My AMD Gaming Platform

mythrandyr

mythrandyr

mythrandyr

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Joined
19 Sep 2008
Posts
344
Hi Guys,

Well, upgrade time is here again and this is my meager attempt at creating an AMD Platform specifically aimed at playing games such as Assassin's Creed, to be honest i am not even sure if this rig is worth being called a dragon platform (i've not used AMD in such a long time). I know it's not much, or the most powerful, and that their is still some work that need's to be done on it but for the time being i think i'm happy with it.


System Specs Are As Follows:


1 X 22" Acer LCD Monitor.
1 X Antec Skeleton Performance Chassis.
1 X Thermaltake 1200W PSU.
1 X AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz.
1 X MSI 790FX-GD70 AMD 790FX.
1 X 4GB Corsair XMS 3 DHX DDR3 Memory.
1 X Samsung PB22-J 128GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (For OS).
1 X Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB 7200RPM SATA-II 16MB Cache (For Media).
1 X Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache (For Game Installations and ISO Files).
1 X Samsung Lighscribe DVD Riter.
1 X 4 2.5" Drive Backplane System.
1 X Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (Will be going crossfire in a couple of weeks, but they do stink something terrible when they get hot, especially in the middle of summer).
1 X 2.1 Logitech Z Cinema Speakers.
1 X Saitek Cyborg Keyboard.
1 X Saitek Cyborg Mouse.
1 X Xbox 360 Control Pad.

There, i think that just about covers it. The only two thing's that i need to do now that spring instantly to mind, to finish the system off completely, is to add 1 or 2 more 1TB hard disk drives (1 expressley used for my media files, replacing the Scorpio Black, and a second expressley for storing iso files on their, using the 3rd just for installing games on to) and also adding a 2nd powercolor graphics card for 16X crossfire.

I recon a few people will ask why i did'nt go for an intel based system and the answer really is quite simple. I will only be using this system mainly for playing games from and according to many internet review sites the AMD 955 is comparable (or almost comparable) to the Intel 965 in terms of game performance but with £500 nocked off the price tag. Also the price to performance ratio of the 4890 cards don't win my vote to be honest when i can now buy two of the powercolor 4870 cards for the same price as 1 high end 4890 and only miss a little performance gain and besides, 2 4870 powercolor cards should be enough until the next set of DX11 based cards are released later this year. I don't think i've done a bad job on the hard drives though either to be honest. I know i will be adding another 2 1TB hdd's at the end of the month but i think i have done the right thing up to now in buying a 128GB SSD to boot the OS from and the other two drives for media and iso installations/games.

anyways, let me know what you guys think, or more specifically, if their is anything that i have missed upgrading (yes, i have not upgraded the stock cooler, but since i don't overclock anymore due to bad experiences i really don't see that as being a big issue if i were honest.).

take care guys,


Myth.
 
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lol, sorry about that i must have been a little vague since i've been tinkering with this system today, i've had to fit the motherboard that i have listed above (which took less than 20 mins suprisingly). No, i already own that spec and i just wanted to know what people's opinion was and if their was anything that i had missed while i am starting to upgrade again. In retrosepct the only other upgrade i can think of is to by a new monitor, the 28" monitor on OCUK looks tempting for about £300 if i remember right.

Initially i was'nt even going to buy that motherboard, i was going to go for the asus formula 3 at the end of the month but since OCUK bought the price down from £160 to £130 for that board(which coincidentally was how much i had left in the bank account after i bought the am3 processor last week), many review sites say that it is a fantastic am3 board and as an added bonus the bios version is completely up to date so that it can use phenom 2 955's straight out of the box (which i did'nt know until i installed it because i was dreading having to update the bios) i thought that i would have been an absolute fool to wait and miss such a good deal tbh and to be quite honest i am very impressed with the boards performance and the entire systems performance up to now.
 
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The 28" is a fine screen if you only game....otherwise picture quality and viewing angles/QC is not its top priority.

