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[Sensei]

So, I'm having a lot of trouble choosing a CPU/mobo for a budget gaming rig.

I started out a thread a while ago for this, but since I'm down to one last part choice I figured I'd just ask here. My stated objective is to get a computer that can smoothly run (40 FPS) pretty much all non-crysis games that are out right now at least at 1280x1024, as cheaply as possible, for my girlfriend, with 1920x1080 capability being a bonus.

So far I've got:
-MicroATX case w/two fans
-530W Rosewill PSU (enough for Intel or AMD CPU)
-8GB DDR3 RAM
-Radeon HD 7790
-HDD and ODD from another computer
So for reference, I've spent about $250 so far with some careful shopping.

Originally I had decided a Pentium G2130 dual-core processor would do nicely along with a cheap ASRock B75 mobo. Using the deal I found on the processor, the pair would come to $130 with shipping. However, browsing around benchmarks, I found that Tomb Raider (one game she plays a lot) dropped low enough in FPS to be difficult to play in some spots with a similar processor, the G2020. As much as I like the notion of only spending $130 on the CPU/mobo, I can probably afford to spend more, but most CPUs aren't on sale like the G2130 I found. Vexingly, I can't seem to find good Tomb Raider benchmarks (it seems to be the most CPU-limited game I'm looking at by far) for the G2130 or a lot of the other CPUs I might be looking at.

So, given that, I'm trying to decide what I should do here:
-Stop worrying about the G2130, which I'd do if I knew it could handle Tomb Raider with some settings turned down (but being a CPU problem I doubt that)
-Get an OC'able processor (not sure what to choose here, and I'm limited by the 530w PSU and Micro-ATX case)
-Consider AMD cards, such as the A4 760k or FX-4130 (not sure how much better these are?)
-Get a more expensive Intel CPU, like the i3-3220 or i3-4130
-I'm not too worried about sockets, but I do wonder if the FM2 socket is worth it, being that it seems to be mostly APUs

So yeah, mobo+cpu combos in the $130-200 range. Recommend me some. Target is "always above 40FPS on Tomb Raider", although I don't really know if that should scale with any in-game settings.

[jaass]

That power supply is really cutting it close if you are going to overclock a CPU. Don't get a dual-core you will be replacing that in a couple of years since Quad-Cores are becoming more standard in the industry now. Avoid AMD CPUs they are kind of crap for gaming, get a Intel CPU that is around 3.0 GHz and you should be able to run most games today.

Edit:
Here is http://pcpartpicker.com/.

[Sensei]

That power supply is really cutting it close if you are going to overclock a CPU. Don't get a dual-core you will be replacing that in a couple of years since Quad-Cores are becoming more standard in the industry now. Avoid AMD CPUs they are kind of crap for gaming, get a Intel CPU that is around 3.0 GHz and you should be able to run most games today.

Edit:
Here is http://pcpartpicker.com/.

The PC Part Picker link isn't a lot of help. I'm mostly interested if anyone has any of the CPUs I'm looking at or can make a good suggestion from experience. My options are pretty much either "quad core" or "intel", not both, as quad core intels start at $180 w/o mobo. I also feel pretty weird spending twice as much on the CPU as the graphics card for a gaming computer.

[MaximumZero]

Avoid AMD CPUs they are kind of crap for gaming...

Er, my PhenomIIx6 1045T Black Edition paired with a Radeon HD 7850 would beg to differ. The setup isn't terribly overkill, but I can play pretty much everything I want to on Max graphics with no problem (unless I toss a hundred or so rockets at KSP, and that's the physics engine, not the rig.)

Something like this mobo and this processor should do the trick just fine, although they combine to be at the top of your budget.

[Tellemurius]

Avoid AMD CPUs they are kind of crap for gaming...

Er, my PhenomIIx6 1045T Black Edition paired with a Radeon HD 7850 would beg to differ. The setup isn't terribly overkill, but I can play pretty much everything I want to on Max graphics with no problem (unless I toss a hundred or so rockets at KSP, and that's the physics engine, not the rig.)

Something like this mobo and this processor should do the trick just fine, although they combine to be at the top of your budget.

no god no one touch that Zambezi, they were noted to be even horrible compared to the 1045T :/

pay the extra 50 for a 8320, at least get your 8 cores out of this.

[Sensei]

Man, I hear a lot of debate over whether or not AMD CPUs are horrible. However, they're my only CPU+Mobo option under $200 if I need quad core.

no god no one touch that Zambezi, they were noted to be even horrible compared to the 1045T :/

pay the extra 50 for a 8320, at least get your 8 cores out of this.

If Zambezi is horrible, I might consider the FX-4300 which has Vishera architecture and is within my budget ($102 at outletpc). I'm not even considering eight cores- remember, this is a budget gaming PC. That means cheap, and not video editing. Quad core is ample for me.

