Help me choose an AMD CPU/MOBO combo please!

Hi all.

Just saw a bargain in the play.com sale and I've went ahead and bought it. £30 for 2GB of Kingston HyperX 1600mhz RAM (Kingston KHX1600C9D3K2/2G) so I got 2 lots. Thats 4GB of good branded DDR3 RAM for £60! Haven't seen it that cheap in ages, if ever. Seemed such a bargain I just had to buy it even though it's currently no use to me!

My current system is an E6600 and an asus P5B with 2GB corsair DDR2 so naturally it wont be going into that!

I've read that because of the voltages on this RAM it has to be in an AM3 build, which is fine by me as I was considering an AMD upgrade at some point anyway. Question is which CPU and Mobo combo do I go for?

Want to get an X6 1055T but not sure if I can afford it. Was hoping the Phenom quad core with 2 cores disabled would reach the channel soon so I could potentially unlock a 4 core to a 6 core but that doesn't look like its ever going to happen now.

Can anyone recommend a decent mobo to go with the 1055T preferably with crossfire/sli support or has any one other suggestions for another AMD CPU/Mobo combo to go with my RAM?

Thanks in advance.

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Originally Posted by Nobull

Can anyone recommend a decent mobo to go with the 1055T preferably with crossfire/sli support or has any one other suggestions for another AMD CPU/Mobo combo to go with my RAM?

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http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-ATX

Just wanted to say I'm doing a similar upgrade to you and you might want to wait a week or two for the 95w TDP version of the 1055T to be released, it's the same as the 125w version just it has a lower VID so uses less power + produces less heat.

Cheers Kalniel. Not a bad price for USB3 and Sata 6GBs support....

Not sure I can muster the ~£250 needed for that and a 1055T.

Anyone else with any cheaper combination suggestions?

Cheers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by watercooled

Just wanted to say I'm doing a similar upgrade to you and you might want to wait a week or two for the 95w TDP version of the 1055T to be released, it's the same as the 125w version just it has a lower VID so uses less power + produces less heat.

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Will it not be pricier though? Oh I'm willing to wait a few weeks, no rush, only bought the ram as it was so cheap. i spose if a lower TDP version comes out it might bring the older 1 down by around 10-15% in price.

Thanks for the heads up

It should be the same price, or at least have the same RRP but as you said the price of the 125w version might drop slightly when it's launched. Either way it's probably worth waiting. Oh and I'm planning on using this board, no SLI/Crossfire but it looks like a great value board IMO.

The Asus M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 does not do symmetrical Crossfire.

These two 870 chipset based motherboards are quite decent IMHO:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...-SATA-RAID-ATX

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-ATX

If you want symmetrical Crossfire you will need to look at getting an 890GX or 890FX based motherboard. Some 880G based motherboards do symmetrical Crossfire but these are rare AFAIK.

pardon my ignorance CAT but what's the difference between non-symetrical and symetrical crossfire?

http://forums.hexus.net/current-barg...6-86-aria.html

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Originally Posted by Nobull

pardon my ignorance CAT but what's the difference between non-symetrical and symetrical crossfire?

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A motherboard which can do symmetrical Crossfire runs both PCI-E connectors at the same speed whereas a motherboard which does asymmetrical Crossfire will run both the slots at different speeds. Many motherboards which are advertised as doing Crossfire actually run one slot at PCI-E 2.0 16X and the other at PCI-E 2.0 4X meaning scaling will be affected.