PC Upgrade on a tight budget

So my PC can't take it anymore. It is still running but switching between Opera and Firefox takes about 3-4 seconds. So it pretty much reminds me of my old 800 Mhz PC with 256 MB RAM.

Anyways, it seems I will be upgrading it soon. Having been a little away from the hardware scene for a while, I am not really updated on the current prices. So I need some suggestions.

Firstly, since this upgrade wasn't planned, the budget is a bit tight. take it around 8-9k. I need CPU, motherboard and RAM. I found this in another thread:

AMD Athlon II X4 640 4.7K
Asus M5A78L-M LX 2.7K
Corsair Value RAM 4GB 1333 Mhz 1.2k

that totals to 8.6k

I am not very confident about Asus (my current motherboard's experience). So could you people suggest some other motherboard in this same price range. Also, if someone from Kolkata could update me on the prices. I'd settle for X4 635 if it is cheaper.

I am not much of a gamer, I watch HD Movies once in a while and mostly use my PC for running applications, can go upto 10 applications at time.

These are the things I already have:

AMD Athlon X2 3600+
Asus M2N MX SE (or whatever, I don't remember properly and it doesn't really matter)
1.5 GB 667 Mhz DDR2 RAM
MSI Radeon HD 5670 1GB GDDR5
Corsair CX400
20" Monitor, res 1600x900

Also, what should I do with my old hardware. Does CRY have any use for them?

and yeah, would an Intel option be possible within 10k. Don't want to go for it, just want to know how it compares currently with AMD

get these for 10k budget -

Will see if that motherboard's available. As far as the processor is concerned, I think I'll stick to Athlon, 640 or 645 depending on the price.

^^ That mobo is available on the market @ 2.6k and regarding the cpu it's 6.1k ( street price ) - Athlon II X4 645 is 5k and Phenom II X4 840 is 5.35k.

Will go to Chandni tomorrow or day after. I want to keep the total under 9k

Under 9K budget I hardly believe that you can afford Phenom II X4 & a good AM3 motherboard. :unsure:

10K is the minimum amount/budget what you need.

^^ he have to opt for phenom II X4 840 or Athlon II X4 645 then along with Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P (rev. 3.1) which will be around ~7.6-7.8k - with the rest of the money OP can get 2x 2GB Value series Ram from Corsair/Transcend/Kingston ;-)

topgear said:
^^ he have to opt for phenom II X4 840 or Athlon II X4 645 then along with Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P (rev. 3.1) which will be around ~7.6-7.8k - with the rest of the money OP can get 2x 2GB Value series Ram from Corsair/Transcend/Kingston

Topgear, the gigabyte mobo is having only 2 Ram slots and buying 2X2 GB module will block both the slots, preventing future memory upgrade without selling one RAM. So I guess a single Corsair 4GB 1333 MHz Value ram will be a better choice. The price is only 1.2K

Yeah, I know the budget is a bit low. That's why I am going for Athlon II X4, otherwise I really wanted to buy Phenom, 955 BE. Also, I will buy single module, dual channel won't matter much for my purposes. I run a lot of applications at the same time, which also includes Photoshop sometimes. So I might want to get another 4 GB in future. So I'll keep the slot free.
Also, I don't think I'll be using this desktop for long now (1 year at most). So no future proofing required and hence not much spending either.

^^ Even if you bought the 955 BE, you must have to buy a good AM3 board with good vrm. As you know that 955Be is 125Watt processor, pairing it with cheap AM3 boards won't be a good idea at all.

if he does not OC or do a very mild OC ( without increasing any volts ) and can keep the temps in check then he will be just fine ;-)

Cilus said:
Topgear, the gigabyte mobo is having only 2 Ram slots and buying 2X2 GB module will block both the slots, preventing future memory upgrade without selling one RAM. So I guess a single Corsair 4GB 1333 MHz Value ram will be a better choice. The price is only 1.2K

Ok ... nice idea mate ;-)

No OC. Doesn't matter. I don't want to OC. As for temps, I have an 80 mm side inflow fan. I'll get a 120 mm rear outflow fan, that should do it

OK, so Athlon is out. Nowhere in the market. Now I have 2 options,

Phenom 840 - 5200
Phenom 955 - 5800

considering that I am not at all interested in OC and both processors are 3.2 Ghz, I am more inclined towards 840. How much is the performance difference between the two?

