AMD TriCore phenom Black 3.5ghz- new system- worth it?

[claypigeon101]

hi there, new to this forum and to 'extreme' PCs but i have recently found an offer on overclockers that offers this PC:

- AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.8GHz overclocked to 3.5GHz+!
- Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
- Corsair 4GB DDR3 DHX 1600C9DHX Twin3X (2x2GB)
- 2x XFX ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI Crossfire
- LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive
- 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache in RAID0
- Corsair TX 650W ATX2.2 SLi Compliant Power Supply
- OCZ HydroFlow HF-MK1 CPU Waterblock
- TFC Xchanger - Single Radiator 120
- XSPC Dual 750 Bay Reservoir & Pump - Clear
- TFC Compression Fittings
- Black Tubing & Fluid
- Arctic Silver 5 Heatsink compound professionally hand installed by our technicians
- 1yr Onsite Collect & Return Warranty
Windows Vista Home premium 32bit
antec 900 2 case

all for £1413.98 inc VAT

i have about £1500 to spend but i cant really build my own at the moment, due to how im getting the funds, (nothing illegal honest )

but the main question is:
is the AMD tricore worth it? running at 3.5ghz OC'd, is there a similar-priced alternative with much more performance? surely that AMD chip isnt slow.

amongst home recording (music) and maybe a bit of video but not much i wanna be maxing out games at 1080 resolution, will i be able to do it for a good while with that tricore or should i think on?

any help gratefully received


thanks for your help

 

[rjk]

it's a nippy rig - but for the money I would consider i7

 

[markiejt]

I would forget the water cooling (this will be a good chunk of price) and get I7 or get cheaper AMD

 

[Final8y]

it's a nippy rig - but for the money I would consider i7

Its the sum of the all the parts that gets that figure.
I could spend £1000 just on a monitor.

Keeping everything as it & going i7 with equivalent motherboard will add at least £200 on top of the figure.

If you got the extra £200+ then think about it.

I would not sacrifice water cooling for anything.
Once you have had a complete & quiet water cooled set-up you don't want to go back.

 

[claypigeon101]

Its the sum of the all the parts that gets that figure.
I could spend £1000 just on a monitor.

Keeping everything as it & going i7 with equivalent motherboard will add at least £200 on top of the figure.

If you got the extra £200+ then think about it.

I would not sacrifice water cooling for anything.
Once you have had a complete & quiet water cooled set-up you don't want to go back.

thanks for that my man, thats what i was thinking.
a lot of home recording, guitars and vocals, going on as well so the quieter the better and water cooling will be much quieter than fans, right?

 

[claypigeon101]

I would forget the water cooling (this will be a good chunk of price) and get I7 or get cheaper AMD

i dont have the money to spend on an i7 and keep the blu ray drive and water cooling, and 2 CF'd HD4870s will kick ass so i think i'll make do with the 3core AMD, its not exactly slow right?

you have one judging by your spec, what do you think?

thanks 4 your help

 

[Final8y]

thanks for that my man, thats what i was thinking.
a lot of home recording, guitars and vocals, going on as well so the quieter the better and water cooling will be much quieter than fans, right?

You will still need fans but you can have them turned down more.

I have a mixture of passive water cooling & rad and with the gfx cards cpu & motherboard components being water the case fans which are actually the rad fans are almost off until i start gaming & then any noise does not matter.

If i was not into over clocking the 2 passive Zalman Reserators would be more than enough.

Only the PSU can be heard & im thinking of maybe a Koolance USA-1300/UK-1700W Liquid-Cooled Power Supply.

 

[dante6491]

Tri-Core Phenom at 3.5 definitely is not slow. They are nifty little things, but this is coming from a man who upgraded from a 2.0 3800x2....

I also had water cooling before but I don't think I set it up properly. It was just loud for me. Now I had a scythe ninja 2 and TRad2 for the 4870. Last night my idle temperatures for both were low 20's.