My New Build Cheap Gaming Machine

Hey guys I was on a 1000 dollar limit for building a PC! So heres what I built! Amd 6400+ X2 Dual Core Black edition ( great for overclocking) Used some arctic thermal paste, and a Rosewill double baring fan(Amazing little fan!, Has a dial to turn up or down) An OEM seagate 32mb cashe 250 gig hard drive( great review and great performance loads games amazingly quick) Biostar 770 am2+ motherboard ( hesitant at first but it turns out that this is an amazing board with great overclocking features) 4 gigs of G skill dual ch. memory 800 ( great memory so far used for my master pc as well) I used a ATRIX CSCI-G8022C case ( great case look really great, great air flow, lots of room!) it cam with a 480 watt PSU and it has not failed me ( had to buy a 6 pin pci e adapter cable 10 bucks) Last but not least the child to my monster the ATI visionTek HD 3870 video card( absolutely amazing card!!!!!!) All that and a cool blue sata cable, my logitech wireles laser mouse and keyboard and a 500 gig external hard drive came to a little over 900 bucks!! Well guys tell me what you think of my cheap build

 

For a build with a budget that high the CPU isn't very good, and it's probably one of the worst CPUs you can buy for overclocking. (I clocked my cheapy Core 2 Duo up by 75%, above 20% with the black editions is practically unheard of)

CPU: 5/10 - see above
Motherboard: 6/10 - Biostar boards work well for how cheap they are, but their build quality whilst better than most cheap boards, isn't exceptional
CPU Cooler: 5/10 - Just because it works doesn't mean it's great. Rosewill are a prime example of that. The stock coolers with processors are usually bit naff, so even this cooler will be an improvement, but most rosewill products are very poor quality indeed.
RAM: 9/10 - G-Skill stuff is high quality and should serve tou well.
Case: 5/10 - sufficiently cooled, but again low build quality.
PSU: 2/10 - I'll be amazed if that doesn't break or go up in flames before the end of this PC's life, you are STRONGLY recommended to buy a decent one. Also be advised that you should NEVER use a molex to PCI express power connector for a high end graphics card - if a PSU is up to the task of powering a modern graphics card, it WILL come with the necessary plug
GPU: 6/10 - I use an HD3870 myself. They're quite fast, but the build quality is disappointing to say the least. They have caused me no end of problems (I'm on my third).
Logitech peripherals: 8/10 - Logitech are a pretty decent brand, but not the best.

Overall PC rating: 4/10. The raw performance will be alright for the price, but there are way too many weak links in the system that could go wrong in the future.

 

well your an intel guy huh, lol...Unfortunately the amd 6400+ black edition kicks the crap out of intel core duo extreme in most of the benchmark testings, especially in gaming, and you dont think it does not overclock as well as an intel, well the black edition (like the intel core duo extreme) has unlocked multipliers which makes it an overclocking beast, and a small child could overclock this thing thats how easy it is, and the price 99 bucks!( mine is overclocked and stable at 4.2 gig) as far as my cpu hsf the Rosewill RCX-Z1 well just read the reviews, lol, It keeps my cpu overclocked at 20c without using the dial to turn the speed up. As far as the rest I can understand about the board it was only 60 bucks. The hard drive was a leap of faith, I did not want to purchase a seagate but the price and the reviews were great( Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST3250310NS 250GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s) and it is still working great and the rev iews are still good too! As far as my video card I have the x2 in my big one, but the VisionTek 900202 Radeon HD 3870 is pretty freakin sweet, I mean you said you were on your third one, did it blow or over heat or are u using crossfire? Its easily overclocked and its idle temp is 28c and when its at full use ( playing crysis for 4 hours) it gets up to 51c!Something else is it uses gddr4 and the 5.1 sound works great too! Well dont take my beat down on intel to your head im just an amd guy thats all

 

p.s Black editions do not include the HSF, Because of their overclocking capabilities, please review the cpu and get back with me thanks!

 

tigerdirect is not all that efficient but this looks correct! http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3273141

 

the amd 6400 reaches its limit around 3.4ghz i would like to see a cpuz validation on your overclock of 4.2ghz. also it cant beat the core 2 extream. that is a qaud core yours is a dual core. quad wins.

 

there is one C2E dual core, krj. the conroe XE. but it's being superseded by the C2E quad core easily, and they don't make them anymore.

to the OP, to validate a stable overclock, it must run ORTHOS for 24 hours with no errors.

 

i knew that there was a dual c2e but since it is not from the latest generation of chips i assumed that it didn't count. but it could also beat the 6400 if overclocked.

 

Ah you've got to love fanboys, though I have to say, AMD fanboys are pretty rare these days. I have had as many AMD CPUs as I have Intels, and the ones I have owned I had no issues with whatsoever. There's no ignoring the real facts though. The Athlon64s get owned by the Core 2 Duos and can't overclock for toffee. Regardless of the unlocked multiplier the Athlons just aren't that stable and so you can't get too far with them. 3.6Ghz would be impressive, I wouldn't expect to see much more than that. As for your CPU temperatures, I noticed you read what it said when you first turned the PC On ad when the processor wasn't doing anything. Not even watercooled PCs make 20C on an overclocked CPU, you're talking crap.
Didn't spot the hard disk in the original post, but I'd rate it 9/10. Seagate drives are very fast, reliable and relatively quiet, they're not absolutely quiet though which is why they only get a 9.

