Upgrade time - looking for recommendations

Paladine

Paladine

Paladine

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28 Oct 2006
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457
OK so it is upgrade year for me and I am looking to overhaul my system somewhat significantly.

Current specs are:

ASUS M3N WS Motherboard
Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition CPU
OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SSD
4x 1TB WD SATA II HDD
8GB 1066 RAM
GTX 550Ti Graphics (1GB)
700W Modular PSU
SATA II BluRay Combo

I would like to replace this with a fully up to date AMD system based around the FX-8350 8 core CPU and (unless anyone knows a reason why not) 990FX Chipset motherboard, 32GB 1600+ RAM, Vertex 3 240GB and 2TB SATA 3 drive.

Things I would like some advice on:

Which motherboard? I like the look of the Sabretooth 990 FX Rev 2.0 but I think it will be overkill as I will not be going SLI so what other motherboards do people recommend that will still allow me all the USB 3.0 goodness as well as 32GB RAM and SATA 3 (I think all the 990 FX boards do but I can't decide which one to get).

RAM? I hate choosing RAM - I used to go for good old Kingston back in the day but to be honest their quality has slipped over the years. I have used OCZ and Corsair in the past too. I am not interested in overclocking this system but I do do 3D work as well as quite a bit of virtualisation for testing purposes, so I want something robust and quick but it doesn't have to be overkill.

CPU Cooling - I have a real issue with cooling my 955 but I don't have the budget for water cooling so what solutions do people recommend for the FX-8350 - I have the Thermaltake V4 Black Edition case which is not the best for cooling (as I have found with my 955) but would prefer not to change it due to the extra cost - but it might limit what Heatsink I can fit.

Also graphics card - I don't know what the heck to get. My current card will be migrating to my fiancée's so I need to replace that too. I was thinking of maybe a GTX660 Ti but I am not adverse to AMD cards (I had a 4870 before this 550 and loved it).

All help appreciated - current without graphics card I have specced up the following at around £600:

Hard Drive 2.5 "SATA OCZ SSD 2.5 SATA 240GB Vertex 3 MAX
Hard Drive Seagate SATA III 2TB 7200obr. 64MB
Motherboard Socket AM3/AM3 + ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 (990FX 4xPCIe-E DDR3)
Bulldozer processor (AM3 +) AMD FX-8350 4.00GHz 8MB Box 125W
Corsair Memory DDRAM3 16384MB 1866MHz Vengeance Red CL10 (2x8192) X2

I think that is probably overkill and would like to do it a little cheaper.

Thanks in advance.

Paladine
 
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Most people looking to build a gaming rig go for the 3570k now-a-days as it is a lot better than anything the FX Range can offer: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/697?vs=701

Also, it can be overclocked a long way, with huge performance advantages.

I would suggest that would be a good starting point.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD256BW) £199.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £129.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £78.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX16GX3M2A1600C11) £59.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Rev.2 High Performance Quiet CPU Cooler(Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £29.99
Total : £678.32 (includes shipping : £9.50).

 
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Doomedspeed said:
Most people looking to build a gaming rig go for the 3570k now-a-days as it is a lot better than anything the FX Range can offer: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/697?vs=701

Also, it can be overclocked a long way, with huge performance advantages.

I would suggest that would be a good starting point.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD256BW) £199.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £129.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £78.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX16GX3M2A1600C11) £59.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Rev.2 High Performance Quiet CPU Cooler(Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £29.99
Total : £678.32 (includes shipping : £9.50).

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply but the cost of Intel systems just doesn't work compared to AMD and I need the 32GB RAM (I forgot to add the x2 in the original spec I added in my previous post).

At the moment that list above comes in at £640 from a supplier here in Poland (where I now live) with the 32GB RAM, I would like to try and keep total upgrade costs below £800 if possible with a new grfx card.

Thanks for your input all the same.

Paladine
 
wkingsnorth said:
Intel is more expensive but not if you get and don't need all 8 cores
Click to expand...

I did say in the original post that I wanted an AMD system. I appreciate some people prefer Intel systems, but I don't. So whereas the comments are appreciated can we please keep them on topic?