Phenom II 840 is nothing but a rebranded Athlon II with higher clock speed as it lacks the L3 cache compared to the Phenom II processors. Performance wise it is equivalent to a 2.8 GHz or 3 GHz Phenom II processor. I think you can get it if you are not into OC.

OK, so it's pretty much what Athlon II X4 650 would have been had it existed. I am satisfied. I'll go for it

So this is what I'm gonna buy

Phenom II X4 840 - 5200
Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P - 2500
Kingston 4GB RAM - 1100

Total - 8800 + VAT 350 = 9150

Well, pretty much a 9k upgrade I wanted

Get the Corsair Value Ram DDR3 4GB 1333 MHz one. The price is around 1.2K. The reason being is Corsair offers limited Life Time or 10 Yrs warranty on their memory products.

Hmm.. I too was inclined towards Corsair, but it seems the availability is an issue. I will buy corsair if availlable, will cost just 100 bucks more

^^ Their availibility isn't an issue at all in chandni. You can find Corsair RAM modules in almost every renowned shop at chandni.

I'll straightaway ask for it then. When I went to enquire everyone was like
corsair... corsair... mmmmm.......

I said OK, give me Kingston or Transcend

But that was because I was only asking for the price, while buying I'll simply say either corsair or nothing

In which shop did you go?

Addition: just checked, MD computers have them in their list.

I don't know which whop you were into; All the major shops in Chandni keep Corsair Ram. Go to Vedant Infotech; their price is little lower than M.D. computers.

Cool Buddy said:
take it around 8-9k. I need CPU, motherboard and RAM. I found this in another thread:

AMD Athlon II X4 640 4.7K
Asus M5A78L-M LX 2.7K
Corsair Value RAM 4GB 1333 Mhz 1.2k
that totals to 8.6k

You can get this:
Athlon II X3 455 ~3.3k
Asus M4N68T-M LE V2 ~2.5k
4GB Value RAMs ~1.2k
Total= 7k.
There are a lot of entry level mobos to choose from.

Cool Buddy said:
and yeah, would an Intel option be possible within 10k.

Yes, of course.
Intel DC E5600/5700 ~3.1k
Gigabyte G41 Combo ~<3k
RAM~ Value RAMs 4GB-DDR3-1333MHz ~1.2k
Total= 7.3k
That mobo also has 2x DDR3 and 2x DDR2- RAM slots so you can still use your old RAMs.
Or get the new Pentium G620 Sandybridge processor and club up with a affordable mobo and 4GB RAMs and you are good to go! I hope it'll come to under 8k

The G620 is available for just 3.5k online.

Cool Buddy said:
Don't want to go for it, just want to know how it compares currently with AMD

For basic system, AMD pwnz Intel. (sandybridge and cpu for 5k above not counting)

aCe: dAvE said:
Yes, of course.
Intel DC E5600/5700 ~3.1k
Gigabyte G41 Combo ~<3k
RAM~ Value RAMs 4GB-DDR3-1333MHz ~1.2k
Total= 7.3k
That mobo also has 2x DDR3 and 2x DDR2- RAM slots so you can still use your old RAMs.
Or get the new Pentium G620 Sandybridge processor and club up with a affordable mobo and 4GB RAMs and you are good to go! I hope it'll come to under 8k
The G620 is available for just 3.5k online.

This config based on E5600/5700 is EOLed some time ago. So, no use of buying these processor. AMD is the way to go & future-proof too.

d6bmg said:
This config based on E5600/5700 is EOLed some time ago.

