Been getting alot of opinions on this build I will finally do now since school is done.
copy pasta
Uses:Casual gaming/light media, not much hardcore video/graphic editing. When I do need to, leaving it to finish overnight is fine.
Price: Under $800 before shipping and taxes. Trying to cut as much costs as possible.
Retailer: Scoped out items from DirectCanada and some from Newegg.ca
Preferences: ATI and Seagate. Both haven't failed me so far.
Parts reusing-LCD, optical drives.
Plan on purchasing anywhere from a week or two to the end of the month.
Current build: Pentium d, XP, 1280x1024
I first had the X4 945 3.0 GHz as the processor and got a range of advice from just getting a 630 2.6GHz quad that doesn't have l3 cache and overclocking it(never done before)or risking and trying to get a trip core and hoping that the 4th core is just unactivated and to try to unlock it. But someone from another forum who seems respected and very helpful said a X2 250 3.0GHz, no l3, might be good enough. I did some research and while it is definitely not top of the line, it could still suit me.
Should I pump out an extra $100 for a 945 quad or will a x2 250 be good enough for my needs. I got a little confused because when I was recommended to look for a dualcore, some of the intel dualcores are at the same price or even more than most of the amd quads. I don't know if that's just an intel pricing consumer flaw or if the output is equal for the price.
Edit: and the new rig is also based on ddr2 memory. Some quick googling pointed me to the fact, dunnno if still stands now, that the biggest difference from ddr2 to ddr3 is something to do with energy use and high end ddr2 sticks didn't show that noticeable performance difference from ddr3 sticks.
rest of build
stuff like hd and additional ram can be simply upgraded when more needed.
and also any recommendations on how to get windows 7 cheap? the $100+ price tag isn't pretty and will probably just resort to sticking with xp for the time being.