Recommend a motherboard for me

[s_busby_uk]

I have an old computer with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ (2.8GHz)  and an Asus M2V DUAL DDR II motherboard. With the 512MB Geforce 8800GT PCI Express I have in it it's pretty decent and I've had Super Street Fighter IV running on it with fairly high settings.

However, I get the feeling the motherboard is a bit clunky. Boot time takes a bit too long nowadays and I have to do some fiddling to get the chipset working whenever I do a fresh install. Plus it's been hanging lately for no particular reason. Generally, I feel like it's time to upgrade.

So I've just received my first ever Xmas bonus and I'm thinking of upgrading. This is what I'd like to achieve:

Keep the Geforce 8800GT in there.
Maybe keep the AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor but not if it's too outdated to find anything for.
Run Hyperspin with fairly competent settings (doesn't have to be MAX settings, but with some of the pretty boxes ticked and no slow down - yes I'm a sucker for appearances).
Competent MAME emulation, but doesn't have to do too much of the latter-year 3D stuff.
PS2 or PSP-level emulation would be an added bonus but I definitely don't want to break the bank to get there.

Can anyone recommend a motherboard (and CPU combo, if necessary) that can get me all that for less than £150?

Thanks in advance!

[lilshawn]

your DDR2 is your bottleneck.

upgrading to anything with DDR3 will net a good performance boost.

you could basically get the cheapest AM3+ board, 4gb of DDR3 and a processor for about what you want to spend and get a performance boost to boot.

like everything else, you get what you pay for. I suggest spending as much as you can and get the highest performing parts you can afford. that way your computer will have some room to grow if you want to upgrade later.

the AM3+ socket is good because it works with TONS of processors from a paltry dual core all the way up to a 5ghz 8 core processor. you can cheap it out to start, but upgrade to a serious machine later for a minimum investment.

example:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU:  AMD Athlon II X2 250 3.0GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($54.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard:  ECS A960M-M3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($28.49 @ Newegg)
Memory:  Kingston Black Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  ($26.98 @ PCM)
Total: $110.46
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-03 13:32 EST-0500)

[s_busby_uk]

Brilliant, thanks lilshawn, most helpful! And how great is pcpartpicker??

So as a follow-up question: I know dual-core is much better than single (well, so I've read), but are there much further benefits from spending say £20 more on a quad core or would it be better to spend £20 on more Ghz from a dual-core?

[lilshawn]

pcpartpicker is a good site to use for examples because after you build a system you can copy BBcode (this forums software) and paste it directly to your messages. That's why iv'e been using it. you are free to purchase your parts from wherever you see fit.

gaming really isn't optimised for multi core processors (from what i've heard) beyond more than dual cores. in fact, lots of games don't support multiple cores at all unless you either patch the game to enable it or the developers specifically wrote it that way. but once more developers start writing games for multi core gaming, the 4/6/8 core cpus will really shine.

the 8800GT was a good card in it's day, but they have come a long way since then.

if you are looking for a good general gaming rig, you'll want to buy the "highest speed" core'd processor you can afford. Be it 2/4/6 whatever... and the most expensive videocard you can manage. the videocard is going to be doing the bulk of the work here. I picked up an HIS HD7750 a while back when they went on sale for 99 bucks. now they can be had for cheaper than that. but it's a real workhorse...have no problems playing SF4 @1080p at max settings.

[s_busby_uk]

Well despite my mentioning SSFIV, this is still really going to be an arcade cabinet for arcade games, so I'm more interested in getting the most out of MAME and the like - emulation that relies mostly on the CPU. So is it still better to get a dual core but with as high a Ghz rating as I can afford?

[ark_ader]

That's a good deal and the exchange rates are good at the moment.  Just remember that DOA boards will cost you to return.

I looked at Scan and Ebuyer and nothing else comes close to the price.

You can keep the same rig, and maybe swap out the HDD for a SSD and use a stripped down build like Micro or Tiny XP.

[s_busby_uk]

I've already got MicroXP on there but it's not the Windows loading part that's slow, it's the system booting before that.

[lilshawn]

yes as far as ive heard, MAME isn't multi core optimised either. so a dual core is probably good.

also, if you splurge for a good cooler, you could probably apply a 10-15% overclock to the CPU and still be stable. (10% for sure)

[s_busby_uk]

Not too fussed about overclocking it - bit beyond my pay grade! But thanks for the help, invaluable stuff.

