AMD gaming spec. Thoughts?

R3d_Menace

R3d_Menace

R3d_Menace

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AMD II X4 965 BE - £139

HD5850 - £215

Corsair 4GB DDR3 RAM - 80

NZXT Hades case - £57

Corsair 750w - 93

DVD drive - 18

Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - £37.6

ASUS M4A79XTD - 84

Scythe Mugen 2 Rev B. - 43

Tuniq TX-3 thermal paste - 5.61

Planning to crossfire the 5850 as an upgrade somewhere down the line. My main priority is gaming, gaming and gaming (resolution 1920*1080). Any comments?
 
Looks good for the money. I would probably go for a Phenom II X4 955BE for around £125 as the ones which are being sold now tend to be the C3 stepping. The X4 955BE also has an unlocked multiplier like the X4 965BE. I would look at the X4 955BE which has the box code HDZ955FBGMBOX and this will save you around £14.

You could consider a Core i5 750 based computer but then you are looking at around £150 to £160 for the processor and above £130 for a Crossfire capable motherboard. The cheaper P55 motherboards tend to do asymmetrical Crossfire at PCI-E 2.0 16X/4X which is not ideal.

I assume you are going for the Corsair TX 750W PSU too which looks like a solid choice. OTH, a decent 650W modular PSU like the Corsair HX 650W or Seasonic X-650 would probably be fine too as the HD5850 1GB has much lower power consumption than an HD4870 1GB:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_5850/28.html

The Seasonic X-650 is meant to be a fantastic PSU:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=169

Another PSU to consider would be the modular Antec TruePower New 750W :

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=140
 
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R3d_Menace said:
AMD II X4 965 BE - £139

HD5850 - £215 - if it's Sapphire, bought one myself=well chuffed

Corsair 4GB DDR3 RAM - 80 - spend and extra £35 and get Patriot Viper

NZXT Hades case - £57

Corsair 750w - 93 - 850w f_t_w !!

DVD drive - 18 - sta ying with sata II LG drive

Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - £37.6 - bought one, awaiting results

ASUS M4A79XTD - 84 - gotta love the Asus mobo's :)

Scythe Mugen 2 Rev B. - 43

Tuniq TX-3 thermal paste - 5.61 - got some with my Tuniq Rev c although will still be using Arctic Silver 5

Planning to crossfire the 5850 as an upgrade somewhere down the line. My main priority is gaming, gaming and gaming (resolution 1920*1080). Any comments?
Click to expand...

Good luck with that lot mate if you get it mate :D
 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Looks good for the money. I would probably go for a Phenom II X4 955BE for around £125 as the ones which are being sold now tend to be the C3 stepping. The X4 955BE also has an unlocked multiplier like the X4 965BE. I would look at the X4 955BE which has the box code HDZ955FBGMBOX and this will save you around £14.

You could consider a Core i5 750 based computer but then you are looking at around £150 to £160 for the processor and above £130 for a Crossfire capable motherboard. The cheaper P55 motherboards tend to do asymmetrical Crossfire at PCI-E 2.0 16X/4X which is not ideal.

I assume you are going for the Corsair TX 750W PSU too which looks like a solid choice. OTH, a decent 650W modular PSU like the Corsair HX 650W or Seasonic X-650 would probably be fine too as the HD5850 1GB has much lower power consumption than an HD4870 1GB:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_5850/28.html

The Seasonic X-650 is meant to be a fantastic PSU:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=169

Another PSU to consider would be the modular Antec TruePower New 750W :

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=140
Click to expand...

Thanks for the PSU suggestions. I did look at both of them, but the problems are both that they're too pricey and the 650W PSUs would struggle to power both 5850s in crossfire, particularly if I slap a few more hard drives (I want to get an SSD as an upgrade somewhere down the line).

Plus, I'm waiting until summer when I actually get the money with this build, so hopefully prices on the GFX cards will have dropped a bit due to nVidia releasing their next lineup, not to mention that there will actually be a few in stock here and there ;).
 
Would swap the cooler for Thermalright Venomous X CPU Cooler or Prolimatech Megahalems Rev B CPU Cooler only a few ££ in it and there going to handle the heat better :)
 
I had my rig overclocked i7 to 4.0ghz, 6gb memory, 8 fans + fan contoller, 3 hard drives, 1 optical , sound card, 5870 overclocked and all that was running perfectly fine and dandy on my enermax liberty 500W PSU..... Yes i did say 500W :D

Oh and i have just got a Seasonic X-750 and cant praise it enough.

And please get the VenomousX as they are awesome, much better than the Corsair H50 it replaced.
 
cupofchow said:
I had my rig overclocked i7 to 4.0ghz, 6gb memory, 8 fans + fan contoller, 3 hard drives, 1 optical , sound card, 5870 overclocked and all that was running perfectly fine and dandy on my enermax liberty 500W PSU..... Yes i did say 500W :D

Oh and i have just got a Seasonic X-750 and cant praise it enough.

And please get the VenomousX as they are awesome, much better than the Corsair H50 it replaced.
Click to expand...

Trust me, I'm pushing my budget as it is - my original goal was a hard cap at 700, but I just wanted that little more juice...

Do you, or anyone else, know of any 650/700W PSUs with four 6/8 pin PCIe connectors? That was the main problem for me - you need four 6 pins to keep those 5850s going :S
 
panta said:
Why not get an i5 750?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-013-SS
Click to expand...

Thought about it, and it's too expensive when you throw in motherboard costs and the fact that the upgradeability on that platform (not counting the bloody Sandy Bridges coming out soon) is going to be squat - they'll take the the LGA 1366 platform and run with it.

My main use is gaming, and I figured it was better to save a few quid and go with the 5850 instead of the 5770. The CPU is rarely/never a bottleneck at this level anyway (Phenom clocked to 4ghz with the Scythe - what bottleneck) , but the GPU will be.

Also, it natively limits your ability to Crossfire by the chip only allowing one PCIe slot to run at x16 - which causes problems for my crossfire. Yes, I'm aware that currently I would only take a hit of a few percent, but if I want to upgrade cards later it's going to hurt like hell. And getting a LGA 1156 mobo with the option of running two cards at x8 x8 already sets you back forty-fifty quid over the price of the mobo I've got here.
 
panta said:
The link I posted is to a PSU btw.
Click to expand...

Aaah, tempting despite having an enormous pricetag... but will it run the setup I listed above? Two 5850s, an overclocked 965, a couple of harddrives and fans - not a problem? Despite the price, I probably would save the odd pound on power.
 
 
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