Budget(ish) cooler and motherboard for Dozer ?

[S1nn3r]

AMD is luring me in with the rebates/cash-back on the Dozers. I Need a solid really good value for money motherboard and cooler for this plan however and I am a bit stuck on these items in particular. Already have some of that yummy Samsung Green 30nm on the way memory wise that I got at a good price.

Motherboard wise I am looking for something cheap that will be a decant clocker and overall not suck and if its an mATX board have no issues with layout when using a dual slot video card. Cooler must be able to be fitted in the correct front/back airflow out the back of the case orientation on AM3 and be able to, like the motherboard handle a decant clock with an FX.

Am in the UK for the purposes of pricing etc.

Anyone have any ideas ?

[zanzabar]

what cpu are you finding interesting, i have not seen anything that is worth the money over 2500k or 3550k.

for the cooler look at the newegg ad they have a cooler in every week or 2 for under $20, for the MB i have no idea.

coolermaster 212 $20 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065&nm_mc=AFC-C8JUNCTION&cm_mmc=AFC-C8JUNCTION-_-EMC-062612-Latest-_-CPUFansHeatsinks-_-35103065-L0J&PID=3938566&AID=10440897

[S1nn3r]

what cpu are you finding interesting, i have not seen anything that is worth the money over 2500k or 3550k.

for the cooler look at the newegg ad they have a cooler in every week or 2 for under $20, for the MB i have no idea.

coolermaster 212 $20 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065&nm_mc=AFC-C8JUNCTION&cm_mmc=AFC-C8JUNCTION-_-EMC-062612-Latest-_-CPUFansHeatsinks-_-35103065-L0J&PID=3938566&AID=10440897

Newegg is of no help,am in the UK :(

Well in terms of Quad core CPUs its around £75 for the FX 4100 with the £10 cash back offer vs £140 for a 2500K so its not even realy a contest when doing a quad core+ budget build id say.

[BeepBeep2]

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/motherboards/amdam3plusallchipsetmotherboards/90-mibfx0-g0eay00z.html if you go AMD.

The FX-4100 is outdone by a 955/965 BE (http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/processors/amdphenomx4/hdz965fbgmbox.html) by far...4.2-4.3 GHz stable is not out of question by these late batch 965s, you would need over 5 GHz stable on the FX chip to compete. In fact they Phenom II quads usually outdo the FX 6 cores.

A 2500K is about 80% faster than an FX-4100, faster at stock than an FX-4100 at 4.6 GHz.

Actually, a 2500K can do about 4 GHz on the stock cooler...

[zanzabar]

Newegg is of no help,am in the UK :(

Well in terms of Quad core CPUs its around £75 for the FX 4100 with the £10 cash back offer vs £140 for a 2500K so its not even realy a contest when doing a quad core+ budget build id say.

sorry about that i did not see that you were in the UK. socket fm1 cpus without l3 cashe are much faster than the fx4 series and cheaper even though they have a gpu on the cpu package.

the BD essentially performs as 1 core per module with a side loaded thread so that will perform alot like a dual core with HT that is a little better than HT is. so, that fx4100 will be like a dual core with 4 threads and run about the same as a tri core or worse in most cases.

that also comes with a heat pipe cooler if you buy retail (i do not think that chip comes in OEM.) i would buy retail and for $10 more than OEM you get a reasonable cooler.


if you link to a store that you would use i would be glad to post some MB recommendations and the best bang for the buck that i can find.

edit- for a cpu
http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/processors/amda4/a6/a8seriesfm1socket/ad3670wngxbox.html
http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/processors/amdphenomx4/x4641oem.html

or cheack the for sale section you can get a nice deal there.

[BeepBeep2]

No, I wouldn't compare CMT to HT at all.

BD performs like a normal quad core/six/eight core CPU with horrible per-core scaling. You can disable every other core on CH5 and certain bioses, which helps the scaling for tasks that use 2/3/4 threads...but BD has nothing on Phenom II or Intel Core series in single thread.

[S1nn3r]

Ive been warned off of Llano/FM1 repeatedly because as quirky and as interesting as it looks as I will be using a discrete card (6870) and anyone ive mentioed Llano/FM1 to has pretty much said no way to Llano as a result. Point taken on the 965BE though, that was on the list before I saw the cashback/trade in deals on the Dozers.

