Upgrade (again)

iviv

iviv

iviv

Soldato
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Firstly, thanks a ton to all the guys who helped me in my last thread, offering good sound advice which kept me with some money in my pocket. However, since then I've been having some issues with my setup which I can't pinpoint (thread here).

So that of course got me thinking again, about this upgrading malarky. With some apparently tempromental ram that only decides to fail memtest when it feels like it, its pretty hard to nail down a fix, and rather than buying new DDR2 ram at its current price, combined with the fact that one of my friends recently changed from PC10666 to PC12800 DDR3 ram, means I can pick up the 2x2gb 10666 sticks pretty cheaply, with just a couple of weeks of use on them.
Now, with all the new CPUs coming out next year, along with new chipsets for both AMD and Intel, I'm looking for futureproofing, at least as much as I can. From what I've heard, Intel's CPUs won't be backwards compatable, but with the AM3 800 chipset apparently Bulldozer support can be added through a new BIOS. And given they have the best value CPUs at the moment (Right?) its likely I'll go that way.

Originally, I was looking at the Phenom2 X6, but thinking about it, that's too much for what I need, the X4 965 should be enough, the higher clocks will be more useful for gaming then more cores. The ram is sorted, that just leaves the cooler and mobo.

Cooler first, I've currently got the Thermalright IFX14. Now... when I brought it, I don't think it was AM3 compatible (It wasn't even out), but apparently it is now. I'm guessing that it just needs a new fitting, so I may try and contact Thermalright see if I can buy/get the fitting for free, which saves a headache.

Which leaves the one thing I'm really not sure about, the motherboard. I've had a good look at the 800 chipset ones, and after getting rid of the microATX ones, there doesn't seem to be much difference at all between them. Sata 3/6gb, usb2/3, but that's it really. The cheaper ones will probably be worse overclockers, but at what price point does it become 'good enough'? Especially looking at the £40 price jump from the £120 to £160 boards. I could afford one of the £160 boards, but I don't really want to spend that much unless it would deffinately be worth it. I guess it would make Crossfire an option in the future with my 5770, but ideally I would sell that and buy one of the SI cards, as they'll be more powerful, and single card solutions are going to be more efficient.
Only requirements from the mobo are 5 sata ports for my hard drives, and 2 PCI slots for my wireless and sound cards. Plus good overclocking ability, naturally.

So, my current spec would be:
specpv.jpg


Just needs the perfect mobo to go with it. Though as I said, ram and cooler will be dealt with seperately, just got them there for reference :)
 
I want to go with the 800 chipset since that should support the newer Bulldozer CPUs.

As for that Gigabyte board, how good is that for overclocking?
 
Looks good. However, I've become conflicted again after reading about the AMD Turbocore thing, sounds like it would make the 6 core CPU a much more viable option and very future proof?

Reading on how it works, it downclocks three of the idle cores, pushes up the voltage and raises the clocks of the other three cores? How well does this perform when already running an overclocked system? Especially regarding the raised voltage.
If I could overclock the hex core from 2.8 to 3.2Ghz, for example, then with a 400Mhz boost from turbocore, the system would play better on single threaded and multi threaded games?

After reading a review on OC3d, the asus M4A89TD doesn't perform very much better when overclocking than this the M4A89GTD, which is £55 cheaper. I'm thinking that's the best option then?
 
iviv said:
Looks good. However, I've become conflicted again after reading about the AMD Turbocore thing, sounds like it would make the 6 core CPU a much more viable option and very future proof?

Reading on how it works, it downclocks three of the idle cores, pushes up the voltage and raises the clocks of the other three cores? How well does this perform when already running an overclocked system? Especially regarding the raised voltage.
If I could overclock the hex core from 2.8 to 3.2Ghz, for example, then with a 400Mhz boost from turbocore, the system would play better on single threaded and multi threaded games?

After reading a review on OC3d, the asus M4A89TD doesn't perform very much better when overclocking than this the m4a89gtd, which is £55 cheaper. i'm thinking that's the best option then?
Click to expand...

the m4a89gtd doesnt have usb3.0, there is one with this feature,

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=mb-393-as&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1782

but cost more money than the gigabyte.

this link,

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-phenom-ii-x6-1055t-overclocking.html

might help with overclocking HEX core chips
 
USB3 isn't something I care too much about, I'm not planning on getting any external hard drives or anything that will benefit like that. SATA6 will probably be more useful.

I found that link earlier, and the fact that they were using the M4A89GTD board to overclock it was very interesting, and means I'll probably get that board.

As for the CPU... I'm currently flip flopping between the hex 1055T and the quad 965. The 965 is clocked higher, unlocked multiplier, and can probably be pushed much higher.

But on the other hand, the 1055T, as shown in that review, can hit 4Ghz, which should be enough for most things, and will be much more futureproof, meaning that if the Bulldozer rumor mentioned above isn't true, I'll have a decent enough CPU to keep me going for several years anyway.
 
I think I'll hunt down some reviews for both of them, though that comparison you posted earlier is certainly persuesive. I think the oly reason I'm wanting to move towards asus is I know my way around the bios, which is a stupid reason to stick with one over the other XD

And that's a good thread, reading through it now. Thanks for the pointer there :)
 
If its of any help, I was in the same boat and opted for the 1055T and M4A89GTD Pro USB3, as this seemed to get great results. For me it was a toss up between the M4a89GTD and the Formula, but I decided it wasnt worth the cost.
 
Awesome, what sort of clock speeds have you managed, assuming you overclocked?
 
On the subject of the M4A89GTD, from reading the review here:
http://www.extremeoverclocking.com/reviews/motherboards/ASUS_M4A89GTD_PRO_USB3_4.html

It seems to say that there is a VGA switch card in the top PCI-E port, which needs to stay there if just using one graphics card, meaning the card has to go in the lower PCI-E slot? Is this true? Because if so, it'll be blocking off one of the PCI slots, meaning the board isn't any good for me :x
 
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