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New build; questions
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12-04-2009 9:01pm#1
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Was hoping for a bit more input
Corsair Dominator TWIN2X8500C5D 4096MB
I want very good ram but I don't want to spend money on ram that is designed for overclocking. Would the above be what I'm looking for or could someone recommend something better?0 -
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Unless you're playing GTA4 or doing lots of heavy-duty not-gaming stuff the X4-940BE will give you little benefit - it's hungry, won't be any faster in most games and can't be OCd as far as a good Intel E8X00 series CPU (although they're easier to).
Arguably the X3-720BE is better for gamers, as its cheaper and uses a fraction of the power but gives a balance between speed and cores and can still hit good speeds under OC, a bit of a lottery though - some cap out around 3.6GHz where others easily hit 4.2GHz, and most will have a "everyday usage" cap somewhere between 3.5-3.9GHz - usually the lower end of these spectrums hit those that try to use them with AM2 mobos but some are just meh pieces of silicon. It'll still carve up almost any game, including massively-multicored PS3 ports *cough*GTA4*cough*, for less than a E8400. But then you'll need DDR3 RAM... and while it's better than DDR2 it's also a bit pricier.
CFd HD4890s is demonic, especially under OC (they were made for that, you could say
) Downside is power consumption - a HD4890XT downclocked to mimic a HD4890Pro may sip at the juice but a HD4890Pro OCd to beat its higher-binned brother will happily devour over 180W. 0 -
I'm aware of the fact that the higher clock speed is the most important factor for games but I've decided I want to go quad-core to be some what future proofed if they do decide to start making use of them. The Phenom chip is only 30 euro more that the Intel dual core and allows me to get a much better board for the same price.
Just looking at hardwareversand, all their 4890 are more or less the same price and none are designated with either the pro or XT affix, can you link to somewhere that shows the difference in price/spec/etc?CFd HD4890s is demonic, especially under OC (they were made for that, you could say) Downside is power consumption - a HD4890XT downclocked to mimic a HD4890Pro may sip at the juice but a HD4890Pro OCd to beat its higher-binned brother will happily devour over 180W.0 -
The traditional "Pro" and "XT" tags were applied by people because ATi failed to give the two variants seperate names; ironically they were simply going to call them "" and "OC" but this predictably ended in anarchy as their board partners started OCing the regular (Pro) version and selling them as "fake OC" parts and asking for prices to match. The "true OC" (XT) parts are distinguished mainly by higher-binned chips which result in reduced power usage and higher potential speeds, and the GPUs were to be uniformly clocked at 850MHz (Pro) and 900MHz (XT) but there are now lots of lower-binned RV790s masquerading as their higher-binned counterparts with "OC" in the name and sometimes even the same clock speeds (but more usually 880MHz as 900MHz can rarely cause stability issues with the lower-binned parts) so its almost impossible to distinguish them now
If you wondered how big the difference is between the two GPU binnings then when X-Bit downclocked the XT to the same speeds as the Pro it used a fair bit less power than the HD4870, maxing out around 121W. At the same speed the Pro would be gobbling up a lot more than the 130W of an HD4870. Also, few "Pro" cards hit 950MHz while remaining stable; while the "XT" can fly past 1000/4800MHz GPU/memory.
Of course, if you did come across a manufacturer-OCd HD4890 over 900MHz stock, odds are its the higher-binned version. But the price would probably be horrendous 0 -
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StopNotWorking wrote:I wouldn't even feel safe with my current 750W if I had an OCed phenom and 2 4890s. 650W I doubt would run them at all, and if they did it might crash when you stress test it. 750 would run it alright but you would be pushing the PSU really hard.
*cough*Antec Signature 850W*cough*
In reality if you could get a good 650W with 4*PCIe you probably could get a moderately OCd X3-720 (i.e. no insane voltmodding!) and two stock HD4890XTs like the Sapphire "OC" or Powercolor "Plus" models, which are known to be more economical despite the higher stock clocks running so long as you kept things well cooled and didn't find some more 12V-sinks like a juicy RAID array or gigantic high-wattage cooling arrays
But yeah, it'd be tight, and if you wanted to add more gubbins and/or OC/voltmod harder (nowadays you can voltmod many high-end cards via BIOS just like a CPU) you'd need a good 750W, and if you did both and/or heavy voltmods, or were OCing a 125W Phenom like the X4-955BE it's 850W FTW. Thankfully there's some killer Seasonic/CWT/Delta 850W units on the market but the prices are pretty brutal.Effluo wrote:I've seen quite a few benchmarks and it really seems that all AMD processors are way of the pace of the core two duos!!!
