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AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition: For us the processor was an obvious choice. The new AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition processor proved to be faster than the Core 2 Duo E7400, and at 20% less it is a true bargain. That said, we have always appreciated the Core 2 Duo series for its excellent tuning performance, as it is often very easy to achieve overclocks reaching 1GHz+.  However the Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition was able to operate at 3.90GHz on our test bed without a problem. More over, this overclock was achieved by simply increasing the core voltage along with the clock multiplier. This dual-core processor comes clocked at 3.10GHz and boasts all the features of the more expensive Phenom II X4 processors, with the exception of two less cores. The price tag of $110 US is what makes the Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition such an exceptional product, and one that we simply could not have featured in our Ultimate Budget Gaming System. ASUS M3A78-EM: Those looking to get the most value out of their Phenom II processor will stick with the AM2+ platform for now, for the simple fact that DDR3 memory is still fetching a slight price premium when compared to DDR2 memory. Also keeping in mind that we want to build a compact gaming system, the microATX format seems to make the most sense here.  Furthermore, we also had to consider the price of the board to avoid blowing the budget. The board that stood out the most to us was the ASUS M3A78-EM, which costs just $79 US and features the AMD 780G chipset. This motherboard also sports some pretty impressive features such as HDMI, DVI, Gigabit LAN, 12 USB 2.0 ports, and RAID0/1/10 to name a few. The ASUS M3A78-EM is also a decent overclocker, which is almost a little surprising given the price tag. However we were able to reach 3.80GHz with a small voltage increase using both FSB and clock-multiplier overclocking methods. Bumping up the frequency of the Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition certainly helped improve the performance of this budget gaming system. OCZ Blade Series 4GB (2 x 2GB): These days it is almost a criminal offence to build any kind of system without 4GB’s of memory. Given that premium kits such as the OCZ Blade Series are selling for just $47 US, why wouldn’t gamers just go for a 4GB kit? Clocked at 800MHz, these modules use rather aggressive timings of CAS 4-4-4-15 at 2.1v, which we found quite impressive.  ASUS EAH4770/HTDI/512MD5: This really is what helps make this system so special. Interestingly, while our last few budget gaming system articles have all featured Intel processors, they also made use of Radeon based graphics cards. This is our first article that will use both an AMD processor and graphics card. The Radeon HD 4770 is loved by all for its ability to deliver performance that is comparable to the Radeon HD 4850 and GeForce 9800 GTX+ at a heavily discounted rate. That said, since its arrival Radeon HD 4850 and GeForce 9800 GTX+ pricing has been slashed, but the Radeon HD 4770 has another important advantage.  That advantage being that it uses considerably less power and therefore also generates much less heat. This makes the Radeon HD 4770 rather quiet, even when under full load, and it also means those tech savvy users among us can overclock the snot out of them! |
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