Still, I'm not sure if it's worth it compared to a comparable-priced i3. AMD users also often cite the ease of overclocking, which my PSU gives me limited room for.

Edit: I have another question, all the AM3+ motherboards say they support 1600mhz RAM as an overclock, and not being supported by default. Would I have to fiddle with things/see increased power requirements to take full advantage of the RAM I already have, which is 1600mhz?

[MaximumZero]

Tom's Hardware says yes, as long as the processor can handle it, which is most likely yes.

[jaass]

Edit: I have another question, all the AM3+ motherboards say they support 1600mhz RAM as an overclock, and not being supported by default. Would I have to fiddle with things/see increased power requirements to take full advantage of the RAM I already have, which is 1600mhz?

There is really no point of overclocking RAM it might give you tiny FPS boost but all it really does is create more heat.

[Sappho]

Is there any way to disable animated GIFs completely in Chrome? I have pretty severe hypersensitivity problems, primarily to sound and visuals. Lately these problems are getting worse. I have pain in my ears all the time just from normal sounds, and I get headaches from unexpected movement on my screen. I found an extension called XKit for Tumblr which stops most (but not all) of the animations on there, but there are other animations all over the place. Even on this, my beloved Bay12 forum, some people have animated avatars which I literally have to cover with my hand while I'm reading threads. I know I can disable avatars, but that's how I identify each forumgoer, since I have difficulty remembering names. (I have high-functioning autism, by the way, which is why I have so many strange issues.) Anyway, that wouldn't stop animations on other sites.

So is there a way to do it? An extension, a setting, anything? I use Chrome for email, tumblr, Bay12, and a few other things. I use Firefox for any sites I don't fully trust, with NoScript to block all scripts I don't explicitly authorize. I have a feeling it would be easier to stop gifs on Firefox than Chrome, but it's SO SLOW when I try to do stuff like loading email and tumblr on it.

[Descan]

Will this do?

[Sappho]

That is a helpful start, thank you. It requires me to sign in to Chrome, though, something I planned on never doing... And I have to manually stop every instance of every gif, which, although better than nothing, is also a huge pain. I don't suppose there exists anything that does what I really want though. Thanks for this, anyway. It's a start.

[Descan]

As far as I can tell from the description of the extension, there's a "whitelist" feature. Let's you select a few websites not to block gifs on, and blocks on every other website. Just activate it, and either set it to not whitelist any website or only whitelist a website you never visit if it demands you whitelist a website.

Can't really help you with the log-in thing, though. There are some extensions where you just drag them in to your extensions page and they install, not through the chrome store, but I don't know if this one is one of those, if it has another website that lets you download the extension directly.

[Sappho]

Oh, really? The only description I saw said that you have to hover over the image you want to stop and press ESC. Most browsers have this feature already, but Chrome for some reason does not, so the extension was just to add that functionality. I'll have to go back and read it again. If it works like you say, then it's perfect!

EDIT: Aha, it's in the "updates" part of the description, that's why I didn't see it. Also, it appears I can, in fact, enable it without signing in to Chrome. Unfortunately, it seems that "stopping" the GIF in this case means "removing the image completely." Where there used to be animated GIFs, there are now just blank spaces. I want to see the images, but only one frame of them... I guess I'm out of luck there.

[MaximumZero]

That's actually really easy to do in Opera. It's just a checkbox. I use it on my phone.

In Firefox, you have to go to the about:config, and change image.animation_mode to "none".

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Chrome has this functionality yet.

[Sensei]

So, a friend has been having a GPU problem:

As an upgrade for an obscenely old computer, he got a Radeon HD 6450 with no fan. The latest drivers are in use. It regularly crashes, triggering a VPU reset. This rudely interrupts games and (less often) regular activity.

So far, we've determined:
-The latest drivers are installed (and uninstalled, and reinstalled, and checked for corruption, and reinstalled again)
-The card is not too hot, GPU-Z says it only gets up to 43C
-Disabling VPU reset didn't fix anything
-The card is not overclocked
-The card is probably not underpowered, as it has about a 30watt TDP, which is lower than that of the previously installed Nvidia 8400GS. A previous attempt to overclock the card definitely underpowered it, as green artifacts were visible on screen, a symptom which does not occur in the regular crashes (it just freezes followed by a VPU reset).
-Downclocking the card from 625 MHZ to 550 MHZ and VRAM from 600 MHZ to 550 MHZ didn't help
-Unfortunately, the card is just a few days past the one month amazon return period
-Tried turning it off and on again

Other info:
Windows XP
320 Watt PSU, old, but ran a slightly higher TDP GPU okay earlier
Weird Dell motherboard from 2003 or something
Pentium 4 CPU

Are there any other good fixes for this issue that anybody knows about? Is the hardware just probably faulty?