new AMD / ATI build to replace my Q6600

[captainpie]

Hi all!

I have decided my venerable Q6600, ATI HD4850 (HIS IceQ) build is up for retirement

It has done me well over the past many years, but all good things must come to an end! I am thinking of going back to AMD, I grew up tinkering on old amd, the only intel I have bought was the Q6600

a) because I haven't particularly found the Q6600 fun to OC and haven't really felt any performance gain from it, this is probably no different to the new AMD, but having played with a few i7's, they just don't excite me . . apart from bragging rights

b) AMD processor, chipset and gfx combo

c) I built my new work PC around a Phenom x6 1090 and it has been one of the most stable machines I have used in recent times

Current setup:

Q6600 OCed stable at 3GHz Air Cooling
HIS Ati 4850 IceQ, was running in crossfire until one died out of warranty and I never got round to replacing
Asus P5Q Pro
8GB Kingston Hyper X DDR2 800MHz
3 x 500GB WD HDD
Corsair 650W PSU

Proposed Build:

Asus Sabertooth 990FX AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard
AMD Bulldozer FX-6 Six Core 6100 Black Edition 3.30Ghz (Socket AM3+)
Team Xtreem 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C9 2133MHz
Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive
2 x 3TB WD Green HDD's probably in a RAID 1 Mirror
BitFenix Shinobi Case
ATI Radeon HD 7950 3072MB
1000W PSU 80+ Gold if poss
maybe a blu-ray rw or just reuse my current SATA DVD

If anyone has ideas / pointers as i've been out the building scene for a while that would be great. (I;m still not sure what PSU to go with)

and this is a prospective future build, as I may wait for more ATI 7xxx series parts to come out or new nVidia bits to try for some lower prices!

Cheers

[Domestic_Ginger]

I would:-
Keep my old PSU.
Wait for 700 series nV to arrive and 7k GPUs to drop in price.
Seriously consider an i5 1155 setup. (BD is not that much better from what I remember than the PII hex cores).
Reuse my old HDDs as with an SSD I could load all the fast things and then use the old HDDs for storage. (HDDs are expensive atm and I am usually quite tight).

[severard]

I would go with captainpie tbh. I'd go with the new PSU - higher wattage makes it a bit more future proof if you want some fat-off hefty crossfire graphics in the future. Good idea to wait for the price drop. But i5?? No. I think the AMD would be the better move. I'd rather pay less for a good CPU rather than a lot for a name. Go with new HDDs too otherwise those Read/Write speeds may end up slowing you down.

[jim]

PSU is crazily overpowered, your current one would be fine.

Why do you want the RAID 1 array rather than just a single disk? Also, disks cost a fortune at the moment, I would seriously consider holding off for a while.

Also, what are you intending to do with 16GB of RAM? If you have a specific purpose, then fair enough, but it's a colossal amount for a normal PC.

[shaithis]

Need to know what your doing with it.....

[severard]

16GB of RAM does seem OTT. You'll never utilise it as a lot of the multi-tasking will be restricted by the CPU, and as we know (as much as I love AMD) the bulldozer is still not great on multi-threading. Still think that PSU is a good idea though if you want to ass another 1 or 3 7950s at any point

[severard]

Need to know what your doing with it.....

I would assume some hardcore gaming + media

[captainpie]

cheers for the input guys!

Domestic Ginger (loving the name!):
Even if I don't go with a super high wattaged PSU, I still think I want to replace it for a modular one, excess cables nark me off!
Good call on waiting for the nvidia comeback, definitely something to consider as lower prices mean more fun in other areas!
I'm definitely keen to go back to AMD proc's, even if it the habit in me of supporting the under-dog
with the re-use of the old HDDs, good call, but they are relics from when 500GB drives first came about, getting onto 6 -7 yrs old now! not sure how much life they have left!

severard:
Still need to decide on how viable xfire is! Budget may say no for another yr or 2, in which case perhaps do a new gfx and psu at the same time then.
the WD drives would only be used as data storage w/ redundancy so spin speed doesn't matter too much. anything of importance for fast access will be going on the SSD

[captainpie]

hmm yeah 16gb overkill is true! but with the prices so low, getting a nice matched kit now seemed like a good idea.
re bulldozer - once again this is a planning for a future project, maybe starting off with some parts earlier and building it up over time, hoping that win 8 and firmware will give bulldozer a bit more point. Although I know I am hedging that bet on AMDs admittedly bad record for recent times of getting their product working better.
mostly to be used in gaming and multimedia functions, hopefully quite a bit of video editing in the future (I have some mates who enjoy filmmaking but dont have the pc side knowledge for editing and effects)

[severard]

I'd also be tempted to recommend the OCZ ZX Series 1000W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply. Had some great reviews including one on HardwareLook.com (Can't send you the link here, but take a look)

[severard]

hmm yeah 16gb overkill is true! but with the prices so low, getting a nice matched kit now seemed like a good idea.

You make a good point here. It wouldn't hurt to pay that now to get a matched kit.

[Domestic_Ginger]

I'm definitely keen to go back to AMD proc's, even if it the habit in me of supporting the under-dog

I have never owned an intel. Okay I have one in a laptop now which was a handout but If I was building a PC now I would most probably go intel. I waited ages for BD thinking it would be great but i think it; like the cpu apus are too far ahead of their software support. Real investment is needed for them to be fully utilised.

