Challenging Spec

dangerstat

dangerstat

dangerstat

Soldato
Joined
15 Nov 2008
Posts
5,060
Location
In the ether
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:)
 
I don't think you can get a AM3 slot motherboard with SLI, all the ones I have seen are Crossfire.

If you want SLI you will need to look at AM2+ boards with DDR2 memory.
 
What motherboard are you using?

If it's a Nforce chipset, check to see if you can run a the newer Phenom 2 cpu's and use that with the SLI 260's.
 
RJC said:
I don't think you can get a AM3 slot motherboard with SLI, all the ones I have seen are Crossfire.

If you want SLI you will need to look at AM2+ boards with DDR2 memory.
Click to expand...

Best off with a 4870x2 or two 4890's, will spec you now...

EDIT: By the way, why on earth do you want 16GB RAM????? Nothing will use that much. I do a lot of heavy stuff on my machine and it has never even reached 4GB, 16GB is just pointless and will not let you clock the processor as high.

EDIT2:

Solid spec with everything (you didn't state if you were keeping case, hard drives etc)

Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4890 PCS+ BattleForge Edition 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £167.99
(£146.08) £167.99
(£146.08)
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £149.99
(£130.43) £149.99
(£130.43)
Asus Crosshair III Formula AMD 790FX (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £142.99
(£124.34) £142.99
(£124.34)
OCZ Vertex Series 30GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-1VTX30G) £109.99
(£95.64) £109.99
(£95.64)
OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Ready Modular Power Supply £57.99
(£50.43) £57.99
(£50.43)
OCZ Platinum Enhanced Bandwidth Edition 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C7 1600MHz Dual Channel (OCZ3P1600EB4GK) £57.99
(£50.43) £57.99
(£50.43)
Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD6401AALS) £53.99
(£46.95) £53.99
(£46.95)
Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black (No PSU) £44.99
(£39.12) £44.99
(£39.12)
Pioneer DVR-217FBK 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
(£15.64) £17.99
(£15.64)
Sub Total : £699.06
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £106.62
Total : £817.43
 
Last edited:
Crossfire spec:

GX-209-AS_60.jpg
Asus ATI Radeon HD 4890 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £157.99
(£137.38) £315.98
(£274.76)
CP-244-AM_60.jpg
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £149.99
(£130.43) £149.99
(£130.43)
MB-168-GI_60.jpg
Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £105.00
(£91.30) £105.00
(£91.30)
MY-167-OC_60.jpg
OCZ Platinum AM3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Dual Channel (OCZ3P1333LVAM4GK) £47.99
(£41.73) £95.98
(£83.46)
HS-008-TI_60.jpg
Titan TTC-NK85TZ Fenrir CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775/LGA1366) £33.34
(£28.99) £33.34
(£28.99) Sub Total : £608.94 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00 VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £92.84 Total : £711.78
 
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:
I think there are several things wrong with the setup you are looking for.
First I have yet to see a sli capable am2+ / am3 socket motherboard that will take DDR 3memory. You should just go with an intel chip to save yourself grief.
This then leads you to a budget problem , To get close to your requirments will take you closer to £900.
lastly, 16GB of DDR3 . 4gb sticks are so rare that if you do find them they will be very expensive so perhaps you should consider 12gb DDR3.
How about this
12gbddr3.jpg
 
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.
 
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 ?
 
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
 
You would be so much better of with an i7 for your needs.

Assuming you could keep case and psu from current build. you could do it for
£850-900 ish.
 
Last edited:
As you want sli. But mainly as the i7 is much faster at that sort of work. Phenom2 is almsot as good as i7 in gaming. but for number crunching software the i7 beats it hand down.
If you could stretch your budget to 900 you would get something that suits you a lot better.

Doh'

Although it would only be 12GB memory.

what are you limited to more. Memory or cpu speed?
 
Last edited:
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 :)
 
As AcidHell2 says if you want number crunching then you go Intel.

For ultimate number crunching you could go with etiher a Dell Workstation with 32GB of RAM or a Mac Pro (again with 32GB of RAM) however both fall way out of your budget! :D

EDIT: I've just read above. What the hell are you doing with your computer?
 
Last edited:
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.
 
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.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom