phenom any good

[fishy123]

hi i have been looking at processors and mobos with the intent to build a new pc.
the one i am about to buy is a PHENOM 940 3.0Ghz QUAD CORE. are they any good?
also a GEFORCE 8200 SERIES MOTHERBOARD,
for both of those is £230
if not what others can you suggest around the same price.

heres a bit more info if you need it?
Processor
Processor AMD Phenom II X4 940
Number Of Cores 4 (Quad Core)
Clock Speed 3.0 Ghz
Interface Socket AM2
Bus Speed 4000 MT/s
Process Technology 45nm
L1 Cache 4 x 128 KB
L2 Cache 4 x 512 KB
L3 Cache 6 MB
# Special Features Thermal Design Power: 125W
# True Multi-Core Design
# Cool n Quiet Technology
# AMD64 With Direct Connect Architecture
# HyperTransport 3.0
Package Type Retail Boxed With Heatsink Fan
Motherboard
Chipset NVIDIA GeForce 8200
CPU Interface Socket AM2
Maximum Supported Memory 8 GB
Expansion Slots 1 x PCI Express 2.0 slot
2 x PCI Express x1 slot
3 x 32-Bit PCI slots
Storage Interfaces 6 x SATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors
1 x ATA133 IDE connector (supports 2 x IDE devices)
LAN 10/100/1000
Audio 7.1 CH Windows Vista Premium Level HD Audio (ALC888 Audio Codec)

 

[little_pob]

Mid range is always difficult to spec for.

The biggest question is probably how much upgrade redundancy do you want? (i.e. do you expect to be able to easily replace the CPU and RAM in the next 2-3 years?)

The AM2 processors are older tech, being partly replaced by AM2+ but now superceeded by AM3. Bit-tech are actually recommending the new LGA1156 Core-i5s (specifically the 750) over the AM3, as the AM4 socket and CPUs are due out in approx 12months.

Now it's possible AMD may make the AM4 CPUs compatible with the AM3 motherboards (much like the AM3 CPUs are compatible with AM2 and AM2+ mobos), but there is no guarantee. As such you can grab an i5-750 and LGA1156/P55 mobo for approx £240.