Choices Choices (Intel - AMD, £800)

[Simon.The.Sloth]

Hi everyone!

About a month ago now I was extremely close to buying a p9550 system with a 4870 gfx card for gaming / graphics design. Im so glad I waited as now my options have opened up! But with options theres also confusion

This is the specs I am planning on using:






Now my ultimate plan for this build was to be able to add a second 5850, more RAM and a second harddrive later on down the road, but today I read a review (on anandtech.com) for that motherboard which said:

The board only sports two fan headers so that might also be a problem for users with two or more 3-pin case fans. The board does support CrossFireX operation although we highly recommend against this setup as the second PCIe x16 slot is actually an x4 electrical slot running off the P55 chipset.

Not exactly sure what this means, but I'm pretty sure that it throws a spanner in the works for my £800ish upgadeble crossfire rig.

Is it going to be possible to get a motherboard better for crossfire in this price range? Am I doing the right thing going for the i5? I believe from what I'v read it beats the p9550 just about?

Iv also noticed the RAM iv chosen also isnt compatible with the mobo, any suggestions on good memory?

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!

[nibbler]

MSI GD-45 (just off the top of my head). Seems like a good deal, I think its 8x/8x (don't quote me, It's been hard to even find a good review). Given its provenance (part of the solid GD p55 range) It should be good.

EDIT: Just found this review: http://techreport.com/articles.x/17789/2
which shows that the MSI run sat 16x/2x which is far from ideal. But hey, check it out, review of 2 uATX boards.

[Simon.The.Sloth]

Thanks for replying nibbler, and also for the review. Made for some interesting reading. Im starting to think im going to have to spend a bit more for a board with good crossfire capabilities. Or maybe I should change back to the p9550 route and see if that saves money for a better board

[Zhaoman]

I built my rig last year with a 4850 thinking "I could probably add another 4850 down the road when I need the extra performance". Now I've realised how wrong I was, if I wanted more performance today I would most certainly buy a 5 series card because a CF 4850 set up means: more power-draw, high temps, no support for DX11, unstable performance on older games (and no guarantee of driver support into the future), lots more noise and none of the cool factor of owning a 5 series...

Although some of the above problems are slightly exaggerated, the point is don't fool yourself into thinking you absolutely *need* a CF motherboard because when the time does come to upgrade you'll most likely find buying a better card from the newest generation is the better choice

All this depends how far down the line you want to upgrade of course, because if the new generation isn't out then a second 5850 could come in handy, but it won't be cheap...

[Simon.The.Sloth]

Thanks for that Zhaoman, I have been wondering about how practicle it will be to upgrade by adding a second 5850 as opposed to replacing with the latest card. I just assumed that because this is the start of a new gen of cards, it made sence. But I guess it all depends of the how much the price of the cards come down and how much better the future cards will be. I dont expect to upgrade the RAM, second harddrive and gfx card for atleast another year after iv built this system.

Maybe I will be better off going for the cheaper motherboard, saving the money and when the time comes just upgrade to a newer card.

More decisions to make

[Zhaoman]

I thought that way last year because the CF 4850s were benchmarking alongisde GTX280s so I thought how cool would that be to have 2 of them a year or two down the line, but now it's not very cool at all because the 5850 destroys it... Technology moves way too fast

[nibbler]

I thought that way last year because the CF 4850s were benchmarking alongisde GTX280s so I thought how cool would that be to have 2 of them a year or two down the line, but now it's not very cool at all because the 5850 destroys it... Technology moves way too fast

I was sitting thinking about my upcoming build and concluding that it was depressing that in like 10 years we'll be laughing at how slow i7 is

[Simon.The.Sloth]

Well thanks Zhaoman, you've convinced me not to go the crossfire route, saving me money (for now atleast)

Im still unsure as to what my best motherboard & ram options are, theres alot to choose from in my sub £90 price range.

ASRock P55M Pro
Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2
Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L
ASRock P55M Pro
MSI P55M-GD45

Are a few

This is my first build so I really just want a board with space to work and a good layout. Im not to worried about overclocking atall. As long as I can add more memory, connect a second harddrive and upgrade the gfx card when needed.

EDIT:

Well I guess I'll go with my original choice of the GA-P55M-UD2, can anyone please advise my on decent memory that will deffinatly work with this board? Iv read about how this board is very pickey about what RAM you use..

[nibbler]

for that money u can build an 1336 uATX with asus rampage 2 Gene and a 5770...

[Simon.The.Sloth]

for that money u can build an 1336 uATX with asus rampage 2 Gene and a 5770...

Just tried this on scan and it went a bit over my budget . Is this the kinda thing you were thinking off, or did I make a mistake

[nightkhaos]

Just tried this on scan and it went a bit over my budget . Is this the kinda thing you were thinking off, or did I make a mistake

Can't see a way to make that cheaper except going down to a 650W PSU, so yes, that is exactly what he was thinking.

[lego batman]

Small thing but don't forget the extra fans. That case can be quite loud so if you care about that sort of thing invest a bit in some quiet fans for the front (and maybe top 2 as well). Also get rubber fan mounts for the two tricools that come with the case as they make a lot of vibration noise.

[Simon.The.Sloth]

Can't see a way to make that cheaper except going down to a 650W PSU, so yes, that is exactly what he was thinking.

Thanks nightkhaos! You just reminded me that I put the higher PSU in there when I thort I might eventually be using crossfire. Do you think 650w would be enough for my original i5 spec I posted on the 1st post in this thread, keeping in mind I will evenually add another harddrive, more RAM, and upgrade the video card.

Small thing but don't forget the extra fans. That case can be quite loud so if you care about that sort of thing invest a bit in some quiet fans for the front (and maybe top 2 as well). Also get rubber fan mounts for the two tricools that come with the case as they make a lot of vibration noise.

Cheers lego man, will be looking into this now as it hadn't really crossed my mind. Although I'm not too worried about noise (anything will be quiter then my current pc) and I can always just crank up the music

[nibbler]

650w is plenty. I would get an enermax psu for ~£70. its 525W which is equally enough .
Then maybe get proper triple channel ram too, helps . I woud say save another £50, its well worth it.

[nibbler]

Or with the antec 300 why not save £40 and get an ATX motherboard (P6T SE)?

[Simon.The.Sloth]

haha, nibbler you've got me all confused now.

I like the look of the P6T SE, but I dont think that supports the i5 1156.

I was considering the Asus P7P55D, Intel P55 Express. (which is a ATX motherboard?)


Also Im not sure about the triple channel ram.. Does the i5 even support triple channel ram, or is it all down the which motherboard I choose?