budget cpu/motherboard upgrade

[brett42]

I want to play Deus Ex 3, Max Payne 3, and Borderlands 2, and my Athlon II x2 250 is pretty painful on DX3, so I'm looking to upgrade within the next month or so. I'm looking for a new CPU, motherboard, and RAM, ideally for less than $200. I will be keeping the rest of the parts including a Radeon 6850, an SSD, 2 HDDs, and a DVD Burner. I like to keep the PC speakers, headphones, mic, and TV plugged in, and my front port broke, so I need a motherboard with more than 3 audio jacks. I don't really care about SATA speeds or USB3. I'm in Hawaii, so Amazon with free shipping is almost always cheaper.

Right now I'm looking at:
G860 for $73
Intel h61 for $74
4GB Kingston DDR1333 for $18

Has anyone seen benchmarks on the g2120? I was waiting for the low end Ivy Bridge to come out before upgrading, but I don't know about paying $20 more for a die shrink and 100 MHz. Are there any cheaper 1155 motherboards with extra audio jacks? Any other potential problems or suggestions?

Thank you.

 

[crazymonkeyzero]

In all honesty, with a $200 budget, don't expect spectacular results, but here's my 2 cents on an upgrade.

cpu

I'd go with the core i3 2100. It's on sale for less than $110 with promo and worth the performance gain over g860.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115078

mobo, Asrock h61 $45 (check your audio requirements on it)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157315

ram
gskill 4gb ddr3 1600 $21

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231313

TOTAL w/ tax and shipping: $196

 

[brett42]

Hi,
I was considering an i3 2120 for $112 before I saw how low the Pentiums had gone.

Can you explain why the i3 is worth the premium for gaming? Most game benchmarks I've seen show the performance (bench) as close to identical, but I haven't been able to look up Pentium benchmarks on the specific games I want to play

 

[DominionSeraph]

Will your motherboard handle a Phenom II X4?

http://www.amazon.com/AMD-Phenom-3-4Ghz-512KB-4000MHZ/dp/B002SRQ214

 

[brett42]

Thank you. I hadn't even looked at any AM3 processors. My M4A785-M does list it as supported, and it looks like the Phenom II can do what I want. My RAM is only ddr2-667, but it looks like ddr2-800 only has a 5-10% penalty vs ddr3 1333, so that should be OK.

 

[lehtv]

Phenom X4 is the way to go in your case if you don't really need any of the features that a new motherboard might bring.

 

[mfenn]

Agree. The most straightforward (and cheapest) way to go is probably the Phenom II X4. Save the rest of the money for the next upgrade cycle.