Motherboard Help / General Gaming Computer Help

[TholomewP]

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~]

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]

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

[~Darkseeker~]

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]

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~]

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]

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~]

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]

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~]

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

[TholomewP]

I'm not sure about make or model or anything but it's DDR2 and I think 67 mhz.

[~Darkseeker~]

well, different 'types' of RAM have different qualities and ultimately, sizes.

Standard SDRAM (hardly used anymore) single speed with 168 pins.

DDR SDRAM (again, hardly used) is twice as fast (DDR means double data rate) and has 240 pins.

DDR2 and DDR3 SDRAM are 8x and 16x speed (i think) and have 240 pins per DIMM.

so, SDRAM wont fit in a DDR/2/3 slot, and DDR2/3 wont fit in a DDR slot. If the motherboard has DDR3 slots, you will need DDR3 memory.

it's all rather complex really, i'd advise really reading up on this stuff before undergoing an upgrade of this magnetude.

[TholomewP]

So can the motherboard you sent me support the DDR2 memory I have or do I have to buy new DDR3?

[~Darkseeker~]

pretty much every new Mobo is going to need DDR3 now, you'd be hard pushed to find a DDR2 motherboard with Phenom II Blk edition support.

[TholomewP]

Does different memory change between model or is it all pretty much the same besides speed?

[~Darkseeker~]

i'd just get a stick or two of this for use with the new mobo you'd be getting.

[TholomewP]

Okay so so far my shopping list is:
Newegg.com - CORSAIR 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model VS2GB1333D3 G [Memory]
Newegg.com - ASUS M4A77TD AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard [Motherboard]
Newegg.com - AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ955FBGMBOX [Processor]

Does all of my other hardware fit into the motherboard?

[~Darkseeker~]

it will indeed. But, what power supply do you currently have? adding a 125W CPU is going to bump up your consumption a tad.

[TholomewP]

The box says it is 450 watts.

[~Darkseeker~]

that might be enough, but be prepared to buy a bigger one (Corsair, Coolermaster, antec, OCZ around 500-600W) if your PC wont run.