New Build (finally)

Paladine

Paladine

Paladine

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Joined
28 Oct 2006
Posts
457
I have been umming and arring about a new build for a while now - my current M3N WS + 955 BE system really wasn't cutting the mustard any more and I am sick of dealing with cooling issues.

Existing system is:

ASUS M3N WS
AMD 955 Black Edition
8GB Corsair 1066 RAM (CL10 iirc)
120GB Vertex 2 SSD (currently RMA)
4x 750GB Barracudas (SATA II)
NVidia GTX 550ti
Thermaltake V3 Black Edition case
OCZ ModXStream Pro 750W Modular PSU

Ordered the parts for new system today as follows:

Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 Motherboard
AMD X8 FX-8320 CPU
Corsair H100i Cooler
Coolermaster CM690 II Advanced USB3.0
Gigabyte Radeon 7850 2GB (GV-R785OC-2GD)
G.SKILL RipjawsX DDR3 2x8GB 1866MHz CL9
Thermaltake Smart SE Modular 730W PSU
OCZ Vertex 3 MAX 240GB SSD

I know the motherboard is a little old and will need BIOS update for the FX-8320 but really the price difference between the UD3 and UD5 here in Poland is significant (UD5 is 50% more expensive) for very little gain that I could see.

Also, I am not sure which PSU I will put in, I might keep the old OCZ PSU in the new rig and put the Thermaltake in the old (which is being donated to my fiancée along with a new Corsair H60 to hopefully ease the CPU heat issues for her) - what do you guys think, keep ModXStream in new rig or Thermaltake?

I was going to buy a SATA III 1TB drive too, but I have 4 really good SATA II drives which I don't want to waste and since the SSD will be boot drive, I can throw the SATA II HDDs into a striped RAID.

Any comments appreciated, including advice. Most excited about the H100i and the CM690 case, read amazing reviews for both. But generally I think I should see a very significant improvement over my current rig.

Total cost was around £800 give or take exchange rate inaccuracies.

Paladine
 
snips86x said:
What is your budget?
What is the PC being used for?
Click to expand...

The budget was what I spent and it is being used mainly for work (graphic design, 3D, web dev, software testing) and some play.

I run a lot of VMs for testing purposes and do a -lot- of research often meaning 100+ browser tabs open at a time.
 
Ok. Looks like you've got it well thought out, this is what I would change:

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8350 Black Edition 4.00GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV316G213C1K) £99.95
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 920 Series 4 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (LGA1155 / LGA1156 / LGA1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM2+ / AM3+) £84.98
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £54.98
Total : £431.90 (includes shipping : £10.00).



CPU - The 8350 is the only decent 8 core, you can see the benchmark HERE
RAM - 2133 would have been more suitable for what you are doing, tasks would be quicker especially when it comes to the graphic work.
Cooler - H100i is a great cooler, but the Corsair H60/80 & Antec 920 are just as effective at a lower price.
PSU - Don't need a 750w, you'll be fine with a 500/600w PSU. XFX PSU's are the best on the market, made by Seasonic who are the top dogs!
 
snips86x said:
Ok. Looks like you've got it well thought out, this is what I would change:

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8350 Black Edition 4.00GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV316G213C1K) £99.95
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 920 Series 4 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (LGA1155 / LGA1156 / LGA1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM2+ / AM3+) £84.98
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £54.98
Total : £431.90 (includes shipping : £10.00).



CPU - The 8350 is the only decent 8 core, you can see the benchmark HERE
RAM - 2133 would have been more suitable for what you are doing, tasks would be quicker especially when it comes to the graphic work.
Cooler - H100i is a great cooler, but the Corsair H60/80 & Antec 920 are just as effective at a lower price.
PSU - Don't need a 750w, you'll be fine with a 500/600w PSU. XFX PSU's are the best on the market, made by Seasonic who are the top dogs!
Click to expand...

The reason I didn't go for the 8350 and the 2133 DDR3 are basically down to cost - here in Poland there is a significant price difference between what I got and what you have suggested.

I chose the H100i cooler because I live on the third floor of a 4 storey apartment complex with built in heating - the apartment gets very warm so ambient temperature is high (which is part of the reason I am having so many cooling issues with my 955) so I wanted the extra beef of the H100i over the H80i - plus it gets very warm and humid in the summer here too. The other advantage of the H100i is I should be able to OC the 8320 to 8350 speeds without worrying about heat.

The PSU was really down to two factors - the first being that I was limited in choice by the supplier I am using and secondly, I wanted the ability to add more GPUs in the future without having to upgrade PSU. Gigabyte recommends a minimum of 500W for the 7850 (it is a 130W TDP card) so I just want the extra headroom for Crossfire in the future.

Thanks for the link though, looks like the new system will be a very significant improvement on the old one based on the hardware comparisons.
 
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