AMD Computer Build - Need some ideas

[0083RN0083R]

Hi Guys,

I have been thinking about doing this for a while as my Dell XPS 710 was dying, and now has (need a new motherboard again) . I will be using it for gaming and CS4/CS5 and possibly some rendering.

I was looking at the AMD Phenom II 1090T Black Edition 3.2 GHz, as I do not have nearly £800 for a i7 980x.

I was also looking at the Asus Crosshair IV AM3 890FX Motherboard, I had heard quite good reviews of these and the 1090T goes well with it.

I would be getting an XFX 5970 Black Edition aswell. this would just be to futureproof myself for the next couple of years, also looking at the possibility of getting a second one later on (in a couple of years) as they will be much cheaper then.

The RAM I have been looking at is the Corsair XMS3 1600Mhz 4GB DDR3 sticks (2 of them) with 2 more slots on the motherboard if I need it in a couple of years.

I am just stuck on the rest, The PSU mainly, as for future upgrades I was thinking I would need something around the 1200W-1500W marker such as an Antec Truepower Quattro 1200W or the Xigmatek NRP-HC1501 1500W.

The OCZ Vertex 2E Bigfoot SSD was something I was looking at for a boot drive, but was not sure what kind of size to get. as I do have a couple of storage drives, (both 1TBs) I would not need a large SSD, so something around 40GB-120GB?

The case I was looking at was the NZXT Phantom (in white) but It has only just been released quite recently and I was not sure of what it would be like. Another option is the Antec Lanboy Air, but I am open to suggestion.
If you guys could help me out with the other essentials such as CD/DVD/Blu-ray Drives, Memory card bays and other things like the CPU cooler, soundcard and wireless adaptor (PCI would be better than USB).

I have all the peripherals I need, so no need to look for any if you would like to help.

TL;DR
I would like some help on options for a new AMD based computer.
CPU - AMD Phenom II 1090T 3.2GHz Hexacore
Motherboard - Asus Crosshair IV 890FX
GPU - XFX Radeon HD 5970 Black Edition
RAM - Possibly Corsair XMS3 1600MHz 8GB
Don't have much else decided on.

Thanks for reading and hope you can help, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Ayman.

[Cozwin]

Well could of comments to make as not much wrong with it.

At the top end bang for buck is actually kind of on Nvidia s side i have also heard they tend to last longer but i haven't used ati until recently so couldn't comment.

As for 1000W psu... totally overkill use this
http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

find your max load, compensate for crossfire if you are considering it... i bet 700w would be enough though but have a look anyway.

As for hexa core.... is it really needed? most programs barely use double core, most dont use quad so hexa just seems a waste at current time and probably for at least another year, i would buy a faster quad core tbh and just save yourself a few quid.

As for SSD... might be worth waiting for intels new range to come out on 20nm, should be faster cheaper and higher capacity, and other companies will likely try and match it.

[Domestic_Ginger]

IMO if you are getting a 1090 you should need the cores for rendering etc. An i7 should be faster core per core or a 955 if you are sticking with AMD as the difference from four to 6 cores is not massive in most cases. pcgamerhardare have an article on a number of games and the only that really sticks in my mind is civ5. an i5 760 may also be an option. Personally I woulod look at getting the fastest cores possible as opposed to more.

I would wait until the end of the month to have a look at the new 6k antilles or consider a xfire or SLI setup. The 6850 xfire or 460 in SLI may be altenative options; I woul dread reviews and see what gives the best price/performance as they both seem to scale quite well. Your board you chose does not support SLI officially although there are ways round to make it compatible if you have the inclination.

4GB ram may be fine to start with but looking at your budget it should not be much of a problem.

I suppose the key release dates coming up are the 69xxs from AMD/ATI. Sandybridge and Bulldozer are penned in for next year.

[eyezpy]

Also agree that 1000+ PSU is very much over kill. You are probably thinking about when you get two 5970 in your machine.
Also agree you should think about CF/SLi on something like the 6850/460 as mentioned. In two years from now faster and better 28nm cards and probably DirectX12 will be out.