So? Also, OP asked for an alternate Intel system. It fits in the budget and its still available.

d6bmg said:
no use of buying these processor.

and why is "no use of buying"? Do look in the budget.

didn't really want to buy Intel, I though might be a 2nd gen i3 will fit in 10k, with RAM prices so low.
And Athlons are no longer available in Kol, only Phenom.

aCe: dAvE said:
For basic system, AMD pwnz Intel. (sandybridge and cpu for 5k above not counting)

not for long, I would say. Once Phenom II X4 is stopped, I don't think AMD will stand in competition to Intel at any price range. They are making a huge mistake stopping Athlon II X4 in favour of bulldozer

For an Intel Based config you will have to spend a bit more than 10k ;-)

Core i3 2100 @ ~6.2k
Intel DH61WW @ ~3.2k
4GB Value Series 1333Mhz DDR3 Ram @ ~1.1k

@ OP - but going with a Phenom II X4 840 makes more sense for you IMO as you will run 10 or more apps simultaneously 4 physical cores will be more helpful ;-)

aCe: dAvE said:
You can get this:
Athlon II X3 455 ~3.3k
Asus M4N68T-M LE V2 ~2.5k
4GB Value RAMs ~1.2k
Total= 7k.

Athlon II X3 435 @ 3.6k
Athlon II X3 440 @ 4k

These are the prices of Athlon II X3 cpus - checked it a couple of days ago.

topgear said:
For an Intel Based config you will have to spend a bit more than 10k

Core i3 2100 @ ~6.2k
Intel DH61WW @ ~3.2k
4GB Value Series 1333Mhz DDR3 Ram @ ~1.1k

Not bad for around 10-11k, but I will stick to Phenom for now.

But as I said earlier, once Phenom goes out from the market, this will be the choice for low budget PCs. It's time I paid more attention to Intel processors and motherboards. I hardly have any idea about those.

Bought the following:

AMD Phenom II X4 840 - 5300
Gigabyte 78LMT S2P - 2550
Corsair 4GB 1333 Mhz RAM - 1120

A fairly good upgrade for a total of Rs. 8970 including VAT

Feeling nice, a more than 3 fold increase in performance.
Thanks everyone

congrats. enjoy performance boost.

Cool Buddy, congrats on your purchase, now enjoy it. And don't forget to post pictures in the Show Off section.

Cool Buddy said:
Bought the following:

AMD Phenom II X4 840 - 5300
Gigabyte 78LMT S2P - 2550
Corsair 4GB 1333 Mhz RAM - 1120

A fairly good upgrade for a total of Rs. 8970 including VAT

Feeling nice, a more than 3 fold increase in performance.
Thanks everyone

Congrats!! Post some pics when you have some time.

Cool Buddy said:
Bought the following:

AMD Phenom II X4 840 - 5300
Gigabyte 78LMT S2P - 2550
Corsair 4GB 1333 Mhz RAM - 1120

A fairly good upgrade for a total of Rs. 8970 including VAT

Feeling nice, a more than 3 fold increase in performance.
Thanks everyone

nice purchase and congrats ;-)

Thanks everyone. Might not be able to post pics as digicam is not working.

What's the normal temperature for Phenom 840. Mine is running below room temperature, hovering around 22-24C. Never seen a processor run that cool, room temp is around 23-24C. Asking because I want to make sure that the temperatures are being reported correctly.

^^ I think the temp reading is correct and it's due to winter season I guess - my Phenom II 955BE @ 4Ghz with 1.5v vcore is idling at 26-28c under Hyper 212.

The temps are so low due to low cpu vcore in your case - just load the cpu with something like Cinebench 11.5 - the temps will go up for sure ;-)

BTW, post a cpu-z and temp reading screenshot using Hwinfo of your rig.

Just thought of posting this.

topgear said:
Athlon II X3 435 @ 3.6k
Athlon II X3 440 @ 4k
These are the prices of Athlon II X3 cpus - checked it a couple of days ago.

Where do you live? In 4th nov. (i think) I got the X3 455 at just 3290 (excl. tax) for a friend from Nehru Place.
I bought a whole system and Individual price of the cpu with 5% tax comes to approx. 3455rs.

^^ These prices are from Kolkata and here AMD Athlon II X3 and X4s are not easily available right now - after a lot of searching I found these two X3 models only though availability of Phenom II is still good - but the thing is most of the customers just wants Intel still now and the shops have good stock of Intel cpus only at reasonable rates ;-)

Athlon is not available in Kolkata any more. I wanted to buy that only, asked in many shops, but they weren't available. In the end went for Phenom 840. This one also will not be available in a few days.
The next cheapest option as of now in 955 BE. Their availability is good