As for my 3870s, I ordered two to play around with and see which would be the better one to have (Powercolor or Sapphire), and the sapphire one came DOA. I replaced that with an Asus one which is working alright, but shortly after I did that, the Powercolor one now only runs games for between 30 seconds and 3 minutes before the PC will crash. This is at forced maximum fan speed. As much as I'd like the 3870s to be good, they just aren't. Perhaps with a third party cooler they'll be better, it's something I'm going to try out in the future. I've also tried playing with crossfire, but it's bad. Really bad.

As far as re-reviewing the CPU goes, the score remains. My CPU is now 16 months old and cost me £100 at the time (only a few months earlier I paid £230 for an Athlon64 X2 4200+). It overclocked by 75% no issues, and using a proper cooler (Thermalright Ultra-120A) it makes about 44C full load when running for anything more than an hour.
As for the Tigerdirect benchmarks, I note they compare the old Core 2 Duos, the really old first generation ones. They're still fast CPUs, but the E6750 and E6850 make mincemeat of the 6400+ Black edition.

 

......actually I use everest to see my cpu temp and I have had this thing on for 2weeks straight and overclocked I dont understand why u are saying that I am saying crap. As far as the video card, you should really go with a visiontek(life time warranty) they also are the best of the 38070's! I am very surprised anout my 480 watt PSU its actually been great and it adds an additional fan that is actually not putting hot air in the case but cool air. Also the visiontek pushes the heat out of the case! I would really look into the amd b.e cpu's. I can encode 4 avi movies to dvd using intervideo, burn a data dvd and play Oblivion without any lag.

 

Almost all of the 3870s push the heat out of the case, that's the reference cooler, which is the one that blows... or rather doesn't. Raising the fan speed using rivatuner or whatever you're fine, but if left stock, the cards get very hot and can get damaged this way.

I can do all that you can do with your Athlon64 with my cheap core 2 duo, but faster. They really aren't that great. If you can't accept the fact that you made some ill-advised choices on your components then why did you post here in the first place?
You overclocked your 6400+ how much? Give us an exact figure. If it's anywhere near 4Ghz I'd be very surprised, and a 3.6Ghz a Core 2 Duo will beat a 4Ghz Athlon easy peasy.

Also, your PSU doesn't push cool air into the case, it sucks warm air out of the case. I've yet to see a PSU that pushes air into the case - and with good reason, PSUs create a lot of heat, if they did exhaust into the case they'd be warming it up.

 

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2014653,00.asp
The X2's are old but when the X2's and the intel's core2 duo came out they were on the same level as far as technology and amd pwned! Your judging and X2 vs a new core2? thats like me taking a P4 and putting it against a P3, Just cause intel is ahead now doesnt mean it will stay that way and you should really look on hard forum, and newegg for the reviews of the parts I purchased they are all top notch, your saying that they are not, but the majority wins.

 

I mean come on man I'm 10, Im sure that Amd will pull through again with their Phenom. Amd has always beaten Intels price, for us poor people they are awesome! Just judge something on the same lvl, for gaming and encoding Amd will rock your socks

 

I can overclock that easy without even changing the voltage on a black edition

 

you do relealize that the best phenom is more expensive than the q6600 and the q6600 is alot better. also if you cpu really overclocks that well prove it. use cpuz and post a validation.

 

I can overclock my CPU a good 50% without it needing any extra voltage. That would put your Athlon64 at 4.8Ghz... Hehe, fat chance.

Actually no, the 4800+ was on the same level as the E6400. The E6600 and E6700 WHICH CAME OUT ON LAUNCH DAY absolutely demolished the Athlons hands down. As for the X6800, lol.

The P3s were actually faster, just so you know. A 1.2Ghz P3 and 2.0Ghz P4 had it about even.

I notice you still won't tell us how far you overclocked your CPU because you're embarrassed at how pathetic the result was.

I tested Assassin's Creed with my 3Ghz E4300 and a friend's X2 4200+ overclocked as far as it would go (and his is watercooled!). My game ran pretty smoothly, and his lagged, pretty badly. At this stage he had more RAM than me (3GB vs 2GB) and we both had the same graphics card, X1900s. In fact his was better, an XT-X versus my XT.

You're talking crap and you know it.
I wanted AMD's Phenom to be good, I really did, having a one horse race market is not good for the consumer, but the fact of the matter is that it isn't, Intel have the Quad core market to themselves, or they should, because the flagship new 9850 Phenom which is quite expensive can't even keep up with Intel's first and oldest Quad core, the significantly cheaper Q6600. In most tests the Q6600 comes out on top by about 10% - and then there's the fact that the 9850s can only be overclocked 10-15%. You can easily make 50-60% out of a Q6600 with a good cooler.
I used to be an AMD fan, but for the last couple of years their products have been pathetic. When I last upgraded my CPU I woke up and smelled the coffee. It's time for you to do the same.

 

I already told you the OC ( you should probably read it again) 4.2 ok now look what real people say about this cpu http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103191 stop wasting your time it clearly says its the best cpu for the price out there an intel chip like this would cost around 800 bucks and guess what the old intel chips dont match up to it so those dont count

 

that doesn't mean anything. if you don't post a cpu-z screenshot of your overclock, then it doesn't exist. for this situation, a video is needed.

the only reason amd prices are lower is because they can't keep up with intel's core 2 series. the cheapest core 2 duo will be able to overclock to a midrange amd.

all you have to do is accept the fact that your build is only mid range.

 

and all becaude its not a shitel huh lol

 

why won't you post YOUR OWN overclock results? is it because you're making it up, and everyone else caught you? over here on aD, no proof, no respect.

just post a video of your results, and everything will be dropped.