A friend very recently build a gaming PC to power a three 23" monitor setup and found that SLi 460 789MB was the best bank for buck with very good performance. This was just before the release of AMD 6xxx cards though, but with the price dropping its probably still is.

[Pob255]

Depends what you mean by rendering, 3d modelling is one area that will seriously chew up cpu cycles and memory if you do complex stuff.
You can get away with far less all depends on what 3d work you're actually doing, I'm still on 2gb and I was happily modelling guns for fallout 3 mods , however these are low poly and very simple scenes by today's standards.
Start doing landscapes, with animated figures, throw in fogging, lens flares, depth of field and similar effects and you'll really start chewing up RAM and cpu cycles.

I'd also agree the 1000w is a bit over the top but not by that much, the 5970 is not a low power card, it's also not a cheap card.
Card too is over kill unless you're looking at gaming on a eyefinity setup, I'd say a gtx460 1gb or 6870, good enough for any single screen game, will pair up with a 2nd card very well, esp if you look at a triple monitor setup and more than enough grunt for what limited levels of ppu acceleration you can get out of a gaming card (unless you have one very specific thing in mind, then you want to get the best card for that task and all else is moot)

I'd disagree on a three 23" monitor setup that SLi 460 789MB is the best setup, far from it, the gtx460 768mb suffers from some serious memory bottle necks when pushing that many pixels about.
At the really high end triple monitor setp you want to be looking at gtx460 2gb as even the 1gb cards suffer.
http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/8016...ream-card.html
However for any single screen setup the gtx460 1gb sli is stonking performance
(interesting thing to note is that ATi cards don't suffer in the same way on eyefinity memory is less of an issue for them because of differences in memory handling)

[0083RN0083R]

I have been having a look on Scan recently, and I have a shopping basket made up, but it won't let me save it, therefore copy and paste will have to do...

Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Soundcard PCI-E - £134.57 £158.12
LN29646

2GB XFX HD 5970 Black, 4GHz (6GHz OC) GDDR5, GPU 725MHz (1GHz OC), 3200 Cores, 2x DL DVI-I/ Mini DP £398.59 £468.34
LN32077

LG BH10LS30.AUAU10B, 10x Blu-Ray Writer, 16x DVD±R, 8x +RW, 6x -RW, 12x RAM - OEM £71.98 £84.58
LN35190

Bitfenix Colossus, Glacier White, with Blue/Red Switchable LED, USB3 Ready, Full Tower Case w/o PSU £110.62 £129.98

1000W Olympia Silverstone Tech. SST-OP1000 Olympia, 80A +12V Rail, 20+4 Pin Connector
LN17442 1000W Olympia Silverstone Tech. SST-OP1000 Olympia, 80A +12V Rail, 20+4 Pin Connector
£109.99 £129.24

60GB OCZ Technology Vertex 2E, 2.5" Sandforce SSD, MLC-Flash, Read 285MB/s, Write 275MB/s
LN33702 60GB OCZ Technology Vertex 2E, 2.5" Sandforce SSD, MLC-Flash, Read 285MB/s, Write 275MB/s
£78.99 £92.81

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition, Thuban, Sok AM3, 3.2GHz, 9MB Total Cache, 125W, Retail
LN32798 AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition, Thuban, Sok AM3, 3.2GHz, 9MB Total Cache, 125W, Retail
£146.99 £172.71

Asus Crosshair IV Formula, AMD 890FX, SAM3, PCI-E 2.0, DDR3 1600/1800/1866, SATA 6Gb/s RAID, ATX
LN33070 Asus Crosshair IV Formula, AMD 890FX, SAM3, PCI-E 2.0, DDR3 1600/1800/1866, SATA 6Gb/s RAID, ATX
£131.99 £155.09

Thanks for all the replies. I shall reply tomorrow properly when it's not nearly 2 in the morning.
kthx

Ayman.

[eyezpy]

Sorry I didn't mean to imply SLi 460 789MB was best for three 23" monitor setup. Just that my friend got it for his three 23" monitor setup and seem very happy with it and only needed a XFX 650W PSU to power it all.

