New Motherboard/CPU Combo

[kjackson09]

Well silly me, I went out and bought a $50 game only to find out I will need $100's in upgrades.

I've already been biten on the upgrade for the future big, when I bought my ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe (2 yrs ago) only to not use have the features and find out that an upgrade CPU is like $200 and that upgrade isn't as good as current low end new stuff.....

Anywho...........

I want a CPU/Motherboard throw away combo. I don't give a crap about upgrading it because by the time that comes I will just get a new one. I plan to buy a decent video card (probably an 8800GT and 4GB of RAM)

As for the video card, I want bottom of the barrel price on a performing brand name board and intel core 2 duo CPU. My guess is I don't need half the features on the expensive boards.

Any recommendations?

Cheers.

 

[ch33zw1z]

If you plan on leaving hardware at stock speeds, go with the a P35 based motherboard and the E7200. Looks like you will need some DDR2 to go with it. If the E7200 is too pricey for you, check out the E2xxx series lineup.

 

[akhilles]

Depends on the game. If it's AOC, your pc exceeds the minimum reqs. If want a deal, look at your local store flyers such as Fry's, microcenter, etc. They usually have cpu/mobo deals.

Or you can do what I did for my family pc. Pick up a $50 Celeron dual core at 1.6ghz & o/c this mofo to 3ghz which is an 88% overclock. If it weren't for summer, I would've gone further to at least 3.2ghz which is a 100% overclock. A budget P35 board like DS3L ($90) or IP35-E ($70 after rebate). They don't game, but do everything else from Internet to photo/video editing. Or you can scoop the ebay for deals. I saved about $100 on a used X38 board.

 

[Roguestar]

8800GT $170
4GB DDR2-800 $85
Gigabyte EP35 DS3L $90
Intel E2200 CPU $80