA DVD/RW Drive

1 X 120GB SSD

2 X 750GB HDD

1 X PCI-16 GT8600 Graphics

 

Any additional advice would be greatly appreciated especially whether I can get away with buying the CPU cooler.

 

Thanks

Edited April 9, 2015 by ranj

[computer_expert]

As long as you go with the retail boxed version of the CPU the heatsink/fan should be included. If you go for an OEM version it will be just the processor in a brown box (at lest that's how I received an OEM AMD CPU from ebuyer back in the day!)