I did challenge him and say SLi 460 1GB would be better, but he came back with quite a few benches online comparing the SLi 789MB to 1GB and only showing something like a 5% difference on a single monitor. At the time SLi 789MB was £70 less so I guess it was better value, or the sweet spot as he like to call it.
That reminds me I want to ask him what video setting he can run on BFBC2 with three monitors

[Attila the Bun]

I have been having a look on Scan recently, and I have a shopping basket made up, but it won't let me save it, therefore copy and paste will have to do...

Have you set up an account yet? Because as far as I can remember you can only save baskets if you are logged in.

[0083RN0083R]

Have you set up an account yet? Because as far as I can remember you can only save baskets if you are logged in.

Yes i was logged in at the time

[0083RN0083R]

Hi guys,

I read some reviews, and looked at benchmarks for the AMD 1090T vs the i7 980x, and it was apparent that the i7 was a much better processor, although quite expensive,

I have totally scrapped the idea of the 1090T now, and have gone for an Alienware system, (it was quite expensive) mainly for peace of mind, if it breaks within the next couple of years. I rang Dell for a quote on my Motherboard for my XPS 710, and the call centre guy pretty much had no idea what he was talking about, and proceeded to quote me £454 to swap out the motherboard, for what is likely going to be a refurbished one.

Anyway, I have bought an Alienware Aurora ALX (I didn't have that much money to burn, so didn't get the Area-51 ALX), It's a Core i7 980x, with 12GB Corsair 1333MHz RAM, 2 256GB Samsung SSDs,
the standard 875w Power supply, an ATI Radeon 5970, an Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium Sound card, and Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit, with 3 years of next business day warranty and 3 years accidental damage support.

I was thinking, it will probably last me about 5-6 years without breaking having to upgrade, would you say it is a fair amount of time?

I also wanted to ask if you have any recommendation for a USB Wireless N adaptor, as I did have a Wireless G+ PCI-e adaptor, but that was getting a bit warn out.

Thanks for all the help with the suggestions before.

Ayman

[Pob255]

Unless you also have a router with does N then getting an N adaptor is pointless as it can only connect at the type/speed of the router.

[0083RN0083R]

I was thinking of going for a Linksys a/b/g/n wireless USB adaptor, and just having it N compatible from when I get a newer Router.
Also I was just reading through your case mod thread, and it looks really good. The mouse looks amazing aswell, what was the model of the mouse?

Thanks for the response.

[Max Tractor]

If you don't mind me asking, what did the system cost. As for the x6 series, I have 2x1055t a 95w/125w and they fly, the 125w has just been dropped in my server Asus M4A785D-M PRO it done 4ghz in this for months, but dropped it down to 3.8@1.4v. The 95w has just been dropped into Asrock 890GX Extreme3 and a rebuild of my akasa eclipse, but it already has also been running 4ghz for past month, had a quick run after instll of corsair h50, but on bench again stripped


cheers

[nibbler]

You know that Alienware is now Dell right?

[scaryjim]

... I didn't have that much money to burn ...

... It's a Core i7 980x, with 12GB Corsair 1333MHz RAM, 2 256GB Samsung SSDs, the standard 875w Power supply, an ATI Radeon 5970, an Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium Sound card, and Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit ...

You have more money to burn than I do, obviously...

[Pob255]

The mouse was the Gigabyte GM-M6800 optical mouse, £9 from play.com http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/637188...e/Product.html
not a bad mouse esp for £9 they also do a laser version for just £10 http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/797659...k/Product.html
However I did do quite a bit to it, I re-ballanced it with additional weight (coins glued inside) Improved the general feel and made it less hollow plastic sounding (by adding paxmate inside) then repainted and clear coated it.
It's nothing fancy but a good basic mouse with side buttons.
Play did have the cherry evolution mouse on sale for under £10 not that long ago, I got one a while back and I've been so pleased with it that I bought another.
http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/350862...searchsource=0
It's a more solid feel than the gigabyte.
my only complaint with it so far is the dpi selector switch, which is a bit stiff, so it's not easy to use in the heat of an fps game.