P31 motherboard in Singapore?

[universe]

My brother is going to visit Singapore in this coming Janualry. I want him to buy an Intel P31 chipset motherboard, to be exact GA-EP31-DS3L or GA-P31-DS3L from Gigayte. I downloaded a few pricelists from www.sg.hardwarezone.com. Unfortunately I didn't find the wanted model in any of the lists, though there was a G31 model in some. Can anyone tell me if my wanted model is available in Singapore?

Also I would like to get a ATI Radeon Saphire HD 4650 512MB DDR3 graphics card. This also I didn't find in any of lists. Considering not all shops have provided their list on the website and not all lists I've gone through, can anyone tell me if these motherboard and graphics card are available in Singapore?

Thanks in advance.

[DimWit Kid]

I think you should try to ask the importer (Ban Leong) about EP31. If no shop listed it probably they don't bring any stocks in anymore. Now most of stock are P45 chipsets with X58 coming fast.

Re sapphire4650 it is available in most of the big shops. Won't post the name here since it's probably advertising, but the major shops in SLS all carry that one (failing which you always get Powercolor or HIS or ASUS 4650).

If you have any doubt, you should try to ask BL/Corbell/Convergent directly...

[universe]

Thank you DimWit Kid for your reply. Ya, now is the time of P45. But I am not yet ready to spend that amount of money. Moreover reading various reviews on GA-P31-DS3L I understand it's a very good value for price. Since there are still some G31 motherboards from Gigabyte in the pricelists, therefor I desparately hope the P31 one also will be available in some shops, if it was imported at all.

Nice to see Saphire 4650 DDR3 is available. I saw Powercolor model in a couple of procelists. I searched online to see some comparative reviews on both cards, but didn't find any.

About the names that you mentioned, where do I get their email addresses? In www.sg.hardwarezone.com?

[DimWit Kid]

I don't think P31 is available... but you may try in SLS. What you probably should do is again to call Ban Leong and just ask. And if you want that chipset, G31 can also be used for your purpose anyway.

Any reason why you want Sapphire 4650? Two things - that's Graphic card is more expensive than your mobo, and secondly, Sapphire is usually the more expensive one.... and in my opinion other (well known) brands are as good anyway.

[universe]

Thanks for your response.

Reason for looking for GA-EP31-DS3L is I've read various reviews on P/G31 motherboards and that seemed to be highest rated amongst all. Its price is also the highest among them. Say, a GA-p35-DS3P's price is about double of that of a GA-EP31-DS3L.

About the graphics card, I actually want to buy a 4650 one. Reason for Sapphire is most of the reviews I found on 4650 was by Sapphire and it was highly rated. As I told, I had searched for comparative reviews on both Sapphire and Powercolor 4650 but didn't find any.

Do you have any contact information of Ban Leong?

[DimWit Kid]

You can do a search online for the contact number. I probably have violated the advertisement code here just by naming them openly - let alone give a phone number!

I don't see any P31 in Singapore anyway at this moment so no matter how much you want it you may not be able to get it - but do try your luck with the distributor. By the way, on its own, P31 mobo is less than $100. P35 is about double that - you're correct. IMHO, if you buy an old chipset like that probably you should just use onboard graphic (any specific reason why you want 4650?)

If you don't mind I'll give you a few more (unsolicited) opinions. You may want to reconsider about the whole principal of building a DIY rig: if you live here, you better buy parts that are popular here - not one that you read to be good. RMA will be a nightmare if you buy something that distributor does not stock (think a 3 month waiting period for example).
Secondly, mobo is your most important part aside from processor. So I'd put more money into mobo rather than buying a graphic card that is more expensive.
Last but not least, assuming you have budgetary constraint, you would be better off getting an AMD board and processor - you can get much more common board, and at the price of an intel board, you would almost probably get a much better AMD mobo (or conversely with the same price and board level, you would get a much faster AMD processor).

Good luck.

(PS. IMHO again, Powercolor performance and stability is not inferior to Sapphire. For that matter ASUS, Gainward, XFX, HIS, or Palit are all good if you can find their 4650 display board. You only need to be careful with new GPUs or chipsets (say if you buy 4870 or GeF 260) but for something as Radeon 4650 you can hardly go wrong with any of the above brands - just make sure you get the feature you want).

[universe]

Thanks once again for your continuous response.

