Motherboard and Amd processor

I have around 350 Dollars to spend at the moment and i have to get one good Mobo and a good AMD processor. Please recommend which motherboard to go for in this budget along with the proccessor. I want a Mobo with 2 PCI-e Slots. Also please recommend a budget Graphics card so that i can use my mobo for 3-4 months and then buy a good PCI-e card. I dont really have the money for the graphic card yet and i have to get a new Mobo and Proccessor. I want to spend around 40-50 dollars on the graphic card as i wont be using it much and ill save up the money and buy a new one after few months.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 2.2GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Dual Core Processor

Now it depends if you going to go with ATI or NVIDIA

ATI - ABIT AT8 32X Socket 939 ATI CrossFire Radeon XPRESS 3200 ATX AMD Motherboard

NVIDIA - ABIT KN8 SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

Or

BIOSTAR TForce4SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

I would agree with the CPU choice above but not the mobo choice. My personal choice would be the Asus A8N-SLi Premium in either OEM or Retail.

As for graphics cards, one of the following should suit you for a short time:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductCo ... ategory=48

Hmm, i dont have money enough to buy both the Amd X2 proccessor and the Asus A8n Sli board but i can buy either one of them. I know buying everything together will save me alot of money but im not good at saving up money and i usually spend alot on junk food and stuff so i think it will be ages till i finally save up the money for the mobo, processor and the Graphic card so im thinking of buying one of them.

Any suggestions whether i should buy the Mobo or Processor first ? I wont be using it till i have both of them because i dont have any AMD compatible board or an AMD processor. Does prices in Processors change more quickly then that of the Mobo ?

Go for the AMD Athlon X2 3800+ Windsor core AM2 Proc ($150).

Then go for the Asus M2N32-SLI ($150 - $200 depending on if you get the deluxe wireless version or the regular version).

Theres your $350.

Good budget card is still the 6600GT, you can scrape them up for $50 nowdays.

I also need to buy the heatsink and fan with the processor too right ? or is it included with the processor ?

Oh okey got it, its included.

By the way, whats the difference in the M2N32-Sli Deluexe wireless version and the regular one ?

One has built in wireless and the other doesn't.

How does the Asus A8N-SLi Premium compare with the M2N32-Sli ?

The M2N32-SLI uses the AMD Socket AM2 (the new hotness) and has two TRUE PCI-E x16 slots. The A8N-SLI is socket 939 (the old and busted) and has two physical PCI-E x16 slots, but one will run at PCI-E x16 and the other will run at PCI-E x4 or in SLI mode both will run at PCI-E x8.

And ONLY buy retail boxed processors they come with heatsinks and fans AND a full 3 year warranty. OEM processors have a 30 day or 90 day warranty only and no HSF.

I`m sorry, I have to say something about the embossed comments in the text above ...

Socket 939 is by no means "old and busted", yes it has been supposedly superseded by AM2 [ and Intel has the edge over it with Core Duo ] but there are plenty of stats to suggest [ and back up ] that AM2 is not a major advancement upon 939.

The biggest difference between the two socket types being the support of DDR2 [ AM2 ] but tests prove that there is no major increase in performance [ at this current point anyway ] and that in some instances, 939 actually performed better than AM2.

AM2 is just a stepping stone for AMD and they're venture into the realms of quad cores, DDR just doesn't have enough bandwidth to support four cores, so, DDR2 has been adopted.

Yes 939 is now surpased but there are some great bargins out there to be had in terms of what performance you can get for your money. If your on a budget, I wouldn't ignore 939 altogether.

If you are worried about having TRUE PCI-E x16, then the ASUS A8N32-SLi has two TRUE PCI-E x16 slots.

My suggestion on that note for a 939 system:

AMD X2 3800+ [ 512KB L2 ] and perhaps look at a small O/C [ 4400+ has 1MB L2 which is why it was originaly suggested ]
Asus A8N32-SLi or A8N-SLi Premium [ if your not bothered by SLi ]

Apart from DDR2, the hardware surrounding 939 [ SATAII, PCI-E etc ] is the same as AM2, so it is not like your going to be stuck for upgrades at a later date. It is only the socket type that has changed.

hehehehe

Dude, you need to watch the movie "Men In Black II"...

Otherwise, yeah nothing wrong with 939, but I mean this is the world of computers. And when shopping on a budget, you could get slightly faster and cheaper by going older BUT by the time this guy upgrades AM2 will be the "old and busted" hardware allowing him to grab cheaper stuff to juice his rig at a decent price giving him another year or two out of it, allowing him to save enough to buy the next thing (socket F?).

Unless it is something like RDRAM, I will always recommend the latest and greatest ish.

Never seen that movie, been wanting to though


I see what your saying about the cheap upgrades for AM2 at a later date, but at the same time, due to the reasons I gave in my previous post, I would still prefer to go with 939 and just wait for the next socket type and hope it has a greater performance increase over AM2 than AM2 currently has over 939.

Well, there is also the next offering from AMD as well. Which could increase performance as much as the Core line did over the Pentium. And you know they won't add anything to 939. Even for mediocre performance gains in the beginning, unless its a flop hardware which AM2 is probably not, I'll always suggest the later.

Then he's stuck with 939 and won't be able to get that new proc without upgrading the motherboard and memory. This way he's at the top of the curve so when AMD goes "he is our next Intel slayer" he can go "Cool, I'll take 1 midrange proc for cheap please," flash a bios if that and be on his way.