AMD Phenom II X2 550 Build Check

Dancer

Dancer

Dancer

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As I'm getting 2 of every part to build two PCs so I want to get this 100% right and I need to keep costs down (the cheaper the sooner I can put in my order).

I've already decided on the ATI 5770 and AMD Phenom II X2 550. What I need advise on is the motherboard, HD, RAM and OS.

Asus M4A785TD-M Evo AMD 785G - £70: Best AM3 mobo at this price range?

OCZ Obsidian 4GB DDR3 - £86: Again, best RAM around this price?

Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB - £51: Read this is a very good system drive, but tempted to go with Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB since it is only £38. Opinions? Also, I do tend to leave my PC on 24/7, idle most of the time, only powering down every two or three weeks, so will this last or do I need to get a raid edition?

Finally, I'm perfectly happy with Windows XP at the moment and getting Windows 7 at £98 seems very steep as I don't see how it will improve my usage of firefox, paint.net, open office and gaming (those are my main uses). Should I get the Retail (Upgrade Version) instead at £68? Anyone tried it or know what it involves. I'd prefer a fresh install... so with this would I have to re-install XP and then install Windows 7 on top of that (yuck)?

Thanks for your help!
 
I have just built a 550 based pc and am using the Asus M4A79XTD Evo which is around the price you listed.

I can vouch for the motherboard which is excellent (use the latest BIOS as it helps overclocks). I got some G Skill RAM but I am not impressed with how it interracts with the motherboard (I had to set all the timings and voltages myself).
 
@PapaLazaru: What made you pick that 5770, they all looked the same so I picked the cheapest that had all the bits. What is the "dafe option"? I hadn't heard about the ASUS - OCZ issue, but now that I have I'm tempted to steer clear as well. Where did you read that? I picked the OCZ Obsidian RAM because of the 1600MHz, the Corsair and Gold (thanks Biz.Kid09) are "only" 1333MHz...

@Biz.Kid09: The Asus M4A78LT-M LE AMD 760G is nice a cheap, but with only 2 slots for RAM I might feel a bit claustrophobic, the audio output is not so good either (not sure what impact the newer chipset on M4A785TD-M Evo AMD 785G has). However, it is a fair bit cheaper...
 
upgrade to GA790fx mobo, worth the 20extra, get ocz obsidian ram and spinpoint f3 hdd.
Don't forget a tube of mx-3 with your purchase if you havn't got one yet.

5770 is fine : ).
 
Dancer said:
@PapaLazaru: What made you pick that 5770, they all looked the same so I picked the cheapest that had all the bits. What is the "dafe option"?
Click to expand...

I chose HIS as I have heard good things about their build quality. just from surfing the web. I know I could have saved a tenner or so. To be honest, their warranty is shorter than some of the others so i took a punt. Always like using the smaller or newer companies anyway. Dafe option? Typo sorry shoud have said safe.

I hadn't heard about the ASUS - OCZ issue, but now that I have I'm tempted to steer clear as well. Where did you read that?
Click to expand...

Same as before, did some shopping about elsewhere as usual though have not purchased anything yet. Just googled the spec numbers and read the buyer reviews. It put me off a bit anyway as I am not great with PC's and need a build which has a good chance of working first time! :D

Going to stick with the Corsair me, even though it is more expensive.
 
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I was looking at

OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3P1333LV4GK) [OCZ3P1333LV4GK ]

Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard [GA-MA785GMT-UD2H]

to go with my 550 cpu but depends what your using it for.
 
I recently built this...

X2 550 BE
Gigabyte MA770T-UDP3
GSkill Ripjaw
XFX 5750
OCZ 600W PSU

I can confirm the mobo will unlock the cores as I have all 4 currently at 3.6Ghz perfectly stable. (haven't bothered to see what it will go to, the above took all of 5 mins to achieve! :) )

The ripjaw is optimised for i5/i7 apparently and I also had to set the timings and voltage manually but it all works pretty good.

clock.jpg
 
@Snax: Thanks, very useful link, I can't see the xxx-M version on there, but pretty much all the other M4A785 incarnations are reported as successful, so that is promising.

@TbirdX: That is a very nice mobo and I can see from Snax's link that others have unlocked successfully with it as well. I noticed it before, but this line "Support for AM3 processors (Note1): AMD Phenom™ II X4 processor/ AMD Phenom™ II X3 processor" made me worried it would not work with Phenom II X2. I knew it probably would, but this has given me confidence in this board and only +£5. :) Any memory considerations with this board?

Also, thanks for the screen. If it only takes five minutes and stable on first try I'll be very happy. :D
 
I don't really know about any special memory considerations with this mobo. I've been out of the hardware game for so long I basically went with names I knew and trusted.

All I can really say is thats what I've got and it works so far :)

The last system I built was a custom server cube type case, remodelled into a high end water cooled setup with 120.3 rad, pump at 13.8V from a seperate dedicated pump PSU, bespoke auto pump failure shutdown system, etc etc.

It served me well and I never looked at hardware again for about, 5 years or so, and now I'm too old and too lazy to figure it all out anymore. The 'tinkerer' in me though wouldn't let it go completely, hence the new build with the 550 rather than a straight quad core. I quickly found I couldn't be botheree with all the stress testing etc again and so it really did take no time at all to settle with the overclock.

I'm sure I could get 3.8 if I really tried but everything works, is nice and cool and quieter than my old custom water set up.

By the way, Win 7 really is worth it when you can stretch to it. Just the start up and shut down times are worth it, imho :)
 
I'm looking at a very similar build though opting for Gigabyte mobo rather than Asus mainly because I have seen some -ve feedback on the Asus boards.

Is the supplied CPU cooler sufficient for overclocking or should we be looking at a Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler or even Akasa AK-967 Nero Direct (perhaps to extravagant ?)
 
I've got a PII 720BE @ 3.6ghz with Vcore 1.475v, using a coolermaster Hyper TX3 for cooling. Very good cooler for the money, load temps never go over 45c with prime95 running.
 
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