Challenging Spec

dangerstat

dangerstat

dangerstat

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Hi All,

I'm looking to upgrade my machine in the next 1-2 months and I need a hand with the spec (I genuinely have failed to spec it thus far :mad:)

My current setup is:
AMD Phenom X3 (not a Phenom II) @ 2.3Ghz
9800GT (1024MB)
8GB (4X2GB) DDRII
AM2+ Socket Motherboard


What I want:
AMD Phenom II X4
Dual GTX260's in SLI
16GB DDRIII (4X4GB as I can't find a AM3 socket board with more than 4 memory sockets:mad:)
30GB-60GB SSD (one with VERY low seek times)

Budget is about £600-£800.

Many thanks in advance for the help:)
 
Thanks for the replies.

My board is a Asus M28N68-CM board completely filled with 2GB DDRII modules to the max of 8GB. I could buy a AM2+ BE Phenom X4 but it'd limit me in the future as it's outdated tech.

16GB is needed for the mathsy research that I do, I was being VERY limited by the 8GB of DDRII on my current spec. A lot of the things I look at involve needing HUGE datasets stored in memory rather than on disk. I'm looking at how having SSDs rather than large amounts of memory would perform - hence the requirement for low seek time SSD.

Unfortunately I need Nvidia cards and not ATI cards (I use CUDA to accelerate some of my work, which is basically a C library which can utilize the SPU's on the cards themselves).


EDIT

Looks like a AM3 SLI motherboard is just about to be released by Asus
Asus M4N82 Deluxe SLI

Which has an AM3 socket and uses DDRII RAM, and accepts 16GB. So assuming I can source that board that'd be perfect. Something like
Asus M4N82 Deluxe SLI - say £100
AMD BE Phenom II X4 - £120?
4x4GB DDRII - £200
30GB SSD - £120
Looks like about £540?


Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £149.99
(£130.43) £149.99
(£130.43)
Asus M4N82 Deluxe nForce 980a SLi (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Asus M4N82 Deluxe nForce 980a SLi (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £132.99
(£115.64) £132.99
(£115.64)
Asus GeForce GTX 260 896MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card (Includes Terminator Salvation PC Game) Asus GeForce GTX 260 896MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card (Includes Terminator Salvation PC Game) £119.99
(£104.34) £239.98
(£208.68)
Sub Total : £454.75

OCUK don't sell 2X4GB DDRII packs :(
 
Last edited:
Hmmm... I see your point - what type of type of performance difference is there between a Phenom II X4 (AM2+) using DDRII vs a Phenom II X4 (AM3) using DDRIII?

It's not that I don't want to go down the Intel route, just I'd prefer to go down the AMD route as the X3 I have has been excellent.
 
widdyst said:
Performance wise with fast ddr2 against ddr3 I don't think you would see a huge difference. I recently asked this question myself and it was quite clear that the popular opinion on this subject is " marginal difference " .
Am3 socket will give you more longevity with new amd CPU's but I still only see these chips running dual channel memory which straight away gives you a disadvantage against an i7 system .
If your determined to stay with amd I think your stuck with 8gb ram aren't you ? Have you managed to find any 4gb sticks ?
Click to expand...

I've not found any 4GB DDR3 sticks but I have found reasonably priced 4GB DDR2 sticks (4X4GB for just under £180). So the AM3 DDR2 SLI board that I posted earlier seems to tick all the boxes.


So I think
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £149.99
(£130.43) £149.99
(£130.43)
Asus M4N82 Deluxe nForce 980a SLi (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Asus M4N82 Deluxe nForce 980a SLi (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £132.99
(£115.64) £132.99
(£115.64)
Asus GeForce GTX 260 896MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card (Includes Terminator Salvation PC Game) Asus GeForce GTX 260 896MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card (Includes Terminator Salvation PC Game) £119.99
(£104.34) £239.98
(£208.68)
Sub Total : £454.75

PLUS
4X4GB (not from OCUK) DDRII = £180

PLUS
Intel Extreme 32GB SSD = 250

All in all about £880.

But a VERY capable machine I think
 
Thanks for the comments Acid. I haven't seen a i7 board that supports 24GB DDR3. I understand that if I was using CPU as to "number crunch" a i7 would out perform the Phenom II. But I don't use the CPU for that at all, I use the GPUs (google "nvidia cuda"). The two GTX260's will generate *massively* more computing power than any CPU on the market (by a factor of at least 10). The CPU in my case does relatively minimal work - mainly controlling which data is pushed to the shared memory on the GPUs.

If I can get 24GB of DDRIII for £150 into a i7 motherboard that'll support it. I'd *definitely* switch to that setup. Please provide some details :)
 
AcidHell2 said:
messed up on the ram, caught me before the edit. Yeah if your using cuda go for amd. You wont see any benefit from the i7.

although triple channel you can get 4x3gb sticks for around £130.
Click to expand...

Cheers Acid really helps having someone question the spec, noticed your edit just as I posted my reply :). Luckily I've got a i7 with 12GB DDRIII coming at work soon so I'm going to check it out (hopefully it'll arrive before I go on hols) . DDRIII would help during the client-card transfers.

Need to revisit the budget - I think I can stretch to about £1200.
 
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