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Help buying CPU and motherboard.
Hello guys, I know this will sound crazy, and I know it, but i thought that maybe here i could get some help. My cousin is going to upgrade his PC, and he just told me he wants to change cpu and motherboard and he only has 200 euros to use... I told him that with that money he won't be able to get a good processor AND motherboard, but maybe I am wrong? Anyone can help me and maybe tell me which ones could be the best for that money? thanks in advance
Comments
This motherboard GIGABYTE GA-F2A75M-HD2 (rev. 3.0) FM2+ AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard with an AMD A10 cpu will run $200 American, and 8gb of memory can be had for $80 American as well, which is close to the cost in Euros. It wouldn't be great, but it would work. You could probably buy cheaper, slower memory, but it may have a noticeable impact on performance.
Does he have a video card? What kind is it? If he already has a video card, you should be able to get a cpu, motherboard and cpu combo that will run decently well.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
What kind of video card and RAM he has? It won't help much for us to recommend him good motherboard + CPU combos if he can't attach the RAM he already has to the motherboard, or if he has so slow video card that it'll just bottleneck the games.
Does he need to attach any IDE devices to the motherboard? (Hard disk and DVD drives that are 5+ years old use often IDE instead of SATA)
Does he need mATX motherboard, or can he also fit ATX to his case?
A motherboard is the most complex part of the computer to replace because all other parts are connected to it. He might get a lot better information if he could post all the components he currently has on his computer.
EDIT: I didn't see the post about GTX 285 when writing this. Then it might be useful to know what motherboard he has - is it some really old, or perhaps something he could just upgrade by buying a new processor? /EDIT
If he wants Intel, at that money likely his only alternative are I3 processors. They have really good single core performance compared to their price, but have only 2 cores compared to 4 cores that AMD's processors have at that price range. Many games on the market don't scale that well to multiple cores, so Intel I3 might not be bad choice.
But if his motherboard is old, then it's likely he'll also have slow RAM that needs to be replaced with faster.
If he can't buy a motherboard that will fit his computer case, then I'd suggest trying to buy some cheap used PC with good processor + mobo but very bad graphic card (no dedicated graphic card at all), and just switching the GTX 285 he has to that PC.
Exactly what hardware does he have now?
Also, a new motherboard probably means a new Windows license, which would eat half of the budget right there.
He can't see what motherboard he has, and doesn't want to install programs like everest, so the only information I can get is that he has a nvidia gtx 285 1gb as graphic card, and processor Intel core 2 duo CPU E7400 @2.80 gHz and 4 gb ram (no more info on ram).
My guess was that with more or less 200 euros, he could get a normal procesor for 110-130 euros, a mother board for 40-60 euros and another 4 gb ram for 30-40 euros. But I would like some help as to which motherboard and procesor to choose, please
I'd recommend either getting a larger budget or keeping what he has a while longer.
You still haven't said what you're going to do about an OS license, as the old license won't be valid for a new computer.
His ram on that old board is going to be DDR2. Not going to get good performance mixing that old DDR2 with newer DDR3, even if you can put them together on the same motherboard. I think Quizzical is right, his budget is going to really restrict what he can get that's going to be effective and saving more money to increase his budget is going to be the best step. Might be a good idea to double it to at least 400 Euros.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
On a budget as small as the one posted, AMD is your best option for gaming performance. Intel offers better performance at the high-end for single-threaded performance, but he needs at least $1000 to make a system worth building around a i5-3570k or better CPU.
On a budget of $200-$400, your best bet might be to get an AMD APU and use the integrated graphics. The motherboard, CPU, RAM, and OS license will likely eat up the entire $400 budget. You will still need a case and power supply, but you can probably use the ones you have.
Take a look at Wikipedia for a list of AMD APUs and compare benchmarks on various sites. Look at pricing as well. When you find something you think you want, post here and someone can make suggestions to help you decide if the products are good or if you should buy something else.
I'd recommend buying a SSD hard disk if he doesn't have one already. It won't give any FPS increase, but it'll reduce loading times to less than half compared to traditional HDD, and the computer will feel much faster and more responsive.
It's also the only upgrade within that price range that won't cause compatibility problems with his old system. EDIT: Assuming he has a free slot in his case to install the SSD into. If it's really small case it's not quaranteed /EDIT
If he's going to insist on spending the money now, maybe see if he can get a used Core 2 Quad that fits the budget. That's not a sensible upgrade, but it might be the least bad way to spend 200 Euros, since it wouldn't also require replacing the motherboard, memory, or OS.