March 2009 PC Configuration Guide | Phenom II X3 to X4

Thanks to the competition between Intel and AMD, prices of Core 2 Quad and Phenom II have come down significantly over the month. What's more, there's a fact that Phenom II X3 can turn into a X4 simply by buying X3 cpu with Biostar 790GX+SB750 chipset motherboard, then set the ACC (Advance Clock Calibration) to auto. And BINGO, you get an X4 cpu for the price of a X3. Quote from the guru3d, "Only with the 904xxxx-stepping; this tweak seems to work, not with 0849xxxx". So good luck with your search :)

Now let's continue with this month's guide:

• 2k pc can play games at 1440*900 or 1280*1024 or 1680*1050 resolution with medium to high settings.
• 3k pc can play games at 1680*1050 or 1920*1080 with medium to high settings
  

And here's the pc guide for 2k pc (Most items are based on C-zone pricelist as of 4/3/09):

• CPU: AMD Athlon X2 5200+ (2.7GHz) - RM 210
• RAM: Kingston Value RAM DDR2 800MHz 2GB *2 - RM 160
• Motherboard: Albatron KM740G- RM 200
• Hard Drive: Seagate 500GB SATA2 16MB Cache - RM 195
• GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD4830 512MB - RM 380
• Optical Drive: LG DVDRW SATA - RM 75
• Monitor: Acer X203 with speaker (20" wide) - RM 380
• Casing: Cooler Master Elite 340 - RM 125
• PSU: Cooler Master Extreme Power 460W - RM 160
• Keyboard+Mouse: Logitech G1 Gaming Desktop - RM 89

Total : RM 1974

Note 1 : With monitor prices falling down, each penny can get you a bigger screen size. The Acer monitor incorporates the speaker, thus I removed last month's speaker. Having more budget to spend, thus I increased the HDD size.

And here's 3k pc guide:

• CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 710 2.6GHz - RM 465
• RAM: Kingston Value RAM 2GB DDR2 800MHz * 2 - RM160
• HDD: Western Digital 640GB SATA - RM 230
• Motherboard: Asus M3A78-EM - RM 300
• Graphic Card: Palit HD4850 SUPER 512MB DDR3 - RM520
• Optical Drive: LG DVDRW SATA - RM75
• Monitor: Acer X233 23" wide LCD - RM 560
• Speaker: Edifier M1350 2.1 - RM 80
• PSU: OCZ Stealth X Stream- RM319
• Casing: Cooler Master Elite 340- RM 125
• Keyboard+Mouse: Logitech G1 Gaming Desktop - RM 89

Total : RM 2923

Note 2 : The Phenom II X3 720(2.8GHz) beats Phenom X4 9850(2.5GHz) hands down, so I presumed that X3 710 can beat X4 9650 since both are 200 MHz difference from the cpus mentioned above. Because the 710 is cheaper than 9650 and offer more performance than it, thus 710 is the wise choice.

Note 3 : Phenom II X3 710 is a new cpu, thus you must update the motherboard with the newest bios to support it.

How's my configuration? Do you have other opinions? Please kindly leave them here :)