Motherboard Help / General Gaming Computer Help

TholomewP · 02-06-2011, 04:10 PM

I recently bought a NVIDIA Geforce 9800 GTX to discover that my graphics card was not the source of the lag I received when I played Starcraft II. That's when I realized my computer has an Intel Pentium 4 processor. This dinosaur piece of shit was the cause of my frustration. So I looked into gaming cpu's, and came up with the AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2 GHz. Now I need a motherboard. And I know shit about motherboards. Can anyone help me? I know nothing of all the ports and plugs that I need. I wouldn't really pay more than $50-$75 for one. Thanks for the help

~Darkseeker~ · 02-06-2011, 04:22 PM

The Phenom is socket AM3 and the GPU (like most gpus) will use PCI-e x16.

i have this and it does me well.

beware though, if your gpu has a big heatsink on it, the PCI slots might be hard to get to.

TholomewP · 02-06-2011, 04:23 PM

What is a GPU or a heatsink? Or a PCI slot? Thanks for replying so soon

~Darkseeker~ · 02-06-2011, 04:30 PM

GPU - usually refers to graphics card, though literally it refers to the chip on the card.

PCI is an expansion slot

heatsink is used to dissipate heat away from components that generate heat, like a graphics card or processor.

TholomewP · 02-06-2011, 04:32 PM

Alright so let me get this straight. The GPU is my graphics card; my NVIDIA Geforce 9800 GTX? The PCI is where I install hardware onto my motherboard, and the heatsink sits on top of hardware to cool it down?

~Darkseeker~ · 02-06-2011, 04:35 PM

gimme a minute ill do a breakdown, but yeah you're essentially correct.

PCI just means Peripheral Component interconnect. It replaced ISA as the general expansion card bus. the PCI-express 16-speed is for graphics cards, but regular PCI slots can be used for RAID cards, USB expanders etc.

TholomewP · 02-06-2011, 04:36 PM

If I gave you a list of my hardware, could you see if it all fits into the motherboard you sent me? (Newegg.com - ASUS M4A78LT-M AM3 AMD 760G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard)

~Darkseeker~ · 02-06-2011, 04:41 PM

yeah, sure.

also: heres a breakdown that explains a bit about what i said earlier (this is my graphics card before it got installed)

like most graphics cards now, it has a plastic case over the heatsink, and only the fan is visable from the top.

TholomewP · 02-06-2011, 04:49 PM

The CPU I am going to buy once I get a motherboard is the AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT [Display adapter]
Acer AL1706 [Monitor]
Optiarc DVD RW AD-7170A [Hard Drive]

Just let me know if I should post anything else. I got all this information from Belarc Advisor.

~Darkseeker~ · 02-06-2011, 04:53 PM

The mobo i linked has SATA and an IDE port, so it will cater for any drive you might pick up in the modern day.

i did just remember something though, the M-LE has a cpu wattage limit of 95W, so give me a minute to find a similar thing with a higher wattage range.

also, what RAM does your machine use? you're going to need new memory too unless it's DDR3, which i doubt if it's got a pentium 4.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-603-_-Product