First, that's 65nm Phenoms. Second, the overall average is 10% off the C2D, helluva improvement over the Athlon :P Third, the TLB bug generated a huge amount of anti-AMD sentiment, and a lot of the reviews back then were done by pro-Intel sites and used exceedingly dubious test strategies or made it up as they went along (money talks)
Finally, unlike the 45nm version the original Phenom was just, well, "meh". Power per clock wasn't the big issue, the inability to efficiently hit speeds capable of coming even close to the E6600/6700 was. The 45nm chips don't just achieve near-parity with the 45nm C2Ds but also hit solid speeds so there's no real gap between the two, plus they boast very keen pricing.0 -
If I'm just planning to mess with the multiplier on the Phenom and maybe up the clock on the 4890's a bit, (no extra hard drives or fancy cooling) then 750 would cover me so? this?*cough*Antec Signature 850W*cough*
In reality if you could get a good 650W with 4*PCIe you probably could get a moderately OCd X3-720 (i.e. no insane voltmodding!) and two stock HD4890XTs like the Sapphire "OC" or Powercolor "Plus" models, which are known to be more economical despite the higher stock clocks running so long as you kept things well cooled and didn't find some more 12V-sinks like a juicy RAID array or gigantic high-wattage cooling arrays But yeah, it'd be tight, and if you wanted to add more gubbins and/or OC/voltmod harder (nowadays you can voltmod many high-end cards via BIOS just like a CPU) you'd need a good 750W, and if you did both and/or heavy voltmods, or were OCing a 125W Phenom like the X4-955BE it's 850W FTW. Thankfully there's some killer Seasonic/CWT/Delta 850W units on the market but the prices are pretty brutal.0 -
Depends on whether you go for AM3 with X3-720BE or X4-955BE, or stick with the AM2 setup. And look out for either the Sapphire HD4890OC Lite or the (more expensive) Powercolor HD4890Plus, they're the best of the bunch, and being based on AMD's HD4890"OC" platform are actually faster than the regular cards while keeping power usage in check.
If you only OC the X3 slightly and keep the HD4890XTs near stock you could just get away with a decent 650W so long as you could get one with the right connectors (or with a unirail get some converter cables to get the extra two PCIe)
If you're more adventurous with the 95W CPU, or alternatively a lot less adventurous with the 125W Phenoms the TX750W will do. 60A on the 12V rail
If you go mental with the 125W Phenoms however you'd need a good 850W PSU and those hurt the piggy bank
Bear in mind that once you start getting aggressive with the multiplier you'll have to overvolt the CPU, and with AMD that means you have to overvolt the chipset to maintain stability. This isn't too bad at first but once you leave the realm of "everyday OC" (usually past 3.6GHz) the voltage increases needed to maintain stability suddenly start to rise exponentially.0 -
Hi, if you're concerned about your power draw, there's a basic but useful calculator here.
Also there's a very sweet looking build someone is doing with an Intel Core i7, it's on boards.ie and the target price is about the same as yours. You can see the entire post here. Not sure if this is a gaming machine; someone posted that the i7 isn't ideal for gaming, not sure about that but you might want to do a bit of research. It will give you something to do between study breaks 0 -
Yeah, the problem is I need a monitor so that adds another €200+.
I've made use of this power supply calculator, it seems a bit more in depth.
It says I would require 490W with a clock of 3.7ghz (1.49v) on the Phenom II 940 and two 4890's in crossfire.
Which seems to be more inline with some other stuff I've read. I think I'll be safe enough with the 750. I won't be getting a second 4890 for awhile anyway, so I can see how much power the system is actually drawing when I get it built.
Exams are finished so it's time to put my money where my mouth is 0 -
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ohhhhhhh self promotion....
Ohhhhh especially when the prices aren't great!!!
Amazon however are very competitive in terms of monitors!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=amb_link_83723953_16?ie=UTF8&search-alias=electronics&hidden-keywords=B001QG2TQU|B001QFP0X0|B001HSO76M&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1TV03AGJKG5MGFG53NMF&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=467856173&pf_rd_i=3506130110 -
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The thing your link points to is the T220HD, which is HD in the name only as it's 1680x1050. It does have a Freeview tuner and HDMI connection, basically it's more of an LCD TV than a monitor, with a 5ms response time. You could take a look at the little brother T220 instead without the HDMI and TV tuner but a 2ms response time and a hella lot cheaper. (I'm eyeballing the T220 myself by the way.22" Samsung is €226 on hardwareversand with the delivery price being about €3 (€30 delivery for all compenents together), so where can I do better? ) 0 -
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Yeah I know. I've spent lots of time reading up on most of the components at this stage. The thing is Hardwareversand only sell the T220HD and it just seems easier to get all the stuff from one place unless there's a killer saving.BeciMester wrote: »The thing your link points to is the T220HD, which is HD in the name only as it's 1680x1050. It does have a Freeview tuner and HDMI connection, basically it's more of an LCD TV than a monitor, with a 5ms response time. You could take a look at the little brother T220 instead without the HDMI and TV tuner but a 2ms response time and a hella lot cheaper. (I'm eyeballing the T220 myself by the way. )
I could get the T220 for €195 by picking it up from Komplett but I dunno if it's worth the hassle.0 -
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