Thanks.

Paladine
 
No offence but suggesting Intel is off topic is really a bit....
At the end of the day unless you have software which utilises all its cores then the i5 is the better chip and hardly more expensive.

I would use Dooms spec but minus the SSD and plus a 7950 or a 670 if you use CUDA cores.
 
Bacon? said:
No offence but suggesting Intel is off topic is really a bit....
At the end of the day unless you have software which utilises all its cores then the i5 is the better chip and hardly more expensive.

I would use Dooms spec but minus the SSD and plus a 7950 or a 670 if you use CUDA cores.
Click to expand...

But I want an AMD system not an Intel system, I have no interest in building an Intel system. If I wanted an Intel system I would have said please advise me on best Intel spec.

Regards,

Paladine
 
What exactly is the main use for this system?
As you require 32 gb of ram, are you using software that is ram intensive?
This sort of info is helpfull when asking for a spec.
 
Idleman said:
What exactly is the main use for this system?
As you require 32 gb of ram, are you using software that is ram intensive?
This sort of info is helpfull when asking for a spec.
Click to expand...

I do a lot of virtualisation (for testing purposes - which is why I want 8 cores) and 3D Rendering at 1080p. Will also be doing a lot of audio and video production. So yeah I want a lot of RAM especially for rendering HD quality.

Also some gaming, but mostly MMO stuff so not so intensive for hardware.

Thanks,

Paladine
 
Bacon? said:
On the RAM side what OS do you have? HP can only use 16GB.
Click to expand...

I run Windows 7 Pro 64bit, Windows 8 Pro 64bit, Windows Server 2008 R2, Ubuntu Server, Debian, FreeBSD. Windows 7 is the Host OS at the moment, I will probably switch to Windows 8 for Host OS on the new machine - the rest are all virtual machines.
 
If you can, keep your SSD and upgrade later if you need to:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 WindForce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £191.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8350 Black Edition 4.00GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Seasonic X-Series 750w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £124.99
1 x ASRock 990FX Extreme3 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £86.99
2 x Kingston HyperX Blu 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C10D3B1K2/16G) £59.99 (£119.98)
Total : £715.93 (includes shipping : £10.00).



You could take the price lower if you keep your 700w PSU? How old is it and what make?
 
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snips86x said:
If you can, keep your SSD and upgrade later if you need to:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 WindForce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £191.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8350 Black Edition 4.00GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Seasonic X-Series 750w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £124.99
1 x ASRock 990FX Extreme3 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £86.99
2 x Kingston HyperX Blu 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C10D3B1K2/16G) £59.99 (£119.98)
Total : £715.93 (includes shipping : £10.00).

Click to expand...

I already have OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W OCZ700MXSP-EU PSU which I am happy with and should be powerful enough to run the new rig since the CPU is 125W just like the 955, plus it is only 4 months old.

I would like to upgrade the SSD because 120GB is not really stretching far as an OS drive nowadays plus being SATA II I would rather upgrade to a much faster SATA III SSD which is almost 2x the speed of the Vertex 2.

I had a look at the Intel 550 series (180GB version) which seems comparable to the Vertex 3 MAX (240GB) speed wise but a little cheaper - I will probably go for the Vertex 3 Max though (unless anyone can recommend an alternative or reason why not to?).

Interesting that you chose the ASRock board (much cheaper than the Sabretooth) any particular reason why? I was looking at the Sabretooth because of the reportedly better materials for better cooling - is that all just hype or is it genuine? I am worried about cooling, my 955 gets too hot for my liking.

Also graphics cards are confusing me at the moment - for example the GTX 660 you recommended is showing as PCI-E Gen 3.0 yet the only motherboards I have found are all PCI-E 2.0 (including the ASRock you listed) what is going on there?

Also still looking for advice on Heatsink and Fan - however, I am willing to consider H2O if anyone can recommend a kit that is not too expensive (just for CPU cooling, I don't want to water cool ram/grfx etc. as well). I have -never- played with H2O systems before so it will be a completely new experience for me even though I have been building systems for around 15 years or more - I have never tried H2O because I always found it a little scary...

Regards,

Paladine
 
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