Please check out my new system before I buy

Hey guys,

I was hoping you could review my system I am wanting to purchase and see if there are any parts that are not worth buying or any upgraded items I could replace for the same amount or less. This is only my second system I have built and am not up to date on all the new stuff as much as I should be. I will be running this system on a 22inch LG Widescreen Monitor.

1. AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor Model HDZ955FBGIBOX - Retail

2. ASUS M4A79T Deluxe AM3 DDR3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

Link to combo - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.212581


3. XFX HD-489A-ZDDC Radeon HD 4890 XXX Edition 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

Link to video card - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150368


4. Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM

Link to HD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136218


5. SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache IDE 22X DVD±R DVD Burner - OEM

Link to DVD burner - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827151175

I already have a Storm Sniper Gaming Case from Cooler Master (link - http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Sh [...] u=9330621)

and a PC Power and Cooling 750 watt power supply.

I am looking at a total of about $634.96 for these items. If you have any advise or opinions on anything, ecspecially the video card, please let me know your thoughts and anything better I can purchase. My budget is about $700. I am looking at playing Crysis, Far Cry 2, Modern Warfare 2 when it comes out, and Age of Conan/ Aion/ WoW.

Thanks guys,

Dedine

You should know that the HD 4890 is a real hot head that is gonna be noisy too boot, like most top of the line GPUs. A HD4870 is in the same league of preformance, but wont be as hot or noisy as the HD4890.

A different hard disk drive will not increase your gaming preformance by any bit.

The GPU tends to be most loud in any gaming system, so i wouldnt mind spending abit extra money for a more silent gpu.

Which video card would you suggest?

+1 for the WD Black 640GB...

And as for the Graphics card, check out these...all of these cards, come with third party CPU Coolers, hence they would be cooler than the stock versions...

ASUS EAH4890/HTDI/1GD5 Radeon HD 4890 1GB
Customize cooler with Super ML Cap for up to 300% OC margin
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814121308

SAPPHIRE Toxic 100269TXSR Radeon HD 4890 1GB
Vapor-X Cooling, 960MHz OC Toxic Edition
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102840

SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100269VXLE Radeon HD 4890 1GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102848

But if your 22" is a 1680X1050 resolution, then even the 4870 would be a good option...

Also is that Asus motherboard a little overkill? I read at benchmark reviews its one of the top of the line MB's, but do I need to get that pricey of a MB?

^ The 4890s are about 10-15% faster than the 4870s...
So for a monitor resolution of 1920X1080 resolution, the 4890s are best suited as the 4870s might perform slow with AA/ AF turned high...

The resolution does matter here because if you have a lower resolution monitor and say 2 high power cards like the HD 4890s, then it would be wasting the graphics power of the card...
Say for simple understanding, you have a huge capacity water-tank and it has a very small outlet...So the amount of liquid you get out is only the quantity that the outlet can give...So even though you have a huge tank, still you get only low quantity...
So here the tank is the graphics card and the outlet is your monitor's resolution...
So the graphics card's power is put to good use only if have a good resolution monitors...

And as for your question whether if you run dual cards, it would double your frame-rates, I highly doubt that...
You would only notice about MAX 40% increase in the frame-rates(maybe lower on games, that don't fully utilize the dual card configurations)...

How much does the 8x/8x slots decrease performance compared to the asus board with 16x/16x slots?

@shubham1401, true the GTX 275s are very good alternative, but going with ATI cards make more sense as it would make a complete dragon plaform, and would also allow for xfire when required...