If you do more than just gaming then a decent quality 24" is where I'd put my money. It's an investment and not something you're going to ditch 3 years down the line. It will also be something your eyes are thankful for due to less strain on a quality screen.

Check out the monitor's forum.

No mention of soundcard either, ditch the onboard sound and get an Xfi if you just game or a Xonar if you do gaming and multimedia.

You can easily get 6GB ram in there too since ram is so cheap there's no excuse!
 
The 28" is not a priority for me tbh, i've never had a problem using 22/24" screens but the only reason that i would upgrade at the minute is that i am using an acer monitor that seems to have developed some dark patches on the screen like a shadowing effect that can only be seen when the monitor display is in black, say for example when i pause a game and the screen dimms i can sometimes see this shadowing and i don't know if it is just an anomally or if it is something more sinister like image burn, but that should'nt affect this monitor since it's lcd.

ahh, well there is no mention of a sound card because the logitech z cinema are usb speakers with their own internal sound system meaning that i don't need a designated sound card or onboard sound which is kind of cool because i dont need drivers and dont have to worry about os compatibility. They are not great for gaming to be absolutely honest but they do emulate 5.1 sound and still sound decent at mid/high volume and one other advantage is that since they are USB. i dont have to worry about pci/pcie expansion slot placement.

I don't need 6GB ram if i am honest, i don't feel the need for it and i don't particularly like the idea of using 64 bit OS. i hear bad thing's about driver compatibility and program stability.
 
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You've heard bad things because people have told you wrong information, people still living in the realms of 2007-2008.

There is a minute chance that something won't work on 64bit, but that something will be ancient to begin with or ultra rare - you don't sound like the type of person who has such hardware.

There are no 64bit issues with any standard modern day hardware or software and you're severely limiting yourself by not upgrading to 64bit especially as a gamer...
 
mrk said:
You've heard bad things because people have told you wrong information, people still living in the realms of 2007-2008.

There is a minute chance that something won't work on 64bit, but that something will be ancient to begin with or ultra rare - you don't sound like the type of person who has such hardware.

There are no 64bit issues with any standard modern day hardware or software and you're severely limiting yourself by not upgrading to 64bit especially as a gamer...
Click to expand...

+1

Have been running Vista 64 and now Windows 7 64 on both my desktop and laptop for over a year, and the only thing that doesn't work is my USB Missile Launcher.
 
yea matey, no problem, just let me sort out a few bits of software here or there first and i'll upload some photos tomorrow afternoon. I got the 1200W psu on a whim around 2 years ago, i don't know why but it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

i'm looking into 64 bit software now, i have coincidentally seen some nice patriot Viper memory going for around £75 on OCUK, i'm just wondering if i will have trouble running it on this board with it only supporting 1600mhz OC rather than inately, but the rams color scheme will go nicely with the color scheme of the rest of the board :)

reflux said:
+1

Have been running Vista 64 and now Windows 7 64 on both my desktop and laptop for over a year, and the only thing that doesn't work is my USB Missile Launcher.
Click to expand...

lol, why in gods name would you want a usb missle launcher? you're not planning on replacing president obama any time soon are you? just getting in a few paractice runs?

I'm actually looking quite forward to trying windows 7 when it comes out, the reports say that it is everything that vista should have been.

i tell you one thing though, i reckon i'm gonna ditch the saitek gear, i loved em when they first came out but now the novelty has worn off i've got to admit that this is one of the most uncomfortable mice i've ever used.
 
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You don't need 64bit software either, in most cases 32bit ones will work a bit faster than on a 32bit OS as well.

64bit software will give added benefit of being able to utilise all that extra mem instead of just up to 2GB so seek out 64bit versions of Photoshop etc if you use those apps.
 
yeah i'm sorry about that but what i meant to say was that i am looking into 64bit os options. I'm tempted to keep running things like this until the new windows 7 comes out and then just buy the windows 7 64bit package.

