# Best motherboard for AMD Athlon II X3 450?



## onipar

I'm thinking of building a system around an AMD Athlon II X3 450.

Can you help me choose an appropriate motherboard?  The motherboard has to have integrated video, be AM3 socket, and preferably have 4×240pin DDR3.  Thanks so much, I'm just not sure what else to base my decision on (I'm new at this).


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## daisymtc

Get 880G chipset

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128440


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## onipar

daisymtc said:


> Get 880G chipset
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128440



Great, thanks for the suggestion.   This one looks pretty good.  A little more than I wanted to pay, but I guess it's better to get a decent board than pay less for crap.

The AM3+ socket definitely takes an AM3 chip, right?  Any other suggestions welcome; I'm still piecing this build together.


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## jonnyp11

am3+ just has 2 extra pins that allow it to use some newer cpus, but it definitely does support that cpu, so it's good, but this seems to be about the same board with a few small variations, but still a good one, and is a little cheaper but can rebate down even lower.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128490


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## onipar

Nice find, jonnyp11, thanks!

I didn't mention it before, but I'm attempting to put together a $300-$400 build, so every saved cent is appreciated.  This board does look to be about the same.

Speaking of which, is there a place on this board to talk about full builds?  I didn't notice a thread area for that...


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## jonnyp11

those just go on the desktop section, and 3-400 isn't really going to be easy, especially with these boards, they might need to come down more.


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## onipar

jonnyp11 said:


> those just go on the desktop section, and 3-400 isn't really going to be easy, especially with these boards, they might need to come down more.



Yeah, I'm up to $230 so far (after rebates) with only the CPU, Motherboard, PSU, and case so far.  So it's gonna be close...

I just scored though.  I managed to snag one of only two remaining 1 TB barracuda drives from my local best buy for only $55! (total build so far then being $285, and I still need memory and an optical drive) All the hard drives I'm seeing are insanely inflated in price, so I thought it was lucky to score this.

Although, it does lead me to a possible problem:

This board says it only has Sata 6 gb/s slots.  can I plus a 3 gb/s HDD into that?  I sure hope so...


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## jonnyp11

yes you can, and sata III (6gb/s) isn't even any better for the hdd, they don't even manage 3gb/s. also what case and psu are you looking at? and also if you want it to work, unless you plan to use linux you will have to buy windows7 which costs 100


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## onipar

jonnyp11 said:


> yes you can, and sata III (6gb/s) isn't even any better for the hdd, they don't even manage 3gb/s. also what case and psu are you looking at? and also if you want it to work, unless you plan to use linux you will have to buy windows7 which costs 100



Hey hey.  Well, I guess I'll list my build here for you (what I have so far anyway).

I'm a professor, and one of the benefits is they sell us computer software licenses REALLY cheap.  How cheap?  I just picked up Windows 7 professional for $6 today.    In all honesty, I'm considering installing Ubuntu Linux on the machine anyway, but we shall see.

Anyway, on to the build:

AMD Athlon II X3 450 Rana 3.2GHz: $77.99 
GIGABYTE GA-880GMA-USB3: $82.99 (after $10 rebate)
Thermaltake Commander MS-I ID VN400A1W2N: $39.99 (after $10 rebate)
COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power Plus RS500-PCARD3-US 500W: $29.99 (after $10 rebate)
Seagate - Barracuda 1TB: $55

That brings me to the $290-ish (if you count the windows 7)

I still need to find a cheap optical drive and the memory.  

How is this looking so far?  Everything seem to fit together okay?  This is my first build.  (I realize this doesn't really belong in this thread anymore...)

It's worth mentioning this is a system I'm building for my parents for Christmas.  It doesn't need to be worthy of gaming, just e-mail, net, light video, and music.

Let me know what you think.  I could use all the feedback you have.    (And thanks for all the help so far).


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## jonnyp11

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139026&Tpk=cx430

better brand and still plenty, this really won't need over 250w or less.

 also it is faster if you buy 2 500gb's and put them together and set up a raid0 system. it makes them both act as one giving 1.5 or so times the performance. otherwise they'd love you if you bought this, although for 20 more there is a 40gb with higher reads and much higher writes.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227393

otherwise looks good.


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## onipar

Right on, I'll swap out the PSU for the one you recommended.  

Unfortunately, I'm locked into the 1T HDD as I already bought it at Best Buy.  I do really appreciate the advice, and had the HDD prices not recently soared the way they did, I'd have absolutely taken your advice.  But I couldn't pass up the deal.  

