Still keeping my m2n32 sli deluxe andd 600W FSP

[CupofCare]

Hi everyone!

I know its an awesome forum so I have a couple of questions
I'm planning on replacing my dying 7900gt with a beast of radeon 5870, but I wasn't sure if my epsilon gln 600w could handle it (amd website tells something about fsp 800w or higher).
I also want to replace my single-core (lol!) cpu with amd phenom and I don't know if it would be viable :S
May be, I don't know, I should just get Athlon x2 instead?
Thank you for taking time to read this!


Regards

CupofCare

[0iD]

Depends on what else you're running, but a good quality 600w PSU should be man enough for the job tbh.

[Ulti]

It should be totally fine provided you don't have too many HDD, sound cards etc. (Which I doubt you would have)

Even with a few HDD, a 5870 and a phenom I doubt it'd draw over 400w on load.

[Pob255]

Is that motherboard AM2 or AM2+
if it's AM2 then you cannot use the newer PhenonII and athlonII
If it's AM2+ then you can

a 600w epsilon should be more than enough

[scaryjim]

After a very lengthy fight with the ASUS cpu support website (http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx) it doesn't look like the mobo officially supports Phenom II Quad cores, but the CPU support looks a bit random to me (including a Socket AM2+ Phenom II X3 715 I've never heard of!). On the other hand, there's plenty of CPUs there that wouldbe a significant upgrade to any Athlon 64, so there's every chance you can get something quite a bit better that *is* officially supported with a BIOS flash. You couldbe looking at a situation where your CPU starts bottlenecking your gaming though (for instance, an Athlon X2 3800+ bottlenecks an AGP HD4650, so you need to be looking at the fastest Dual core you can get your hands on, an Athlon X2 7750 (based on the original phenom), or a Phenom Quad / Triple core. You could try a Phenom II / Athlon II, but since they're not officially supported you might find they don't run at their rated speed (I know a couple of people on here have had issues with Phenom II X4 965s running at 800MHz because they weren't properly recognised by their mobo's BIOS).

update: the best processors you can get with guaranteed compatibility to your mobo are probably the Athlon X2 6000+, the Phenom X4 9850 (note: that's an original Phenom processor, not a Phenom II) and the new 45nm Athlon X2 5000+ which is based on a Phenom II - go figure

If I was you, I'd consider putting the money into a complete system upgrade instead: depending on what resolution you game at a 4850 or 4870 may be more than good enough to push your framerates above your monitor's refresh rate, and would leave you with £200 to invest in a mobo / CPU / ram combination that would leave you with a better balanced, more capable PC all round...

[Pob255]

For low cost I'd try to get a cheap 2nd hand high end Athlon x2 (a 2nd ATHLON X2 5600+ in p&p cost me £33 back in july, that's fairly high end for the original athlon x2 series)
Or one of the original phenoms depending on what you can find for a good price.
pair that up with a decent gpu, I still think the 4850 (£70-80) or 4870 (£90-100) are probably the best price for performance, for an nvidia card a gts250 (£70-80) will perform around the same level as the 4850, the gtx260 is now out priced by the 4870 performance wise.

For the new 5000series, the 5850 is your best bet for price vs performance.
However unless you really must have dx11 the loww cost 48xx are probably better for performance vs price.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You should go with an X2 7850 or a X4 9850 or 9950.The other alternative is to get a new motherboard and either an X2 545,X2 550 or an X3 720 with a new motherboard. The only issue will be the fact that you will need to re-register your OS and maybe some of your installed software.

[CupofCare]

...

If I was you, I'd consider putting the money into a complete system upgrade instead: depending on what resolution you game at a 4850 or 4870 may be more than good enough to push your framerates above your monitor's refresh rate, and would leave you with £200 to invest in a mobo / CPU / ram combination that would leave you with a better balanced, more capable PC all round...

Thanks for the athlon/phenomII hint. Maybe ill figure something out.

Depends on what else you're running, but a good quality 600w PSU should be man enough for the job tbh.

Good to know, thanks

Is that motherboard AM2 or AM2+
if it's AM2 then you cannot use the newer PhenonII and athlonII
If it's AM2+ then you can
...

Just checked asus website, it says that it supports am2+, score!

The question that bothers me is would radeon 5870 and athlon (aka the "odgibox" 5000) allow me a luxury of 1280x1024 16AF/8AA on my viewsonic vx922 in crysis?


CupofCare

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thanks for the athlon/phenomII hint. Maybe ill figure something out.



Good to know, thanks



Just checked asus website, it says that it supports am2+, score!

The question that bothers me is would radeon 5870 and athlon (aka the "odgibox" 5000) allow me a luxury of 1280x1024 16AF/8AA on my viewsonic vx922 in crysis?


CupofCare

An HD5850 or even an HD5770 would probably do the job. An HD5870 is a tad OTT at 1280X1024.

Also I would check what the maximum wattage is of the processors that can be supported by your motherboard too.

[Pob255]

Knowing crysis probably not, but the bigger question is why you'd want to?

[CupofCare]

An HD5850 or even an HD5770 would probably do the job. An HD5870 is a tad OTT at 1280X1024.

Also I would check what the maximum wattage is of the processors that can be supported by your motherboard too.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind

Knowing crysis probably not, but the bigger question is why you'd want to?

Its just me trying to be cheap and seeing if it works, I hope it does , but I don't know...

[CupofCare]

Ok, I have another question. What cpu cooler do you think would suit my cpu? Are Zalmans any good? or there are cheaper and better alternatives?


CupofCare

[Pob255]

Depends on what cpu you're using, how much overclocking you plan to try to do and most importantly how wide your case is.

Any of the cheap 120mm fan based tower coolers are a good starting point but your case does need to be around 200mm wide (depending on case)

[CupofCare]

Depends on what cpu you're using, how much overclocking you plan to try to do and most importantly how wide your case is.

Any of the cheap 120mm fan based tower coolers are a good starting point but your case does need to be around 200mm wide (depending on case)

I'm using lian-li pc 60 plus with 210mm width. Planning to learn overclocking, so definitely not going to pump it up to 8848 km above the sea level.

So the config of the system will resemble something like this:

Athlon X2 6000 (aka the "ODGIBOX")
Asus M2N32 Sli Deluxe
RAM - Corsair XMS2 - 2GB
Radeon 4890 (or 5850)
Viewsonic VX922 1280x768
Hdd etc.

Question is, will I be able to run Crysis on full throttle? What VGA do you think should I consider from those two and what CPU do you think will be better?

Many regards,

CupofCare

[CupofCare]

Ok, I've decided to go for Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro rev.2

Any suggestions?

CupofCare

[jonny440]

I use this to give me an idea of power requirements. Not sure how accurate it is, but since Antec are a reputable psu supplier I like to have faith in it.

Antec Power Supply Calculator

As for Freezer 7's, I reckon they are great and cheap.