Another, more concearning, problem has arisen however. I don't know how accurate they are but the Digital Temp monitor on this motherboards telling me that system temperature is running into its low 60's. In an open air case, in a room with adequate ventilation i am a little concearned by this and think that the heat is being generated largely by the powercolor vga card. Maybe an investment into an aftermarket cooler for the graphics card would be a wiser choice to purchase next? I'm already considering the Sunbeam cooler to go with my AMD processor, if it will fir in the case that is and also if OCUK manage to get any in stock by next pay day.
 
Read a review that claimed that the Sunbeam does not work well with quad cores for some reason or other. Don't even have a CPU cooler atm so can't comment further! That review recommended the Scythe Mugen II instead, for what it's worth.
 
trust me, all help is worth something, if you had'nt have said something then i would'nt have known so thanks. But the largest problem i have with coolers at the minute is trying to find a cooler that is compatible with AM3 and will fit in an antec sekelton chassis. I might be wrong in this assumption but i am guessing that socket am2+ coolers will also be compatible with am3 socket motherboards right?
 
cool, that atleast has broadened my perspectives as to what cooler i can use. Forgive me for the assumption but it has been over 3 years since i have last used an amd processor, i usually only keep tabs on intel but since the switch over, well, i've had to start paying closer attention to AMD.
 
Hardly any of the popular aftermarket CPU coolers fit in the Skeleton. Considering that it's obviously an enthusiast case, it's a massive blunder by Antec.

In fact, we soon found that hardly any aftermarket heatsinks will fit into the Antec Skeleton and were unsuccessful trying to fit bit-tech favourites like the Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme, Akasa 965 and Zalman 9700. In fact not a single heatsink in our offices was able to fit beneath the Skeleton’s plastic frame (and as you can imagine, we have quite a few), and we were eventually forced to fit an Intel stock 775 heatsink – shudder.

We contacted Antec regarding this issue, who admited that a lot of heatsinks won’t fit and that only stock and specific low profile after market coolers will squeeze inside the plastic frame.
Click to expand...
 
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i honestly believe that the antec skeleton case, while maybe not the most practicle, is one of the best cases currently available and quite possibly the best case that i have ever owned. The simple facts with the antec chassis is that it is one of the easiest cases ever made to work with and one of the best air cooled systems currently available, even though i do concede that they should have made the system maybe just a few inches taller, but then again it was designed to be a desktop rather than a tower case. But i still, and always will maintain that it is by far the easiest case i have ever had to work with, it actually makes working with components feel pleasing, as disturbing as that may sound, and coincedentally, when i was using the Intel processor a few weeks ago in this case i did actually have a zalman fan installed onto the processor in this case. If they release a skeleton mark 2 maybe the issues will be sorted out by then but i sincerely hope to see more cases like this come onto the market soon.
 
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It's an innovative idea with plenty of potential, but badly executed. The case cooling is very good but that's less useful when you can't install the best CPU coolers into it. I'd also be pretty worried about my expensive hardware being so exposed to the elements, but I suppose that's a personal objection.
 
to be honest, the case and components don't seem to attract as much dust etc... as anyone would assume, and as for any dust gathering around the motherboard, fans etc... just buy a can of condensed air/air duster. The only time the elements would pose a real threat is if you rely on taking the pc to the repair shop to be looked at but most of us here, i assume, have a basic level of engneering skill anyway so that should'ne be too much of a problem. As far as the coolers go, i have had a zalman in here, but i don't overclock so top end cooler's are not neccessary for me, appart from anything else though, i reckon that their is enough room to install a reserator if needed but i don't like water cooling, it's too unreliable, i've already had 2 kits go pop on me.

I've also loaded a 64 bit version of Vista on here now and it's running quite well, I have yet to play any games on here since it is a clean instal however i must admit that Microsoft made me laugh earlier. It seems that they don't make software that supports their own 64 bit os. I've had to instal thunderbird and a program called aMSN because windows live does'nt work on Vista 64 yet. I tried configuring outlook express but what a ball ache, i gave up with it in the end and had thunderbird working perfectly inside 5 mins.
 
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