You could just run Speccy or CPU-Z to check your processor, or honestly, just look under the hardware settings in the Control Panel.
I’m not sure if grabbing parts from eBay is actually worth the hassle.
MSI Radeon R9 270 x gaming, 2GB GDDR5 Thermaltake Contac 30 Fortron CPU cooler Raider sa pas 550 w PSU, 80+
Total: $2,153.02+$13 including shipping from Nasdaq
Standard stock coolers tend to struggle with AMD chips, so maybe grab this one too; you might want to overclock eventually since your motherboard supports it pretty well.
EDIT: Is that an M720-US3 in the photo, by the way?
There’s definitely going to be a bottleneck there, especially since you're capping the GPU at $133. The power supply seems fine, though. I guess it depends—how much are you actually looking to drop on this right now?
That should do the trick $533, though you didn't mention your power supply.
Maybe grab a decent cooler and try overclocking the CPU to at least 2.8-2.9 GHz; the motherboard isn't total junk, so it might actually hold up. Pair that with a new GPU—maybe an AMD Radeon R7 265 or an HD 7850—and that’s probably the ceiling for what the processor can handle.
If your PSU is old or low quality, you'll probably need to swap that out too, which would let you reuse it in a future build. What model/brand and wattage are we looking at?
Zalman micro tower case black, ZAL-ZM-T4 HDD Desktop TOSHIBA DT01ACA050 (3.5", 500GB, 32MB, SATA III-600) HDD Desktop AMD Athlon ii x4 760 k ASRock FM2A88M EXTREME4 + Chicony Active 400 w ATX pas Chicony Active 400W ATX PSU, CHI-HPA-400W Patriot Sig. DDR3 1333Mhz, 4GB PSD34G13332 Sapphire Radeon R7 260 x OC, 1GB GDDR5, DVI, DP, HDMI 11222-05-20G
Total: $2.900,98+$27 plus shipping from Centro.hr
It might be a good idea to grab a CPU cooler too. You could check if they have a Thermaltake Contac 21 or maybe a Zalman CNPS5X Perform in stock at the store, though it looks like they might be out of stock right now.
It would probably be helpful if you shared the rest of your specs, yeah. Maybe you could just grab a single used 2GB DDR3 1333MHz module and pair it up to hit 4GB if you aren't doing anything too heavy. Otherwise, I guess you could go with those 2x4GB sticks plus an extra used 2GB stick to get yourself up to 12GB total...
Look, I’d say it's better to list at least $17 more than what you're actually hoping to get. I already moved my Athlon on eBay for $133 (took about a day and a half), and the motherboard went for $50 (about three days). The thing is, AM2+ processors are pretty hard to find these days, so you can probably ask for a decent amount—as long as the price stays low enough that a buyer doesn't just decide to buy a whole new CPU, motherboard, and RAM combo instead. The only real downside is that you won't have a warranty in most cases. 🙂
The motherboard might be a bit outdated since it lacks those newer connectors, but being on the AM2+ platform makes it comparable to something like an X38 or X48 board you'd find in a standard LGA 775 build.
Pricing is also somewhat influenced by what these parts actually cost when they were brand new. I guess if you just check local listings for an Intel Core 2 Quad, you'll see the trend. 🤣
Btw, 2GB of DDR2 800MHz is roughly ~$77 at most retail stores.
Maybe I $17 went a bit overboard with the GPU and motherboard specs, but hey, that's just marketing 😛
That board is definitely high-end, even if it's an AM2+ platform. I think it cost about $267 back when you could still buy it new.
And the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 is actually more powerful than an AMD Radeon HD 7750, for example, even if it is old and pulls 4 or 5 times more power.😬
Honestly, if I were you, I'd just hold out for those 20nm cards. By then, you'll have saved up a decent chunk of change, and the performance-per-watt jump should be pretty massive. Take the NVIDIA GTX 870, for example...
As long as you aren't running CF/SLI setups, you probably don't need to sweat the 12V rail on any decent power supply.😉
That G-360 only puts out 30A on the 12V line, so the AMD Radeon R9 280X is still the better bet here. According to the review over at Tom's Hardware, it can max out at around 430W.
I’d probably go with the Cooler Master or the Alienware version instead, since those Razer cards can be pretty power-hungry 😬
That EVGA one should be enough, I guess. It might be cutting it close if you decide to run Intel Extreme Tuning Utility with an Overclocked 4670 MHz and hit the GeForce GTX 970 with 3DMark, but you probably won't do that anyway 😛
A buddy of mine over at PCPartPicker had a Corsair RM series handling a GeForce GTX 980 and a 3570K @ 4GHz, and this EVGA card has a bit more headroom
The Radeon HD 5870 and the Radeon HD 4890 aren't actually any better than an HD 7850. I guess you might see some real value if you stepped up to a GTX 970 or an R9 290X, or maybe even a GTX 670.