Legit Reviews

alrighty, i've been commissioned to put together a new "family" PC for the rest of the clan

i've been an Intel guy since i got into computers a year or two ago (dodges the hail of rotten vegetables and fruit) BUT i grew up with AMD based systems, as my dad has been a programmer for 16 years, he had developed a likening for AMD. he's asked me to put together a PC fit for general family use: mild gaming, internet/email, the random video and audio editing, and beyond.

i implore the peanut gallery and the technologically gifted alike for a crash course on AMD mobos and processors. i've got the harddrive thing on lockdown, and i'm sure i can figure out a decent video card (i want to sneak him a mid-to-high range card as my younger brothers like video games ) but i'm not sure on any of the decent/high-end chipsets and all. help?

Im certainly no expert, but I like the Asus Crosshair Mobo with the AMD 5200+ CPU combo.

CPU
Mobo

Newegg is down, so I hope those links from zipzoomfly are the right ones.

lol i probably should have mentioned that its gotta be a cost-effective machine running! i like that mobo alot, but there's no way i could get my dad psyched about an almost $250 board... me on the other hand, if i were AMD bound, i'd definitely have that on my wish list!

found a nice ASUS board for under a hundred, but it seems the newegg server is down right now. will post later!

favorite reliable chipsets out there guys?

I personally have this http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6813131011
but $189 may be a bit high for a family machine

For $133, this looks like a decent board, lot of good specs & reviews plus it's SLI so you can put a cheaper video card in it and by a second later
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131013
It's also "Board of the month" or something like that on NewEgg


I've also heard AsRock (sp?) makes decent budget boards but I don't know alot about them (just remember hearing bout em somewhere)

Alathald wrote:I personally have this http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6813131011
but $189 may be a bit high for a family machine

If you have a wireless network in your home that would make the additional cost of this board well worth it!
Also the future expandability is a major plus!

BTW....The M2N32-SLI Del. Basically is a Crosshair without the LEDs and the LCD poster!

built in wireless is DEFINITELY a plus in my house. wireless in every room and all.

i'd come across this board: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6813131096
and i was wondering if anyone has used it or knew anything about the chipset on it. i have a feeling i'll end up with the ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless mobo, but you gotta compare right?

camaroguy1998 wrote:

Alathald wrote:I personally have this http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6813131011
but $189 may be a bit high for a family machine

If you have a wireless network in your home that would make the additional cost of this board well worth it!
Also the future expandability is a major plus!

BTW....The M2N32-SLI Del. Basically is a Crosshair without the LEDs and the LCD poster!

Exactly why I bought it! Well, ok I got it cause my mother offered to by me a christmas present up to $200 and it's a damn fine board

All I want to say is : don't get the ASUS M2N-E

It seems like it is a board that HP would use for a low-end PC.

try a low end amd dual core and 1 gig of ram and something like x1650/7600gt(mid-high range) or find a 6800xt etc. a decent board would probably be an nforce chipset. doesn't have to be by any means but they are good usually. msi/dfi/asus are always good for me at least.

Tiger Direct Barbones are great deals. you could also look through their motherboard/cpu kits. then just find yourself a better psu for most of those barbones or a psu/gfx in general for the cpu/mobo kits.

Here are a couple I think are decent deals for bundles
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=2406 (core 2 duo)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=1619 (If you want the 939 Socket still this is a good processor and the mobo is fine I have it on another build.)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=2417 (AM2)
Prices Vary A lot on gfx's for midrange so just look around there are some deals to be had.

thanks a lot! i definitely have a wide array of boards for him to choose from now! he's an asus fan so i'm sure it'll be one of those boards, as for CPU i'm gonna be surprised if he springs for the C2D over AMD because of his past... we will see!

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... 2&NoMapp=0
is a good xfx xxx 7600gt. you can find slower clocked 7600 gt's with free shipping and a rebate of the same amount ish for 106 or so on zzf.

pretty good price for the card! the typical mixed blessing for computer guys, it seems like i'll be waiting a month or so before i can buy the parts, but with projected price cuts, i'm hoping i'll be able to beef up the CPU and GPU for both this system and mine, which i'll be saving for the highest level 8800 series. i'm thinkin it'll be worth it for my rig, but for the family one, i'll most likely go with a similar card to the one you just showed me, or a 8600 series card.