Phenom X3 8650 + ASROCK N68PV-GS for £89.99 delivered @ Ebuyer

dxx

Voted cold. I just want to fit in.

maddogb

good deal, nice setup for an htpc ;)

**andywedge**

ASROCK N68PV-GS GeForce 7050 Socket AM2+ VGA DVI Out 6 Channel Audio MATX Motherboard HERE

**andywedge**

Hi
Thanks for posting. I have added an image and a direct link to your post. I have also added a link to the ASROCK N68PV-GS (above)
This is a link, made by rayman, which explains how to add images in great detail. It’s worth taking a look at if you are going to post more deals in future : - http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/33994...mages-for-thr/
Emmajk42 wrote a couple of very comprehensive and excellent guides to HUKD here: - http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/14590...tukdeals-gene/
http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/13077...d.php?t=130779
They are well worth taking a look at.
Or follow the link in my signature.
Kind regards
Andy

dxx

Oh, bggers. I knew there was something I was forgetting to do there

Direct links now:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161000 -- motherboard
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/144635 -- CPU

Agharta

dxx:
I know I'm kind-of a geek, but the hardware virtualization is a deal-maker for me. You just can't get it on Intel platforms unless you pay something in the order of £60 for the motherboard and around £100 for a CPU

The Intel E6300 supports VT and Scan have it on Today Only for £56.34 with free delivery potentially available. If you’re going to over-clock the E6300 should be a much better bet and be a lot more power efficient as well as the first generation Phenoms were very poor in both departments.

dxx

Agharta:
The Intel E6300 supports VT and Scan have it on Today Only for £56.34 with free delivery potentially available. If you’re going to over-clock the E6300 should be a much better bet and be a lot more power efficient as well as the first generation Phenoms were very poor in both departments.

Fair point on the CPU price, but you'd still be looking at another £56 for the cheapest VT-enabled board that I can find, making it £112, so you're looking at £23 more, plus another £20 for a graphics card, since eBuyer don't seem to list any VT-enabled boards with built-in VGA. If you can overclock to or beyond the performance of this Phenom rig then that's a bonus, but with the extra cash you'd need to spend to do that, you'd maybe be as well just to buy something better in the first place.

Agharta

dxx:
Fair point on the CPU price, but you'd still be looking at another £56 for the cheapest VT-enabled board that I can find, making it £112, so you're looking at £23 more, plus another £20 for a graphics card, since eBuyer don't seem to list any VT-enabled boards with built-in VGA. If you can overclock to or beyond the performance of this Phenom rig then that's a bonus, but with the extra cash you'd need to spend to do that, you'd maybe be as well just to buy something better in the first place.

You can buy a Gigabyte G41 board which supports VT and has on-board VGA with an E6300 for £101.18 delivered from Scan.
I’m not saying it’s a better board than the ASRock although I think it’s a better manufacturer. You price comparison is bogus though, again.
I’d generally keep well away from Phenom I X3 as the performance is poor, the power consumption is high and they over-clock badly.
AMD is a good platform for a cheap HTPC due to the good features of the boards and the low price. This is a bad choice for a CPU in a HTPC though.
These CPUs are cheap for a good reason, they aren’t very good.

dxx

Agharta:
You can buy a Gigabyte G41 board which supports VT and has on-board VGA with an E6300 for £101.18 delivered from Scan.
I’m not saying it’s a better board than the ASRock although I think it’s a better manufacturer. You price comparison is bogus though, again.
I’d generally keep well away from Phenom I X3 as the performance is poor, the power consumption is high and they over-clock badly.
AMD is a good platform for a cheap HTPC due to the good features of the boards and the low price. This is a bad choice for a CPU in a HTPC though.
These CPUs are cheap for a good reason, they aren’t very good.

Interesting points. The price comparison wasn't deliberately bogus, I should say. I was going by the list of Core2 chipsets on the Wikipedia, where the cheapest chipset listed with VT is the P45. Is the G41 a discontinued chipset, or something? Seems odd that the listing omits it.

But hey ho. Regarding the difference between the E6300 or the E5300 and the 8650 in terms of performance, do you have any half-reliable links to back the claim up? I know the TDP is 65w compared to 90w, but I've been struggling to find anything that conclusively shows one to be better than the other. I'm giving serious thought to cancelling my eBuyer order here.

Agharta

dxx:
Interesting points. I was going by the list of Core2 chipsets on the Wikipedia, where the cheapest chipset listed with VT is the P45. Is the G41 a discontinued chipset, or something? Seems odd that the listing omits it..

The P4x series are the current mainstream chipsets without graphics and the G4x series come with graphics. The P55 is due to be released next month but that’s a new socket.

dxx:
Regarding the difference between the E6300 or the E5300 and the 8650 in terms of performance, do you have any half-reliable links to back the claim up? I know the TDP is 65w compared to 90w, but I've been struggling to find anything that conclusively shows one to be better than the other.

I don’t remember seeing any direct comparisons as the Phenom X3 is an old model and the E6300 is new. But if you look at older reviews of the Phenom X3 that compare it with say an Intel E7300 or E5300 that will give you an idea.

With most applications still being limited to using only 2 cores at most having 2 Intel 45nm cores @ 2.8GHz versus 3 AMD 65nm cores at 2.3GHz gives Intel a big advantage especially when clock for clock the Intel chip is usually noticeably faster.

MadeDixonsCry

AMD for the conscious buyer.

Boycott Intel.

Agharta

There's a review at TechReport of the slightly faster X3 8750 which shows how poor this chip generally is.

Agharta

MadeDixonsCry:
AMD for the conscious buyer. Boycott Intel.

By all means but at least buy one of their good CPUs and not this dog.

MadeDixonsCry

Agharta:
By all means but at least buy one of their good CPUs and not this dog.

True.

Phenom X3 8650 + ASROCK N68PV-GS for £89.99 delivered @ Ebuyer

HUKD Tools and API

About HotUKDeals

HUKD Blogs