Low budget AMD Kuma gaming rig

[MisterPresident]

I'm building a budget gaming rig. I just want to play semi-recent titles at reasonable detail at smooth frame rates. I'm moving up from a P4 3.0 with GeForce 4! I'd be ecstatic to play any games made in the last 5 years lol. Would also be doing general workstation tasks, mainly multitasking, web surfing, research/writing, and occasional movies.

What do you guys think of:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 Kuma 2.7GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Dual-Core black edition Processor $60

MoBo:Foxconn A7VMX-K AM2+/AM2 AMD 780V Micro ATX AMD Motherboard $55

Memory: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit $47

Graphics: HIS Hightech H467QT512P Radeon HD 4670 IceQ Turbo 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported $66

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That comes to $260 shipped at Newegg. I have a mATX case with generic 400W power supply, Older 7200rpm HD and DVD-RW drive, and Cisco wifi card.


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Questions?

1. Should I go for a mobo with the SB750 southbridge? Seems it would allowCC and thus be better for overclocking.

2.Should I go for DDR2 1066 RAM? I have even heard this mobo will only detect higher rated memory at 800Mhz

3. Would my generic case and power supply be ok? Should I budget for an upgrade?

4. Anything I am missing/should be considering?

Thanks!

 

[Fox5]

I would:
1. You won't be overclocking a 2.7Ghz Kuma much more anyway. I'd go for a board that's rated to handle Phenom 2's though. Also, I'd go for at least an X3 Phenom II. Why buy a new computer now and get a processor that's nearly out of date? (though if you got an upgradable motherboard, you could always go quad core when it is finally out of date)

2. How much more expensive is DDR2 1066? If any noticeable amount, don't bother. There's no performance difference.

3. Generic power supplies are always iffy. As a rule of thumb, I don't trust any power supply cheaper than $40-$50.

4. The 4670 is getting a little dated too. You can find 4830s in the $70-$80 range that are significantly faster, and the 4770 should drop to that price range within a few weeks. (the 4770 is faster than the 4830 by a good bit)

 

[JTP709]

The SB750 would allow for much high clock speeds, but honestly I would think at that point game performance would bottleneck in your GPU. DDR21066 would allow for higher overclocking as well, so if you do decide to go SB750 i would go for 1066.

What kind of PSU do you have?

 

[razor2025]

1. Yes, SB750 will give you easier time overclocking. You might have issues with that board you've selected, do some research.
2. No, don't bother with, especially if you're going to use ACC with SB750. You just need to raise the multiplier and not bother with FSB.
3. Case should be okay as long as it has decent intake and exhaust (120mm each side should be sufficient). A Generic 400 watt is problematic if you want to OC. I suggest budgeting a bit to get a 450-500 watt PSU from a good brand.
4. If you want to stretch your budget a bit, moving to the $90 4850 Sapphire on sale will give you more bang for buck on the GPU side. 4670 is a good low-mid range card, just a bit too weak for my taste.

On a different note, if you can stretch your budget to $400, I think you can get a nice 500 watt PSU, the Biostar 790GX board, a X2 7850 (much better than 7750 for only $10 more), and 4850 or 4770 (if it's ~ $100).

That will give you much more lasting performance, and some overclocking potential. There's also some online posts about being able to unlock the 7850's 2 disabled cores, turning it into essentially a 9850 quad core. Not bad for $400...

 

[JTP709]

a Phenom II x3 720 will overclock much higher, perform much better, especially when Windows 7 is released and games take advantage of multiple core CPUs. However, if you're on such a tight budget, a dual core will do fine. My brothers dual core AMD x2 6000, geforce 8600gt, and 2gb of memory handles everything just fine, maybe not on the highest settings, but he can play any game on the market with acceptable settings.

 

[heyheybooboo]

+1 for the Radeon HD4830
(or the new 4770)

edit:

Mr. President .... Sir!

 

[MisterPresident]

Thanks for all the help guys.

As I'm on a tight budget, I ended up going with the Kuma 2.7, the Foxconn board (won't try anything serious) with Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro HSF, 2 x 2GB DDR800 RAM and the Radeon HD4830 from the egg. I'm heading out to find a nice PS and maybe a pretty new case


EDIT: Remember guys, used to playing counter-strike on a geforce4! Living in the past! Moving into the future!

 

[MisterPresident]

Apparently there is a new BIOS revision for this board that allows AM3 processors. May come in handy if I need to upgrade, though, that will be quite some time.

 

[Kraeoss]

dude is your name Bill by chance?...

 

[Hacp]

Get a E5200 rig instead. You'll be able to overclock it like a champ.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: Hacp
Get a E5200 rig instead. You'll be able to overclock it like a champ.

He already bought it.

Good choices though. If you are only able to stretch your budget a little, it's better to upgrade the graphics than the CPU. A Radeon 4830 is a great match for the X2 7750. Later on if you want to upgrade the CPU, you always can. Same with the graphics. But you'll get way better performance from an X2 7750 + Radeon 4830 than you would from an X3 710 + Radeon 4670.