Should I buy:

a 780G mobo (to play a little) or

a 790FX mobo (an maybe a HD 3450),

until I can buy a HD4850?

I won´t Crossfire or Sli.

I don´t have a computer, so i´ll have to buy everything.

I like games but i´m on a budget. So, right now, I´ll be using this machine to minor stuff (Word, Excel, etc.) and a little gaming. But I want´t it to be upgradable and become a gaming machine in the future.

Why I won´t buy a 4850 right now?

HD 4850: U$ 436,00
HD 3450: U$ 120,00

(These are the prices in my country)


Mobo prices:

DFI LANPARTY DK 790FX-M2RS Socket AM2+/AM2 Chipset AMD 790FX P/ Phenom / Athlon 64 X2 / Athlon 64 FX / Athlon 64, DDR2-800, SATA 3Gb/s, Raid, PCI-E = U$ 349,00

MSI K9A2 Platinum Socket AM2+/AM2 Chipset AMD 790FX P/ Phenom FX / Phenom / Athlon 64 FX / Athlon 64 X2, DDR2-1066, SATA 3Gb/s, Raid, PCI-E CrossFire = U$ 347,00

Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H Socket AM2 Chipset AMD 780G P/ Phenom FX / Phenom / Athlon X2 64 / , DDR2, SATA 3Gb/s, Raid, PCI-E + on board ATI Radeon HD3200 DirectX10 support = U$ 217,00

Asus M3A78-EMH HDMI Socket AM2 Chipset AMD 780G P/ Phenom FX / Phenom / Athlon 64 FX / Athlon 64 X2, DDR2-1066, SATA 3Gb/s, Raid, PCI-E = U$ 269,00

If you have to buy everything tell us your budget, if you need windows and a screen.

I'd pick the K9A2 Platinum. 790FX is your best choice for upgradability, I don't know that DFI, and I know the K9A2 Platinum is very good.
Just don't expect much from the HD 3450. That's a card meant for playing HD videos, not for games. You'll get 1 fps in Crysis, I guess.

Don't buy a 780G if you're a gamer. Same thing, 780G is great for HTPCs (i.e. watching high-def movies) but it stinks for recent games.

Thanks georgy,

My budget is U$ 1.000,00 (that´s why I can´t buy the HD4850 right now)
(I already have monitor and OS)

4850 436$ ?!? what's the price of a 8800gt ?

what website are you looking at or are these in-store prices?

Sorry,

The prices went down a little this weak (as saw it 10 minutes ago):

4850: U$ 333,33

8800gt (512Mb): U$ 326,00

8800gts (G80)(320Mb): U$ 293,00

Where are you shopping?

What kind of currency is U$ so we can convert it to something we can work with.

What country are you in? Those prices are terrible compared to US domestic prices - must be a whopping high tariff, little competition, or graft.

In the US, for $1,000 I would recommend an Intel system. The most effective purchase on the low end would be AMD still but $1,000 does not put you on the low end here.

With your AMD prices it may put you on the low end. How do Intel based core 2 duo system prices compare? Any chance they are cheaper than AMD over there?

The prices are at on-line stores in Brazil.

If you wanna take a look:

http://www.pluginformatica.com/

(there are no direct link to the products)

(The prices are in Reais: 1,65 Reais = 1,00 (american dollars)


In portuguese:

Placa-Mãe = Motherboard
Placa de Video = Graphics Card

(look at the left corner on INFORMATICA)

That explains it. I heard that Brazil has some massive customs fees on hardware

That´s about it.

I think that, in the end, my question is:

Will the 790FX (SB600) motherbords + HD3450 (or 3650), do the same job (playing HD videos, a little gaming and minor stuff) as the 780G (SB700) motherboards?
Remember that I will hold to that system for a year until I get the money (or the prices get lower) to buy a decent video card.

HD 3450 and 780G have 40 stream processors each, so expect similar results indeed.

Just to get some idea of what that means:
HD 3650 has 120 processors
HD 3850 has 320
HD 4850 has 800

How do your "$U" prices compare with what is in the catalog you linked above?

For instance - a good basic mobo is the GA-EP35-DS3R (DS3L is cheaper but not listed). The price is listed as:

R$488,00
ou 4x de R$ 155,57.

What do the two separate lines mean and how do I translate that to U$? By U$ do you mean US$?
So R$488/1.65 = US$295? For a board that sells for $84 on newegg.
I must be figuring something wrong.
Have you considered smuggling as an occupation?

Motherboard/video card trafficing...love it.