Ok, let's take it that I won't get any P31 motherboard. I had another look at the pricelists and saw some P43 motherboards costing more than P31 obviously, but by an amount which I may go for. Namey Asus P5QL-E, Gigabyte EP43-DS3L, MSI P43-NEO3-F. Unfortunately there aren't many reviews on P43 motherboards online. So not sure what will be the best value for price. Any recommedation? May end up getting the cheapest MSI one.

Reason for a 4650, not onboard graphics, is I do play games sometimes. You surely have understood, I'm not a hardcore gamer of any type. I'll be quite happy to play a game at a good frame rate at any quality of the graphics. I believe 4650 is a good budget graphics card that will play any game at medium or if necessary at low settings.

I didn't really look at the options of AMD when I started researching for my new parts. I am thinking of getting a processor Intel Core 2 Duo E7300. I wouldn't mind to build an AMD system. Do you have any quick suggestion to an AMD processor/mobo combination which is valuewise better or equivalent to my current Intel combination at lower price? Your third point is really encouraging to go for an AMD system.

If those brands you mentioned for 4650 don't really make much difference then I don't see why I wouldn't buy any available card rather than crying for Sapphire.

[DimWit Kid]

It's actually easier to recommend if we know your budget in total. But just in case you can try the following recommendations:

Intel Core 2 Duo E5200 & Biostar G31-M7 ~ $188
or AMD Athlon X2 5600+ & Palit N68S ~ $209
Kingston ValueRam PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL6 2GB ~ $25
Palit HD3870 512MB DDR3 ~ $159
Western Digital Caviar® Blue™ 160 GB ~ $63
Samsung SATA 22X DVD Rewriter ~ $34
Vantec Ion2+ 450W PSU ~ $67
Cooler Master Centurion 5 ~ $68

Total ~ $6XX

AMD Athlon X2 5000+ & Palit N68S ~ $170
Kingston ValueRam PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL6 2GB ~ $25
Palit HD3870 512MB DDR3 ~ $159
Western Digital Caviar® Blue™ 160 GB ~ $63
Samsung SATA 22X DVD Rewriter ~ $34
Asus TA-891 & CoolerMaster 460W ~ $99

Total ~ $5XX

In fact it's cut and paste from somebody else's recommendation there... But I reckon those would be good enough for light gaming. You can further replace the HD3870 with 4650 if you want a less expensive GPU.

[universe]

Well, for processor, motherboard, graphics card, RAM and harddisk my budget was ~S$470. According to the cheapest pricelist that I've seen yet, a Seagate 250GB harddisk, Kingston DDR2-800 2GB RAM and Powercolor HD4650 512MB (unfortunately I haven't found any review on this card) would cost me $192 in total. That leaves me with $278. I thought I could get an Intel C2D E7300 and Gigabyte EP31-DS3L in that price. But now if I've to choose another motherboard, then there's a Intel C2D E7300 and Asus P5QL-E (P43 chipet) for $315. That's $37 more. Hmm, maybe I'll have to raise my budget above $500. Or do you have any AMD solution which will give same or better performance than their Intel C2D and P43 chipset counterparts?

I've another question. In the same pricelist, the processor and motherboard cost total $348 individually. But as a bundle it's $315. Why is such difference? Doesn't bundle box mean they provide you with the same 2 individual packages or something different?

[DimWit Kid]

It actually sounds good - your specification there with P43. I must say the price you mentioned are much better than whatI can get. See if you can get more discount by paying cash. If you do not mind, you can check MSI's P43 whether it's a bit cheaper.

Regarding AMD I must admit first that I have never used AMD (I always buy Intel) so can't claim I know the performance for sure. But here's my suggestion: P43+C2DE7300 should be more or less on par with AMD Chipset AM2 socket 780G. This means Asus M3A78-EM780 or Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H (seeing you seem to like those two brands). If you see the price you will save something like S$ 80 by switching to AMD 780G + processor X26000. In fact at the same price as Intel combo you may be able to use AMD780G chipset + a faster processor Quadcore(X4)9550. Your choice!

Re your question, I think the combo price are usually sponsored by distributors, but hey, it's not that unusual that if you buy more than one item you can get a discount. And yes, "bundle box" means you get two boxes - one for the mobo and the other for processor. They just want you to buy both from the same shop.