[s_busby_uk]

I'm thinking of going for this setup - thoughts?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU:  AMD Athlon II X2 270 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£41.36 @ Dabs)
Motherboard:  Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard  (£37.57 @ Aria PC)
Memory:  Kingston XMP Blu Red Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£28.32 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £107.25
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-03 22:01 GMT+0000)

[lilshawn]

that's a good board. I used that board in my wifes build. it currently has my old 4 core FX4130 in it and it performs pretty good, even using just the on board video. It would probably clip along pretty good if i plopped a videocard in it, but she mostly plays facebook games on it. 

it has 4 ram slots so if you decide to go with the 2x 2gb you can easily pop in another 2 no problem. i would probably stick with standard 1333 memory (what the board is rated for)... you aren't going to benefit from 1600 ram unless you overclock and push up your memory speeds. I generally stick with plain old kingston value ram. it's got a lifetime warranty. never had a problem with it. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/kingston-memory-kvr1333d3s8n9k24g

i'm not sure what kind of power supply you currently have, but it may be worth your time and money to throw a new 500 watt in there. belive it or not, they do get old. you don't need to go too crazy (about $30 for a run of the mill 500 watt), my 8 core FX8350 is running a 550watt supply and it's good for stock speeds...i'll have to upgrade when i overclock it though, it gets strained pretty hard  well...the 4 hard drives, half dozen fans and water pump don't help either 

[ark_ader]

I'd go:

CPU                     AMD A8-5500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor £68
MB                       Asus F2A55-M LE Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard £40
RAM                     A-Data Premier Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory £44
Video                   PowerColor Radeon HD 7750 1GB Video Card £63

Yes it is expensive but you would get good performance. 

The video card is optional as you could use your existing.

[wp34]

Are Intel chips still the preference for Mame?  I thought I remember reading Mame was optimized for Intel.

[lilshawn]

the instruction sets in the intel/AMD processors are pretty much the same. there really isn't any advantage either way contrary to popular belief. AMD is a good processor and people who run intel are adamant about how "sucky" AMD is, when really it's not. the performance VS price ratio of AMD is way better than intel. sure, you have to squeak another 1/3 gigahertz to equal an intel but whatever....when you can get 4ghz for 200 bucks...

for mame you pretty much want the fastest per core processor you can get a hold of. you will see better performance out of a dual core 3.5ghz than you would with a 4 core 3ghz

[wp34]

That's good to know.  I've been debating making an upgrade but when I price an Intel rig I get scared off by the price.  Thanks lilshawn.

the instruction sets in the intel/AMD processors are pretty much the same. there really isn't any advantage either way contrary to popular belief. AMD is a good processor and people who run intel are adamant about how "sucky" AMD is, when really it's not. the performance VS price ratio of AMD is way better than intel. sure, you have to squeak another 1/3 gigahertz to equal an intel but whatever....when you can get 4ghz for 200 bucks...

for mame you pretty much want the fastest per core processor you can get a hold of. you will see better performance out of a dual core 3.5ghz than you would with a 4 core 3ghz

[s_busby_uk]

it has 4 ram slots so if you decide to go with the 2x 2gb you can easily pop in another 2 no problem. i would probably stick with standard 1333 memory (what the board is rated for)... you aren't going to benefit from 1600 ram unless you overclock and push up your memory speeds. I generally stick with plain old kingston value ram. it's got a lifetime warranty. never had a problem with it. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/kingston-memory-kvr1333d3s8n9k24g

Yeah the main reason i didn't go for the 1333 sticks was purely laziness - i was hoping to get it all from Amazon.co.uk (to save on postage and to stop me having to signup to another site) and they didn't have the 1333 sticks in stock!

i'm not sure what kind of power supply you currently have, but it may be worth your time and money to throw a new 500 watt in there. belive it or not, they do get old. you don't need to go too crazy (about $30 for a run of the mill 500 watt), my 8 core FX8350 is running a 550watt supply and it's good for stock speeds...i'll have to upgrade when i overclock it though, it gets strained pretty hard  well...the 4 hard drives, half dozen fans and water pump don't help either 

Yeah this occurred to me last night - thanks!

[lilshawn]

sound like unfortunatly the FX line is the end of the line for the AMD platform. AMD won't be making CPUs anymore... deciding focusing mainly on APU's like the A-series processors is the way to go. (APU's are basically a CPU and GPU in one.) while not necessarily a bad thing, it may cause intel prices to go up for the CPU purists simply because there won't be a "direct" CPU competition.

hopefully the rumor is unfounded, but  intel seems to already be douchey enough.

i don't think things are going to change for a while.