Is this the right direction to go in

Overheal

Right, I do want a gaming machine, and I had two things in mind for the build:

- In spite of having decent hardware, Intel is a sheisty company that I will not give money to at the present time
- I swore blind my next card would not be based on a nvidia GPU and nothing I've read lately has convinced me to change hymn sheets just yet

So lo and behold I'm trying to build an AMD/ATI monster. On a budget.

Trying to stick to my own tired advice I wanted future upgrades to be kept in mind so I opted on a nice new-ish motherboard with USB 3.0 DDR3 and an AM3 socket.

Im now at the point where I need a devil's advocate to trim down my build: a Hexa-Core processor just sounds decadent; but I also am aware that the MoBo has a core unlocker and I could just as easily pocket a Tri-Core now, make it a quad, and upgrade to a Hexa (or perhaps, an Octo) in 2-4 years time. I also am having trouble talking myself down of 1.6ghz ram.

Or am I thinking about it the wrong way and I should just buy the good stuff right from the word Go.

Here's the build:



I have $300 from b-day cash, I do have money in the bank but I don't want to get stupid. I will go ahead and assume the $500 from my secured credit card. So I'd like to keep it under $800, and at utmost $1,100.

Looking to play some Portal 2, SC2, source games, and any other beautiful looking thing that comes across my path in the meanwhile. I have spent the last 3 years on a laptop* and am looking to build a plaything while I relegate the laptop to HDTV duties and toilet blogging. Not on its last legs yet but want to buy a new machine before the end of the year. I figure the MoBo integrated GPU is at least as powerful as that old PoS so it will get me by until I decide what to do with the GPU (crossfire, etc)

*15.4" HP Pavillion DV6500t
Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2.0ghz, 65nm
4GB of RAM DDR2 332Mhz 5-5-5-15 (up from 2GB in Dec 09)
nVidia Geforce 8400M GS 128MB
Windows 7 64-bit (upgrade license; windows Vista Home 32)
Wireless A/B/G (+N installed a little while ago on the cheap)
195GB HDD 5400rpm
12-Cell Li-Io

cherryghost

Duuude do you even need to ask us :pac:

It's a nice build. Are you going to get a custom cooler or are you going to wait a bit for that too?


EDIT: Actually if you try crossfire two cards, the pci lanes become x8. I'd never go multi GPU to be perfectly honest. Not until they sort out the stupid issues the have first anyway

Overheal

thanks for the endorsement!

Is that a problem inherent with PCI-E or just this range of motherboards? Or crossfire

Sure that does sound kinda bad alright but arent there still performance gains to be had out of synched GPUs?

Aftermarket cooler would come later. Some of the newegg reviews said that when they ran that core and mobo on the stock fan they were able to OC it to 4.0ghz o_O which you know, seems plenty ample. For $100 more i can get the black edition that comes factory unlocked - i dont know what real difference that makes though.

cherryghost

It's the motherboard in question I'm afraid. Apparently the difference in performance ranges between 2% and as much as 10% in places though

Actually heres a quick dabble

http://www.thetomorrowtimes.com/2010/03/ati-raddeon-5770-pcie-x16-vs-pcie-x8.html


Still, multi gpu = microstuttering and such. Unless you can bear with that

Overheal

bear with it? I dont even know what it is :pac:

cherryghost

it's basically if 2 GPUs run out sync when rendering frames together, the game you'll be playing will freeze for a few millseconds until they sync up again... until they fall out of sync again

It's quite common in multi gpus, it's very noticeable and gets extremely annoying after a while

lmimmfn

Why are the prices in $? get me some stuff will ya :P

mem price is crazy if you ask me, otherwise great build but youve no gfx card?

cherryghost

yeah if you're not interested in overclocking, then you needn't get such a badass set of RAM. I would be intensely jealous if you got them though. Raving reviews from what I've read

Overheal

lmimmfn wrote: »

Why are the prices in $? get me some stuff will ya :P

mem price is crazy if you ask me, otherwise great build but youve no gfx card?

Nope I plan to skate along and shop for the card later. Im also curious to see just how much beef integrated graphics have nowadays against the lappy's 8400.

I did catch something about the memory: @ 1600mhz its not compatible with the board: I'll need to shop 1333, or 2000 (which is out of the question for the asking moneys!)

Overheal

I didnt say im not interested in Overclocking - but its definitely something I've never dared trying on older machines with stock cooling. Definitely something I wish to investigate during the winter. I'd be a damn fool to try it in august!

cherryghost

I have this RAM on my i7 setup. Can overclock with it too to a certain point until some major tweaks are needed. I fully recommend it if you're not interested in major overclocking. Runs like a beaut

Overheal

Yeah those look viable, as do the 1333 of the ripjaws: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231276

Another one that had my eye was OCZ's flex, with the Heat-Spreader/Water-Cooling fins on them: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227564&cm_re=ocz_flex-_-20-227-564-_-Product

edit: actually the flext are $50 off right now - they're definitely going in, theyre effectively the same price as the others.

lmimmfn

Overheal wrote: »

Nope I plan to skate along and shop for the card later. Im also curious to see just how much beef integrated graphics have nowadays against the lappy's 8400.

