Desktop Pc broke down - need new Hardware Budget 600€ max.

[hellrazor]

Hi guys,

i am not really familar with current top notch hardware on the market.

I was running a Core 2 Duo CPU, with 4 GB Ram, a Geforce GF 9800 gt on a Asus 5 BP whatever mainboard.
Now everything is fucked up and i decided to put together a new System.

I still do have a be quiet! 450w power core (only 1 6pin PCI express adapter),
what i need is a new good working combination of mainboard (should have at least 1 PCI slot, at least 4 sata3 HD connectors, at least 1x IDE connector (for optical drives), a floppy drive connector (yes i do have a function 3.5" floppy drive and i occaionally use it); CPU (i do not care what kind of some new multicore stuff), some fitting Ram chips, the more the merrier, since my Ubuntu Linux loves more main memory.
And last but not least a cheap and good nvidia geforce graphic card which only needs 1 PCI Express power connector (i do not have the budget to replace my power supply unit), it also needs to have at least 2 DVI Monitor cable jacks ( i am ok with more so i can get a another 24" widescreen monitor later .

My budget is max 600€ but if i can get a decent combination with less i am even more satisfied.

Any help is appreciated, since i wanna get back to serious modding of OpenXcom quickly and my small Asus Netbook here doesn't have the Power for running win 7 in virtualbox for Mapview :https://

best regards hellrazor

[R1dO]

Since you don't mention 3D gaming requirements i am curious why going for a separate CPU and graphics card instead of an APU (intel/ AMD).
Their performance is decent enough and it leaves more budget for ram (at the expense of using part of it <2GiB).

The requirements on "Mature"  connectors might push you into expensive mainboards (if they even exist). It might be cheaper to actually replace some of those elements (optical, floppy) with usb (or sata) variants.

Another point, both Linux and OXC uses lots of small files .. a SSD will probably be your biggest speed improvement (in the unlikely case you are not using one already).

Just some food for thought

[hellrazor]

Since you don't mention 3D gaming requirements i am curious why going for a separate CPU and graphics card instead of an APU (intel/ AMD).
Their performance is decent enough and it leaves more budget for ram (at the expense of using part of it <2GiB).

The requirements on "Mature"  connectors might push you into expensive mainboards (if they even exist). It might be cheaper to actually replace some of those elements (optical, floppy) with usb (or sata) variants.

Another point, both Linux and OXC uses lots of small files .. a SSD will probably be your biggest speed improvement (in the unlikely case you are not using one already).

Just some food for thought

Oh 3D gaming also should be included, since i wanna play some Xcom EW or maybe in the future also XCOM2.
I already have a 128 GB SSD for my OS install, and 3 sata3 1,5 TB drives working together in a RAID 5 for data security and performance.
The floppy connector is pure nostalgia. I always had one and since i have a working floppy drive, why not. I came handy a few times.
I usually also prefer to use external USB HDD's, which i also posses a few of .

I need a good combo of CPU, Ram, Mainboard and GPU.

[R1dO]

Well if XCOM 2012 is you're baseline i can tell you it runs pretty decent on my setup of less than €200 (upgrade ~2 months ago)

CPU: AMD A8-7600 (APU)
MEM: 8GB DDR3 - 1866 (note, for max graphical performance it is best to choose faster mem with APU's)
MOBO: Asrock FM2a68m-hd

With your budget this leaves more than enough room for improvements.

The only 'downside' is the dependency on the proprietary (fgrlx) driver in order to get decent framerates. But this will not change with discrete cards (assuming you want max fps).

[hellrazor]

Well if XCOM 2012 is you're baseline i can tell you it runs pretty decent on my setup of less than €200 (upgrade ~2 months ago)

CPU: AMD A8-7600 (APU)
MEM: 8GB DDR3 - 1866 (note, for max graphical performance it is best to choose faster mem with APU's)
MOBO: Asrock FM2a68m-hd

With your budget this leaves more than enough room for improvements.

The only 'downside' is the dependency on the proprietary (fgrlx) driver in order to get decent framerates. But this will not change with discrete cards (assuming you want max fps).

I always prefered nvidia gpus since the linux driver support for those is way better under linux.
The Asrock FM2a68m-hd only has a 64Mb AMI UEFI Legal BIOS with GUI support, according to technical spec, does it have a legacy mode (so i do not have to use UEFI)?

EDIT: jeah just checked, its UEFI only, without legacy bios also has only 2 Ram banks...

[hellrazor]

Ok i was finally able to pin the culprit down!

Its my fucking Geforce 9800 GT which decided to cross the river jordan.

Now i am looking for a cheap replacement, but i do have 1 condition: it needs 2 DVI connectors for my 2 Monitors.
Anyone has any suggestions?

[hellrazor]

OK Topic can be closed, i decided to go with a:
Zotac GeForce GT 730 (GF108), 1GB DDR3 (800MHz), 2x DVI, Mini HDMI (ZT-71104-10L)

[pWWWa]

OK Topic can be closed, i decided to go with a:
Zotac GeForce GT 730 (GF108), 1GB DDR3 (800MHz), 2x DVI, Mini HDMI (ZT-71104-10L)

btw, GT 730 is weaker than your 9800GT. I recommend to look at GTX 750Ti chip based videocards - the most powerful videocards without pci-e power connector (~60W (TDP)).

[Bloax]

I second the 750 Ti notion.

[hellrazor]

Well it does have 2x the RAM of my gf 9800 gt and so far i can not complain about.
Despite it being really really quiete! Price was 59,90€.

GeForce GTX 750 Ti is avaible roughly for double the price, which i simply can not afford at the moment.
So i guess i didn't make such a bad deal.