I play WOT alot which is still single core only and unfortunately Intel wins that war easily. My back up drive of my back up partition is about the same age HDD.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It is worth looking at what Intel has to offer,but if you intend to spend well over £100 on an AMD CPU,I would wait for Piledriver and Trinity to be released. This should happen around Q2 or Q3 this year. Your Q6600 is still not too bad especially if you can overclock it a bit more.

Also,with the GPU I would hold off until both AMD and Nvidia release their full ranges.

Your PSU is a TX650W I assume?? This should be fine with many graphics cards ATM.

OK,lets have a look at some cheaper AMD CPU options.

This CPU is very good value IMHO:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-p...che-95w-retail

It has a 95W TDP but has locked multipliers. I suspect you should still get a decent overclock from it.

If you want a cheaper stop gap CPU and want some fun overclocking I would consider the following CPUs:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-p...che-95w-retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/10-ca...200mhz-95w-ret

The first is based on a Phenom II X6 and has the potential to be unlocked to one. It also has an unlocked multiplier.

The second has a £10 cashback which you can get from AMD. It is known to be good for overclocking even on a stock cooler. For just under £80 it might be good fun to tweak.

However,remember the FX CPUs have lower single thread IPC compared to a Phenom II X4 but can overclock more.

Of course there is the good old Athlon II X3:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-a...che-95w-retail

There is a chance of unlocking it to an Athlon II X4 or Phenom II X4. One of my mates got a recent one upto 4GHZ quite easily.

Regarding the motherboard,do you really need a Crossfire capable one??

I know friends who have both these motherboards:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...-%28x16%29-atx

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...-%28x16%29-atx

They are both excellent for overclocking.

[shaithis]

Mostly for gaming?

Get an i5. Shrink the PSU, half the RAM, use your old HDDs for the time being.

Within the next 3-4 months I expect both Intel and AMD to release new processors. As your mostly gaming you have to look at the BD gaming numbers and they vary from "on par" to "well below par" when compared to the i5.

Now, come the next round of CPUs, both camps will be using the same sockets......so you can take a punt with replacing BD for PileDriver.....or you can look at SandyBridge -> IvyBridge. Now, considering IB will be Intels first CPU with 3D/tri-gate transistor technology, I am fully expecting it to pull further ahead of AMD who (as far as I know) do not have anything near as big lined-up for PD.

If gaming was not the primary use, then go with AMD....but considering your looking at a 7950 card, I would just go with the CPU you know will have the best chance to keep up with that GPU when gaming.

[severard]

It is worth looking at what Intel has to offer,but if you intend to spend well over £100 on a CPU,I would say wait for Piledriver and Trinity to be released. This should happen around Q2 or Q3 this year. Your Q6600 is still not too bad especially if you can overclock it a bit more.

Your PSU is a TX650W I assume?? This should be fine with many graphics cards ATM.

OK,lets have a look at some cheaper AMD CPU options.

This CPU is very good value IMHO:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-p...che-95w-retail

It has a 95W TDP but has locked multipliers. I suspect you should still get a decent overclock from it.

If you want a cheaper stop gap CPU and want some fun overclocking I would consider the following CPUs:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-p...che-95w-retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/10-ca...200mhz-95w-ret

The first is based on a Phenom II X6 and has the potential to be unlocked to one. It also has an unlocked multiplier.

The second has a £10 cashback which you can get from AMD. It is known to be good for overclocking even on a stock cooler. For just under £80 it might be good fun to tweak.

However,remember the FX CPUs have lower single thread IPC compared to a Phenom II X4 but can overclock more.

Of course there is the good old Athlon II X3:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-a...che-95w-retail

There is a chance of unlocking it to an Athlon II X4 or Phenom II X4. One of my mates got a recent one upto 4GHZ quite easily.

Regarding the motherboard,do you really need a Crossfire capable one??

I know friends who have both these motherboards:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...-%28x16%29-atx

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...-%28x16%29-atx

They are both excellent for overclocking.

Sorry but although I respect your opinion, what you have provided does not meet his requirements at all. He's obviously not worried to spend on a good CPU so I think the ones you've given are too lower spec'd. I'd stick with at least a hex-core and a board with at least two PCI-E slots.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Sorry but although I respect your opinion, what you have provided does not meet his requirements at all. He's obviously not worried to spend on a good CPU so I think the ones you've given are too lower spec'd. Those motherboards are not capable of crossfire either and it is always good to have the option in the future. I'd stick with at least a hex-core and a board with at least two PCI-E slots.

If he was worried about speed he would have been getting a Core i5 and Core i7 and if you read the OP he already has used Core i7 and knows about their performance. If anything he wants an AMD CPU to tweak and guess what - he chose an FX6100 in the OP which costs £105. Almost all the CPUs I mentioned when overclocked and tweaked will be quicker than an FX6100 even when overclocked. I do have a clue about how these CPUs perform in games.

An argument can be made that a Core i3 2120 would be an excellent choice for gaming at around that budget but of course cannot be overclocked at all.

Moreover, he has no real need for a Crossfire setup when getting a high end single GPU card. I actually have experience with the motherboards which I said don't support Crossfire(the question asked beforehand). Multi-card setups ATM do push the CPU even more than a single card setup due to the way they operate.The VRM sections on those motherboards can be used to even overclock an FX8150 fine. That was the reason the people I know bought them and they were interesting in overclocking an AMD CPU too(they also wanted to support AMD IIRC).