I like the look of these boards so far from my own thinking and the prices on google -

Biostar TA970XE
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=BIOSTAR+TA970XE&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&channel=rcs#q=BIOSTAR+TA970XE&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=RrH&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&channel=rcs&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=shop&sa=X&ei=pgvqT7LcNsPOtAbuh7TfDg&ved=0CEAQ_AUoBQ&fp=1&biw=1680&bih=930&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&cad=b&sei=iM_rT9qCOcnusgadkry-BQ

Asrock 970 Extreme 4
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ASRock+970+EXTREME4&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a#q=ASRock+970+EXTREME4&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=cd6&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&prmd=imvnsfd&source=lnms&tbm=shop&sa=X&ei=x8_rT43jM5DNsgaQ8q2mBg&ved=0CEAQ_AUoBQ&fp=1&biw=1680&bih=930&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&cad=b&sei=1M_rT7_wBNGGswb7vaieBg

In general Asrocks 970 boards seem a better deal then the likes of Asus/Gigabyte, and Biostar has a rep of being good value these days to..

Cooler wise ive noted the Coolermaster 212 Evo and the Arctic cooling A30 .. boath seem to have issues with ease of fitting however, poor instructions and the A30 is rather large to. the 212 wobbles a bit on top of the CPU when fitted to ive read.

[zanzabar]

No, I wouldn't compare CMT to HT at all.

BD performs like a normal quad core/six/eight core CPU with horrible per-core scaling. You can disable every other core on CH5 and certain bioses, which helps the scaling for tasks that use 2/3/4 threads...but BD has nothing on Phenom II or Intel Core series in single thread.

i said that it works like HT since you get about 50% from the odd cores, it runs great on cores 0/2/4 but on 1/3/5 you get only about 50% more. HT gives you 25-30% more on the even "cores" so i think that is functionally similar and HT but better. in hardware i wil agree that it is not the same.


Ive been warned off of Llano/FM1 repeatedly because as quirky and as interesting as it looks as I will be using a discrete card (6870) and anyone ive mentioed Llano/FM1 to has pretty much said no way to Llano as a result. Point taken on the 965BE though, that was on the list before I saw the cashback/trade in deals on the Dozers.

I like the look of these boards so far from my own thinking and the prices on google -

Biostar TA970XE
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=BIOSTAR+TA970XE&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&channel=rcs#q=BIOSTAR+TA970XE&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=RrH&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&channel=rcs&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=shop&sa=X&ei=pgvqT7LcNsPOtAbuh7TfDg&ved=0CEAQ_AUoBQ&fp=1&biw=1680&bih=930&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&cad=b&sei=iM_rT9qCOcnusgadkry-BQ

Asrock 970 Extreme 4
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ASRock+970+EXTREME4&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a#q=ASRock+970+EXTREME4&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=cd6&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&prmd=imvnsfd&source=lnms&tbm=shop&sa=X&ei=x8_rT43jM5DNsgaQ8q2mBg&ved=0CEAQ_AUoBQ&fp=1&biw=1680&bih=930&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&cad=b&sei=1M_rT7_wBNGGswb7vaieBg

In general Asrocks 970 boards seem a better deal then the likes of Asus/Gigabyte, and Biostar has a rep of being good value these days to..

Cooler wise ive noted the Coolermaster 212 Evo and the Arctic cooling A30 .. boath seem to have issues with ease of fitting however, poor instructions and the A30 is rather large to. the 212 wobbles a bit on top of the CPU when fitted to ive read.

the fm1 parts had problems with early boards bioses with some having only shown the bios on the APU graphics ports and some could not disable the apu's gpu. that is all worked out now and if you look the athlon II fm1 chips are regular cpus and not apus so there is no way that they can get any problems with the on board gpu since it is not there. at the same clock a current liano will mop the floor with a non 8 core dozer at the same clock speed.

for the coolers, all coolers that use the stock amd mount and do not use a back plate and screws sit with a little wobble but they perform fine and should not fall off (i have never heard of one falling.)