Building an affordable system around AMD's Phenom X4 940 BE

[THEW33]

Hi there,

I am planning on building a new system because i'm currently working on a two year old IBM Lenovo Thinkpad T60 and am in need of some serious upgrade. I do not have any experience in building my own pc so if you guys could help me out it would be great!

My budget is not that big; say €850,- max = $1000,-. One advantage is that I already own a 24inch LCD monitor, keyboard and mouse.

I will be using the system mainly for graphics design and some 3d rendering (Photoshop CS4, Illustrator CS4, Maxon Cinema4D and 3Ds Max) and now and then for some games like Halflife2, Unreal Tournament 3 and TDU.

The build I currently have in mind is as follows:

AMD
Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H AMD 790GX
AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE
OCZ Platinum Dual Channel OCZ2P10664GK
Sapphire Radeon HD4850 512MB DDR3 2xDVI/HDCP
Antec Powersupply TruePower Trio 650W
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB
Samsung DVD-/+/RAM SH-S223Q 22x/22x/12x Retail
Scythe Processor Koeler Mugen 2
Antec Midi Tower Three Hundred No PSU

INTEL

Asus P5Q3 iP45, SATA2 RAID, GLAN, 8CH
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.50GHz FSB1333
Corsair 2x2GB DDR3 SDRAM PC10666 CL9.0 XMS3
Sapphire Radeon HD4850 512MB DDR3 2xDVI/HDCP
Antec Powersupply TruePower Trio 650W
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB
Samsung DVD-/+/RAM SH-S223Q 22x/22x/12x Retail
Scythe Processor Koeler Mugen 2
Antec Midi Tower Three Hundred No PSU


Here in the Netherlands this set up would cost around €800,- roughly $1000,-

So what do you think?
Should I go for a AMD or INTEL set up?

 

[aevm]

The Phenom II 940 is faster than the Q8300 at 3D rendering, according to this:
http://www.behardware.com/articles/746-5/amd-phenom-ii-x4-the-return.html

Mind you, it's a small difference (the Phenom takes 255 in a test and 276 seconds in the second test, and the Q8300 takes 298 seconds in each test). That's 17% difference at most. In real life the difference will be smaller because the hard drive will often act as a bottleneck.

Try to upgrade to HD 4870 1GB and to Corsair 750W (or PC Power & Cooling 750W). That way you'll get much better performance in games at 1920x1200 and you'll be able to add a second card too if needed.

 

[THEW33]

Thanks for the advice, I will look into the HD 4870 1GB card and the PSU although I think it will not be good for the budget I'm on.
What do you think of the rest of the system set-up? I thought that maybe for future upgrades the Intel choise would be a wiser one but do not know if that's true....

And in general is it a good deal for €800,-? Or should I go with some other parts?

 

[aevm]

Yeah, it's a good deal. All those parts are reliable and very popular (at least if you count the Newegg reviews and their average ratings).

The Intel build is nice too. In fact, it could become faster than the other one if it's overclocked as far as it goes. However, I wouldn't advise that for a machine used for work.

Future upgrades: actually, you don't really have an upgrade path with that P5Q3 LGA775 motherboard. Maybe to replace the Q8300 with a Q9650 later, but it's not worth it IMO.

Intel has moved on to i7 CPUs (LGA1366), which won't work on LGA775 boards. If you want an upgrade path with Intel you need an X58 board and an i7 920 and some LGA1366-compatible cooler. I suspect that would blow your budget though

 

[xthekidx]

I would advise you to avoid those seagates. Here is a review of them that doesn't looks so hot:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/16472

Better to go with a WD6401AALS 640GB Caviar Black.

If you can, go with a larger case. The CoolerMaster RC-690 is my suggestion. The Antec 300 is nice but gets cramped with those larger GPUs.

 

[THEW33]

Ok thanks for the heads up!
After the advice from aevm to upgrade my graphicscard I made a slide change in my configuration. Due to the higher costs of the HD 4870 I think i will go for another motherboard namely the Foxconn A7DA-S, spares me another €50,- or isn't this worth it?
My configuration now looks like this:

Foxconn A7DA-S
AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE
OCZ Platinum Dual Channel 2x2GB DDR2
Sapphire Radeon HD4870 1GB DDR5
Corsair TX750W
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS, 640GB
Samsung DVD-/+/RAM SH-S223Q 22x/22x/12x Retail
Scythe Processor Mugen 2
Cooler Master CM 690

The build above would cost me 837.8 Euros = 1060.49 US Dollars
Fair deal or not?

 

[xthekidx]

Looks pretty good to me.

 

[aevm]

Not bad at all.

 

[THEW33]

Yeah, it's a good deal. All those parts are reliable and very popular (at least if you count the Newegg reviews and their average ratings).

The Intel build is nice too. In fact, it could become faster than the other one if it's overclocked as far as it goes. However, I wouldn't advise that for a machine used for work.

Future upgrades: actually, you don't really have an upgrade path with that P5Q3 LGA775 motherboard. Maybe to replace the Q8300 with a Q9650 later, but it's not worth it IMO.

Intel has moved on to i7 CPUs (LGA1366), which won't work on LGA775 boards. If you want an upgrade path with Intel you need an X58 board and an i7 920 and some LGA1366-compatible cooler. I suspect that would blow your budget though

What if I would go with an i7 and just stay with a cheaper Graphics card which I then later can upgrade? Could I buy a good i7 MOBO, memory HD and PSU for $1100?

Because playing games is not my priority, that is 3d rendering and Photo editting and multitasking. So I thought the graphicscard is less important then or am i mistaken?

 

[xthekidx]

It depends on how cheap you can go on the GPU, but yes it can definitely be done.

CPU and Ram: i7 920 & OCZ Platinum 6gb 1600mhz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.173727

Mobo: P6T
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131359

DVD: SATA LG Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136152

HDD: WD6401AALS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319

Case: Antec 300
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042

Vista: Home Premium 64 bit
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116488

PSU: Corsair TX650
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005&Tpk=650tx

Leaves you about $100 for the GPU.

 

[aevm]

Yeah, that's a better build if you're not into gaming. Add a $60 HD 4670 and you're all set.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102820

Edit: or a HD 4830 for $85. Twice the stream processors and only $15 more, so I guess it's a better deal.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102822

 

[THEW33]

I now have a build with the intel i7:

Asus P6T
Intel Core i7 920
OCZ Platinum XTC 2x3GB PC12800
Sapphire HD 4830 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E
Corsair TX750W (costs only €2 more than the 650)
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS, 640GB
Samsung SH-S223F
Antec Three Hundred black

Here in Holland I will have to pay 950.7 Euros = 1203.4 US Dollars for it at minimum.
So it's a little over my budget, but would it be worth spending the extra money?
Offcourse that's up to me, but do you guys think the i7 is a big improvement in comparison with the AMD Phenom and worth the extra money?
And would I still be able to do some 'casual' gaming (UT3 & TDU)?

 

[xthekidx]

With a 24" monitor...the 4830 might not give you the kind of gaming experience you want, unless you set the graphics at medium quality for now then upgrade the GPU later. But for the other uses you stated, the i7 will give you much better results, so it depends an where you want to put the money I guess. Gaming wise, you won't really see any improvement going with the i7 vs. PII, but in your other uses you definitely will.

 

[aevm]

So, should he get back to the PII build, but with a higher-end gaming card?