I did catch something about the memory: @ 1600mhz its not compatible with the board: I'll need to shop 1333, or 2000 (which is out of the question for the asking moneys!)

Ahh ok, youll be disappointed with the current integrated gfx cards, theyre just as $hit as they were several years ago , you could go for a second hand card, 8800GT's are excellent and go for about 50euro second hand, but i think that rig would be unbalanced with an 8800GT, you'd want an ati 5850 or Nvidia 460( of course you could go for something cheapo like a 5770 to tide you over ) otherwise youre great on cpu power and crap on gfx power.

Another thing is youve bought thermal paste but no cpu cooler, doesnt make much sense tbh as the 2 go hand in hand really, youll get slightly better temps with the Artic Silver but you only need that for overclocking and if youre overclocking you really need an aftermarket cooler.

If youre looking to get the price down with next to no compromise i would get this as your harddrive - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185&cm_re=samsung_f3-_-22-152-185-_-Product

I do have to question your need for a x6 core, you do realise it will give you absolutely nothing for game performance right? its great for Photoshop, 3D ray tracing or video conversion, but useless for gaming. It will be several years before a 6 core is needed for games as most games on PC are console ports and just need 3 cores( as its usually 360 ports the pc gets )

Overheal

ill hold off on silver for now then.

the hdd only does sata @ 3gbps. a big feature of the board is its ability to do sata 6gbps

toms hardware does a good breakdown of the processor:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-ii-x6-thuban-core-scaling,2652.html

you're right in saying currently games wont take much advantage of more than 2-3 cores but the same story was true when i bought my laptop: "nobody makes dual core games waa waa" lo and behold 18 months into my lappy valve's source engine gets multicore rendering and multicore support hits the games industry like a fat kid at a buffet. Also considering Tri-cores already hover around $100 It's hard not to justify just going ahead and slapping another $100 into it. Not that you couldnt be totally right and i should just ride out a lighter processor for a while.

On a side note the wattage of the x6 is fairly impressionable. as for photoshop i do it once in a moon: I have a tablet i make **** for deviantart with.

lmimmfn

Overheal wrote: »

ill hold off on silver for now then.

the hdd only does sata @ 3gbps. a big feature of the board is its ability to do sata 6gbps

toms hardware does a good breakdown of the processor:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-ii-x6-thuban-core-scaling,2652.html

you're right in saying currently games wont take much advantage of more than 2-3 cores but the same story was true when i bought my laptop: "nobody makes dual core games waa waa" lo and behold 18 months into my lappy valve's source engine gets multicore rendering and multicore support hits the games industry like a fat kid at a buffet. Also considering Tri-cores already hover around $100 It's hard not to justify just going ahead and slapping another $100 into it. Not that you couldnt be totally right and i should just ride out a lighter processor for a while.

On a side note the wattage of the x6 is fairly impressionable. as for photoshop i do it once in a moon: I have a tablet i make **** for deviantart with.

6gbps SATA doesnt provide much with the current harddrives tbh. Seagates 6Gb Sata drive loses out performance wise to the WD RE4( which are nearly impossible to get ), but generally its only the same performance as the fastest 3Gb drives and remember 3Gigabit SATA does 375Mbyte/sec so it still has plenty of room for non SSD drives( and therefore gains very little with 6Gbps drives ).

As for the x6 core, well if it was me i would just get a x4 core that is a better overclocker. Ive read all the reviews and the x6 AMD generally loses out to the intel x4, but i know you want to go AMD, just saying if you can get an AMD x4 cheaper then go for it. I guarantee you it wont be the same situation as with your laptop. Quad cores are the sweet spot for PC gaming due to the consoles, its not going to change until the next round of consoles probably due in 2012, but even at that i doubt more than a quad is needed.

I generally have a top end PC gaming rig and upgrade it every 2 years, currently i have 0 plans to get a x6 core for gaming. I also dont even think i will replace this i7 next may when i would normally upgrade on my 2 year cycle. PC's have become so powerful since i7 and the latest AMD's that there is absolutely 0 need to upgrade them for gaming.

100% honesty, i play at 1680x1050 and on absolute maximum i get an average of 80frames per second. GTA IV and Supreme Commander are the most cpu intensive games out there and i never drop below 60FPS, with those i could crank up the resolution to 1920x1080 and not suffer anything in frame rates because theyre just cpu intensive.

Even Metro2033 which is a hog runs great for me, but i have an 8800GT to drive my 3rd screen but it also does physx so it improves Metro2033 performance in that respect.

