Help building AMD system

Scope

Scope

Scope

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I am thinking of upgrading my systems and was wondering if the following is a good combination:

AMD Phenom II X6 Six Core 1055T 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £139.99
Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H AMD 890GX (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £106.99
GeIL 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz VALUE PLUS Dual Channel (GVP38GB1600C9DC) £85.99
OCZ StealthXStream 2 700W Power Supply £69.98

I dont upgrade very often, and even though I might not need a system this fast I might aswell..

I have a case, but dont think my existing 340W PSU will be good enough.. I am happy with the online gfx card and will have to buy a HDD and optical aswell..

So, is this a good system, and have I missed anything?
 
Those parts are fine.

you going for Crossfire? as there are many cheaper motherboards with built in gpu.
 
I personally bought a similar system a few weeks back. The board you picked is a great litte board and is the same as the one that I am using here. It quite happily sits my 1090t at 4ghz without any problem at all.

With the cpu you have specced you will be limited to fsb overclocking so if you can stretch the budget the BE chips have an unlocked multi and offer more in the way of overclocking options.

The ram I would imagine is fine, personally I went with 8gb 4x2gb corsair but at the end of the day ram is ram and im sure it will do the job.

As for the psu I am running a 460w coolermaster with the 1090t at 4ghz and a ati 5850 so you should be laughing there as well.

Overall its a good mid end build, however with am3+ chips just around the corner the platform doesn't have a lot of life left in it. Even so I am more than happy with my similar rig, granted it won't match an I7 in all tasks and sandy bridge is eating it up but as value for money goes you cant knock it. If your doing things like running vm's or photo editing etc it will lap it up all day long.
 
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Scope said:
I am thinking of upgrading my systems and was wondering if the following is a good combination:

AMD Phenom II X6 Six Core 1055T 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £139.99
Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H AMD 890GX (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £106.99
GeIL 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz VALUE PLUS Dual Channel (GVP38GB1600C9DC) £85.99
OCZ StealthXStream 2 700W Power Supply £69.98

I dont upgrade very often, and even though I might not need a system this fast I might aswell..

I have a case, but dont think my existing 340W PSU will be good enough.. I am happy with the online gfx card and will have to buy a HDD and optical aswell..

So, is this a good system, and have I missed anything?
Click to expand...

What will you be doing with this system? I doubt you need a 6 core CPU and 8 gigs of ram if you are not gaming. I would save your cash and get a cheap i3 setup or an athlon x4, either with 4GB would be fine.

Unless of course you plan to take up gaming in the near future or have some other requirement for lots of CPU power.
 
panthro said:
How long will that sort of spec last for? In terms of gaming at 1920 x 1200?
Click to expand...

Well that depends how well threaded the applications you are running are as well as your gfx card. Put it this way, some games aren't well threaded at all.. in these titles the 2.5ghz default clock without great "overclockability" for want of a better word will hold you back. why? because its not utilising the available cores and running on 1 or 2 at a slower clock. Im not sure what the 1055's are hittng you should have a search in here but i would have though 4ghz plus is serious fsb and cooling territory whereas on the BE chips its an easily obtainable clock.

for what its worth i paid just over 20 quid less for the same board 2 weeks ago, that same 20 or so quid could get you the 1090t ;)

after looking at the price diff 20 quid doesn't make up the difference at all.. i would have a check around for some benchmarks as you may be better off with a higher clocked quad than a lower clocked 1055 for games.
 
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To give an alternative, could you also please spec me an Intel system with I3 that allows me to buy a faster CPU at a later stage (so mb+ram which supports the later I5/I7.. Or is sandybridge completely different chipsets?).. Although I probably wont need a fast system now I dont want to find in a couple of years I cant upgrade. Im upgrading from a E6600 c2d i've had for a good 2-3 years now.
 
For comparison - here is a benchmark pitting the 1055t against the 965BE (x6 vs x4) you will notice the x4 pulling ahead in every game benchmark this is because the games dont utilize all cores as mentioned above and prefers less faster cores.

You mention spec’ing an i3 system, which is on the 1156 platform and again you will notice that intels new sandy bridge has yet another pin layout and works on the 1155 platform so you wouldn't be able to have i3 now for example and jump onto sandy later on without a platform upgrade. You would however be able to grab an i5/ low end i7 8xx later down the line. But this is no different from the AM3 platform where you could pick up a 965 or similar and grab a 1090t /1100t later down the line. Anyway what i am trying to say is that we are in a place at the moment where no platform bar the pricy sandy platform is offering much in the way of solid upgrade paths which am2, am2+ and am3 had all sewn up.

Anyway i digress, you budget appears to be around £400 for ram, cpu, mobo and psu. so here is what i reckon...

Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 Intel P55 (Socket 1156) £91.99
Intel Core i5 650 3.20GHz (Clarkdale) (Socket LGA1156) £145.99
GeIL 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz VALUE PLUS Dual Channel (GVP38GB1600C9DC) £85.99
OCZ StealthXStream 2 700W Power Supply £69.98

total £393.98 - A tenner less than the x6 spec in op and i would say a fair amount more oc headroom. For gaming this machine will top the 1055 and save you some cash. happy days.

Using anad as a base here is a comparison 1055 vs i5 650.
 
Alright, I went for AMD in the end.. The only change I did was getting the 965BE instead of the 1055T.. It will be fast enough + I will then have something left to upgrade to in a couple of years. :-D Thanks for your feedback.
 
Hey no problem, having read through the thread again I hope you will do the smart thing and pocket the cash you saved towards a better graphics card than the onboard chip as at 1920x1200 the Radeon HD 4290 IGP onboard is going to bring a tear to your eye in all but packman :(

Edit: ignore this, it was panthro asking about the games. XD Hope you enjoy your new system :)
 
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