Legit Reviews

Hey guys, I've got a buddy who's looking to build a budget tower for daily use/minor gaming.
He got lucky and he's got a monitor, keyboard, speakers, mouse, and a desk all ready for when he can build something, and he's looking to spend about $500.

First thing that came to mind is the Pentium E2180, thinking about a nice, cheap overclockable chip.
All I need now is a good, solid chipset/motherboard that will be in the $70-$90 range or so, give or take $30 I think.
I have NO clue about these newer chipsets as once I built my rig, I stopped needing to be in the know (think 650i/680i chipsets lol).

So, cheap, solid, dependable, good overclocking potential, and upgradability.

I'm totally open for your suggestions here!
Thanks all!

from what i hear this thing is a monster: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813138123

Wow, never thought I'd see the day a Biostar board beat out the competition o.o

I've had some issues with Biostar before

I like the P45 chipsets, they support the latest CPUs, overclock nicely, and can support 8x + 8x Crossfire (depending on the board).

Were I doing an upgradeable budget build the following two would be on my short list:

non-crossfire - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128345

crossfire capable - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128344

Honestly, I know the guy, and I don't want him getting delusions of crossfire in a budget pc
Two companies I'm a die-hard fan of are ASUS and Gigabyte, so I think I'll pitch him a build sporting the the GA-EP45-DS3L
If you have more suggestions, please put them here! You never know how some of the lower end boards perform/how flexible their BIOSes are until you hear about them from others...

Got a more specific question, I know the memory standard on the DS3L is DDR2 1200, but none of the kits on the egg are in stock and all of them are quite expensive. Can DDR2 1066 be recognized in that board?

If DDR2 1200mhz is the max it does then it should support down to 667mhz (maybe even 533Mhz)

Dan

That's what I thought, but its one of those things that I easily forget. Thanks man!

According to this http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Mot ... -EP45-DS3L it officially supports down to DDR2-667.

I didn't recommend Crossfire (I'm actually a "single fast card" kinda' person myself) however you mentioned upgradability and that is one path that simply requires buying an additional 3850/3870/4850 down the road (not sure which GPU you had in mind). IMHO, unless you are playing at very high resolutions (1920x1200 and up) on a 24" - 30" then Crossfire and SLI are kind of a waste. My single 4870, overclocked, takes everything I care to throw at it with consumate grace .

I did a build for a system in this range that came out to $528.93 USD on the Egg. I didn't post that however as the initial question was on a mobo chipset and not "recommend a system build".

I think that the P45 is probably as future proof (like there is such a thing in this industry!) as you'll get at the moment in a mid-range build. You probably could find a slightly cheaper P35 board but I honestly think the money is better spent on P45. Just don't skimp on mobo or PSU!

OT to this thread, but in regards to what were were talking about on msn:

$515 = 2600XT ($55)
-- Bargin basement gaming! Set everything to low on 1024x768 and you'll probably have over 30fps

$530 = 9500GT ($70)
-- About a third faster than the 2600 XT

$560 = 3850 ($100)
-- Twice as fast as the 2600XT and then a bit more

$570 = 9600GT ($110)
-- Average 10-15% faster than the 3850. Some games the 3850 beats it though so it's not quite clear cut (still recommended over 3850).

$600 = 9800GT ($140)
-- It's an 8800GT so you know it's good! Probably only worth getting over the 9600GT if the monitor is a bigger res than 1280x1024.

Dan

I've run 3 of the P45 chipset boards and I have to tell you I'm a lot happier with them than my old P35 chipset Asus P5KC. Their Gigabyte P45 chipset boards (EP45-DQ6, EP45-Extreme, and EP45T-Extreme), on the 2 ddr2 boards with certain types of ram I had to undervolt the ram by as much as .2v but once I had that figured out they were a breeze. (Patriot ddr2 1200 low latency took .2v less, Reaper ddr2 800 took .1v less but ran stable at stock, Crucial Ballistix Tracers 1066 ran at every voltage and timing reliably)

I've run my e8400 up to 4.3 under recommended volts on them (1.375), they'll go higher easily but I don't like to overvolt the 45nm CPU's.

With the E2180 I have on an Intel 945 elcheapo Gigabyte board I hit 3.0 pretty easy, it's not a bad little OCer but it tends to run hot.

They weren't the best boards at picking up Ram default timings, had to set most of those across 4 sets of ram manually but other than that their solid performers.

On Crossfire I know your not looking to encourage him but I run it in different combination's on all 3 boards and it does great in benches, the increase doesn't translate as well into gaming.

Thanks Methious! From everything I've seen and heard, there's a lot to be gained from the P45 chipset, so that's why I decided to base the build off of that.
Anyhow, the tentative parts are:

Cooler Master Centurion - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119106

Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128345

Corsair CMPSU-550VX - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139004

Pentium Dual-Core E2180 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819116052

XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 HSF - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835233003

2x1Gb Super Talent DDR2 800 (cas 5) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820609027

Western Digital 640Gb HDD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136218

and the GPU will either be ASUS EAH2600XT or EVGA 9500 GT

looking at either $533.92 + S&H with the 2600XT and $548.92 + S&H with the 9500 GT... not a bad rig either way!

That's a pretty good price for a build. I need to pick up another CPU to play with got all the parts but the CPU and DVD/rw.
.

DMB2000uk wrote:OT to this thread, but in regards to what were were talking about on msn:

$515 = 2600XT ($55)
-- Bargin basement gaming! Set everything to low on 1024x768 and you'll probably have over 30fps

$530 = 9500GT ($70)
-- About a third faster than the 2600 XT

...

Dan

How about a 4670?

Edit: 1000th post!

It was about a week before the article came out, and the EVGA 9500GT is still a couple bucks short of the 4670, BUT this guy still hasn't saved up cash so I'll be sure to update this possible list once he's scraped his coin together