Speccing up a partial crossfire PC build

Alasdairhurst · 27 Mar 2011 at 19:04

I'm building a PC for a mate and he has some components at the moment - 2 5770's (one triple and one dual slot + crossfire adapter), corsair CX500 PSU, 4GB DDR3 ram and a coolermaster ATX case.
i have specced out the rest of the system (he has has around 230 to spend) and was wondering if there was anything really that could save a bit more money, or perform better.
he is just using the PC for regular stuff and moderate gaming - the second 5770 was given to him so thats an added bonus.

this is what i have atm:
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 840 "95W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £79.99
(£66.66) £79.99
(£66.66)
ASRock M3A770DE AMD 770 (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £53.99
(£44.99) £53.99
(£44.99)
Akasa AK-CCX-4002HP Venom CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM3) £38.99
(£32.49) £38.99
(£32.49)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £29.99
(£24.99) £29.99
(£24.99)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.66) £13.99
(£11.66)
Sub Total : £180.79
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £38.06
Total : £228.35
what do you think?

Cookeh · 27 Mar 2011 at 19:24

Venom performs quite poorly on AM3!

Surprised me - better off waiting for the cheaper Gelid Tranquillo to come back into spec, or getting the Fenrir (typically the temps of the Fenrir are 1-2'c lower than the Gelid).

Alasdairhurst · 27 Mar 2011 at 19:39

fenrir seems a good cooler so i'll probably go with that then as i can get it for the same price, thanks for hte info.
what about noise though? and the cpu won't be overclocked (not much at least), so i shouldnt probably be worries about temps that much.

pastymuncher · 27 Mar 2011 at 20:00

That motherboard does'nt do proper crossfire. The second slot only runs at 4x.

Alasdairhurst · 27 Mar 2011 at 20:05

hmm yeah thats a significan decrease compared to X16 X8 - i'll find the next best one.
all the boards i seem to find (within budget) are X16 X4 - i'm sure ive seen X16 X8 at least in the 60 -80 price margin.

from this - it seems the perfomance drop is as little as 5-10% maximum (on more powerful cards), so i would probably say 3-5% for 5770's
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=650970

extra info here i've found: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18084631

the 2'nd 5770 as i said was free, so its extra performance anyway for little power consumption.

pastymuncher · 28 Mar 2011 at 08:50

This one does 8x/8x and is only £6 more expensive.

Cookeh · 28 Mar 2011 at 13:36

pastymuncher said:
This one does 8x/8x and is only £6 more expensive.

True.

But have you read some reviews on it?

It's crap

Considered 2nd hand OP? May be the best bet?

Alasdairhurst · 28 Mar 2011 at 20:52

I have thought about it, but i'd like to see the best store bough options for the price first - in case anything goes wrong or it needs retuning for any reason.

what about the MSI 870A-G54? does that seem any good - it apparently has 2x PCI-e X16 @X16

J-FRO · 28 Mar 2011 at 20:56

Is that PSU even enough to run crossfire 5770's? Anyone?

Alasdairhurst · 28 Mar 2011 at 21:55

PSU will be fine
this thread answers it:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=15897179

J-FRO · 28 Mar 2011 at 21:59

Alasdairhurst said:
PSU will be fine
this thread answers it:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=15897179

Hmmm that's interesting. Thank you.

Maybe a new alternative possibility for my future rig...

Alasdairhurst · 28 Mar 2011 at 22:07

yeah, PC power consumption is way overrated. there really is no need for 1000w+ psus for high end rigs unless they have 4 GTX580's or something.

smiley1987 · 29 Mar 2011 at 01:31

Cookeh said:
True.

But have you read some reviews on it?

It's crap

Considered 2nd hand OP? May be the best bet?

Well i have that exact board in my pc and it has been rock solid . I have the board nearly 3 years now and i couldn't fault it .

Alasdairhurst · 29 Mar 2011 at 07:30

smiley1987 said:
Well i have that exact board in my pc and it has been rock solid . I have the board nearly 3 years now and i couldn't fault it .

are you running CF on it?
if so which cards?

i'll probably go for the MSI 870A-G54 cos i can get it for just over £60 and it has a newer chipset and seems fine for a standard CF board.