I run Crysis at about 50Frames a second maxed out with 2xAA

Just making a point, if you can get a x4 core cheaper go for that, save your money and upgrade in 2 years rather than going for something which isint being made full use of now and will probably be obsolete in 2 years time anyway.

Ill end my rant

Overheal

I understand you but if i am going quad I feel like I'd want something worth it, like oh, a phenom II x4 black which is only $20 cheaper than the x6 in my cart.

While mulling this thread over newegg emailed me the weekend deals and one of them saved me another $40 on the case and mobo as a package deal \o/

swapped the DVD drive as it went off sale, stuck in more ASUS components, wireless N, this is what we have - the actual total after promo codes is $985.71 and $915.71 after rebates:



Im likin it. Im likin it a lot.


edit: swapped 2x4ggb ram with 4x2gb: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231323

cherryghost

you've gone for 8gb ram huzzah! tbh i've never seen my pc go about 4.1gb and i had a LOT of stuff opened, including a game :pac:

Overheal

YEah I would just get 4x1gb but they're all ddr2. is there a big difference in performance though

Overheal

ram same as quad-channel ram i linked to a minute ago but apparently cheapr o_O Newegg you sheister

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231274

so getting x2 probably

cherryghost

yeah theres sweet feck all difference between ddr2 and 3, just lower voltages. sure 2x2gb ddr3 would be fine, and you can easily upgrade later if you wanted

Overheal

Thats good to know ill go downgrade that option

Overheal

$829.71

Unless I'm missing something, I think I like it. the 2x2gb is no cheapr or more expensive than 4gb quad channel ddr2 so feck it.

PogMoThoin

All looks good.
Not sure where You're buying, but You'd pickup a 2TB Samsung f3 sata for little more money than what You're paying there, I got one for €104 in Germany a few weeks ago. Here it is on Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152202&Tpk=samsung%20f3%202tb

VenomIreland

Wait a sec, NewEgg ship to Ireland now?

PogMoThoin

VenomIreland wrote: »

Wait a sec, NewEgg ship to Ireland now?

No, nor will they take an Irish credit card and deliver to someone living over there. Overheal lives in the States, can You not tell by the accent

VenomIreland

PogMoThoin wrote: »

No, nor will they take an Irish credit card and deliver to someone living over there. Overheal lives in the States

Ah.

cherryghost

PogMoThoin wrote: »

No, nor will they take an Irish credit card and deliver to someone living over there. Overheal lives in the States, can You not tell by the accent

Yeah, heard its quite sexy.

OT, that's a great build for such a price. What's the story with the monitor? What resolution is it and such

Overheal

oh i havent even gotten to the monitor yet. for the burn-ins and all that i will likely just hook it into the TV in the loft

But I did just go ahead and place the order on that so I should be seeing it roll into my workplace on the 19th.

I will probably try and source the monitor elsewhere as I think newegg's pixel policy is >8 ? no thank you! Might even go check out a couple pawn shops in the area for that sort of thing.

Overheal

Now I know an ATI GPU will synergize with the ATI IGP and do some interesting **** - or something like that. So it helps that I wasnt going to buy nvidia anyway.

but whatya think about this card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102858&cm_re=HD_5770-_-14-102-858-_-Product

keep in mind ive been gaming on a Laptop for 3 years: do I need to spend this kind of money? Am I going to regret it, or want to upgrade in a year? Am I better off getting an older 4000-series card? What would be a better card for me, if not this.

cherryghost

As my mother used to say, an ATI 4870/5770 or higher, or a GTX260/9800gx2 or higher will play 99% of modern games on max settings at a high resolution at a more than acceptable framerate

Well... she didn't say that, but it's the truth dawg. These cards will give you satisfaction for games at a 1080p resolution. Anything higher is just bragging rights :P I dont see the need for better cards any time soon, as the graphics card is stagnating due to the developers concentrating on current gen console graphics, rather than next gen's eyecandy

Overheal

dawg... lol

Im american that doesnt mean im from the ghet-toe

VenomIreland

Overheal wrote: »

dawg... lol

Im american that doesnt mean im from the ghet-toe

A little off-topic, but if you don't mind me asking, if you're American, what are you doing on Boards.ie?

Overheal

long story

VenomIreland

Overheal wrote: »

long story

Aww

Overheal

Im a happy camper. Even without a Video card it defaults Portal to Max Settings, 4xMSAA, 8x AF, and runs at a none-too-shabby 30fps. Obviously I could turn that filtering off and have the frames shoot through the ceiling but what fun is that? It also happens to be cruising at 30C.

Lu Tze

Overheal wrote: »

long story

VenomIreland wrote: »

Aww

You should set up a page on the biki if thats possible, i presumed you were american as well, but vaguely remember you referring to irish things (eircom i believe, or at least i think i did), and i have been lurking on here a long time before joining.

Well wear by the way!