Quote:
Originally Posted by zippy
Thanks Luca. I've got an old Windows box that I really don't use much since we purchased our iMac. But I've been kicking around the idea of doing a rebuild on it so I'll check these deals out. I'd rather just get a mini, but picking up a motherboard, processor, RAM and video card should be cheaper.
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One thing to keep in mind... while AMD has some nice stuff out at the moment, the deals there are not the cheapest ones you can get. If you want a low-cost rebuild, the #1 choice is still the Intel E5200. It's about $73 for the processor, which overclocks like crazy and beats every Athlon X2 even at stock speed. Get a budget motherboard for ~$80 and you're looking at a significant savings compared to the AMD ones. But the performance isn't as good as the Phenom IIs.
A lot of newer motherboards (like the Biostar I picked up) also have really good integrated video. Mine has 128 MB of dedicated VRAM built into the motherboard so it doesn't take from my system RAM, and it has HDMI output and is even capable of dual monitors. Some AMD motherboards will even let you add certain low-end video cards to be used in conjunction with the integrated video and improve the performance (though if you're gaming I'd still go for a solid midrange card).