Is this a good build?

if crossfire(your 5770) is more likely then get a board that is proper crossfire ready(8x/8x) and if not just ditch your 5770 and go for a gtx470 or hd5870
 
I would consider a crossfire setup but how can you tell if a motherboard supports this feature? I've been looking at different motherboards but i'm getting more and more confused by them :o.

Thanks again
 
id go for the hydra board, instead of spending £120 on another 5770 for crossfire sell your 5770 and get a 5850/5870 of the mm for around £200, forget about crossfire with ati, its pointless when you can sell up and buy a better single card.
 
Its all down to the chipset (bar that freaky MSI board, lol)
870 will do xfire if it has 2 PCI-E slots but the 2nd one will run at x4/x1 so isnt very effective
890GX does xfire at x8/x8 which is about 5% performance loss from full xfire
890FX does full xfire at x16/x16, each mobo should also state in its description, obv some boards do 3 way (tri fire etc)
each chipset has a finite number of lanes and as such distributes them accordingly
the 700 series is same as 800 series BTW
 
to make it more simple for the OP

i personally think that MSI lucid board will be like x13x13 crossfire. it will be a diluted x16x16 but better than x8x8. its only a small difference in performance betwen x16x16 and x8x8 so the lucid will be even less.

for £99.99 the board is solid and gives u a lot of options GPU wise. it really is a no brainer.

if you want "symmetrical" crossfire because it sounds better and makes u feel a little safer then pay a little extra im not worried. but you will lose the GPU options which i think is fantastic "Value"
 
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hi jake what do you mean by GPU options?
im only suggesting to get the proper crossfire boards if HE wants to crossfire in the future, and what do you mean by symmetrical sounding better, im sure proper crossfire boards will be better for crossfire than the MSIs lucid.
however you have a point that lucid is a good option if he wants to sli in the future with an am3 board.
 
Thanks again for the advice. This is what i think i will be ordering:

-Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm
-Samsung SH-S223 22x DVD±RW DL & RAM SATA Optical Drive
-XFX 650W XXX Edition Single Rail Modular PSU
-AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Socket AM3 3.2 GHz 8MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor
-Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz HyperX Memory
-Coolermaster Elite 330 Black Mid Tower Case
-MSI 870A Fuzion AMD 770 (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard

Comes to just over £400

+my XFX 5770 graphics card

Any other changes/recommendations/options on this build?

Thanks again
 
personally i would change the ram to the dominators that is on offer this week only for £70
and maybe the case :D i would probably go for CM 430/antec 300 or akasa xone :cool: but it depends if you liek that case.
 
the GPU options is that he can mix and match any 2 cards he wants. any model any brand. he could buy a 460 and run his current 5770 beside it to boost his performance. this is because of the lucid chip on this board.

you are suggesting to get a "proper" crossfire board but infact this board can crossfire no problem. its just a little less performance(next to nothing really). like i said the 2 lanes on this board are x16x16 but because of the lucid will probably run about x13x13, not true x16x16 but better than x8x8 if you know wot i mean.

you have to remember this guy is on a £400 budget and this board could do a wonder job, infact evn a more exspensive build this board could be at the heart easily.

theres a "power edition" of this board out and it smokes the crosshair IV formula for overclocking and its like £50 cheaper.

power edition link review - http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/msi_870a_fuzion_power_edition_exclusive_review/1
 
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