On Newegg at the moment, the lowest priced 500 GB HDD is $100!!!  Can you believe that?  Finding the 1 terabyte drive for $55 was just too good to pass up, even if it slows the system down a bit.  Once prices go back down I can always stick another drive in I guess...

I'll update with the memory and optical drive when I choose them, but I'm glad this build looks good to you.  I hope it'll be powerful and fast enough for their use.


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## jonnyp11

it's plenty fast and that's still a great drive. those were just a few little tricks that help, and actually you can't go into raid0 later on without a big hastle as you must reformat both drives then reinstall everything, but there is no need. and the hdd prices soared cuz they are made in thailand and lately there has been flooding there meaning a shortage in the supply. and this will be fine for them, my pos in my sig i'm on now can do that, and a pentium dual core even at 3ghz would be slower than that thing, this also has worse graphics and all too, they'll be fine with that thing.


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## onipar

Sweet, thanks again for the help! 

The final components:

Asus 24xDVD±RW Drive: $20.99

And either G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB): $29.99

or

G.SKILL NS 4GB (2 x 2GB): $22.99

Haven't decided yet...  Not sure if the extra $7 matters one way or the other.  Thoughts?

Anyway, that brings it to a grand total of $336.43 (after all rebates) or $343.43 if I get the more expensive memory. That's actually right in the wheelhouse, and leaves enough room for a cheap monitor if I need to get one.  

The only component I've actually purchased so far is that HDD though.  I'm going to hold off buying anything for a few days to be sure I have everything set.

Any other things I'm forgetting?  I added SATA cables already (the dvd burner doesn't come with any).

Thanks again, this has been super helpful!


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## jonnyp11

really ram is dirt cheap right now

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231416

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104221

and you might want to make sure none of these are on the current sales so the price doesn't go up, and for the other parts you can wait till black friday to see what's on sale.


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## 2048Megabytes

The Athlon II 450 (3.2 gigahertz) Triple-Core Processor is one of the best deals on a processor right now.


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## StrangleHold

onipar said:


> It's worth mentioning this is a system I'm building for my parents for Christmas. It doesn't need to be worthy of gaming, just e-mail, net, light video, and music.
> 
> Let me know what you think. I could use all the feedback you have.  (And thanks for all the help so far).


 
Have you already got the processor? If thats all they will be doing on the computer you would be better off going with a Llano and a socket FM1. You would not need much processing power and the Lliano has alot better video then the 880G board.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103955
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157278
144 buck for both.

You dont really need 4 slots for memory, 4gb would be plenty of memory.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128530
129 bucks for both.


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## onipar

Johnny,

Yeah, the components with rebates I need to buy before the 23rd, unless I want to try and get lucky and hope prices go further down for black Friday.  That Kingston you posted is a better choice than the two I posted?

2048Megabytes, yeah, it seemed like a good deal to me.  I think I'm sticking with that processor. 

StrangleHold, thanks!  Yeah, that would definitely knock down the price, but I wanted to also make sure it was upgradable.  I sort of know I overdid it a little, but I wanted to make sure it'd be a decent system for them.  I figured if I went too low on the motherboard, I wouldn't be able to upgrade much in the future.    


What do you think?  My current motherboard/cpu combo comes to $161 after rebate.  That only $17 more than your suggestion.  Is the combo you suggested a better paring?  (Or is the ASrock board better than the gigabyte I picked?)

Thanks again everybody.


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## onipar

Okay, so I did a little research on the A-series and APUs (I didn't know about these before), and now I'm wondering if I should switch from my current configuration (Athlon II X3 450 + GIGABYTE GA-880GMA-USB3) to something more akin to what StrangleHold suggested.

From my limited knowledge, it seems the trade off is better video integration with the APU but slower processing overall?  Whereas the config I have now would be faster processing with a lesser video engine?  But then if I was unhappy with video, I could always upgrade with a card later on...

I'll do some more research into this.


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## onipar

If you found my other thread in the "desktop" section, you'll already know this, but just to update, I ended up buying the Phenom II X3 720 instead of the Athlon II X3 450, because of a Black Friday sale that made it a better deal. And I did go with the GIGABYTE GA-880GMA-USB3.

My full build can be found in the desktop section where I'll also update with pics as I build it out.

Thanks again for all the help and suggestions.


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