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Looking to upgrade need a little input...

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Well I have a friend that really got into PC gaming recently and after buying all these games and a headset his MB/CPU died on him. I told him I was sort of looking into upgrading my system and I would give him my MB, CPU, and RAM for a good starting point for him. He's not looking into spending a lot and already has a GPU and PSU ready, so the transition would be easy.

Currently I have the following....

AMD 64 X2 5600+ (Windsor) 2.8ghz w/ Zalman 9700
ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe
Corsair 4GB 800Mhz (4 1GB)
2x ASUS 8800GTX in SLi both with Zalman VF1000
3 SATA HD's (One of which is a Raptor 10k)
Thermaltake 850w PSU
Creative SB XtremeGamer Fatility Pro Edition (PCI interface)

I really don't want to replace the 8800GTX's, as I think their still decent cards to run with. What do you guys think? I was planning on replacing only the MB, CPU and RAM since my friend will be getting those components from my current rig. Possibly looking into water cooling, but I'm unsure at the moment. I was looking at the Zalman 9900 for the CPU. This is what I'm looking at for those few components....

AMD Phenom II x4 965 125w version (I want the 3 stepping)
ASUS Crosshair III
G.Skill 4GB 1600Mhz (2 2GB)
Zalman 9900 for the CPU.

Any ideas? any suggestions? I think $500 is a good round number for me to spend to upgrade these components. I do have some extra to get a water cooling system if need be, but my case is already setup for air cooling and quite decent I might add. I would like to get an intel system, but the price on the i7's is outrageous.

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Homebuilt system Authority

You might be able to save a bit with the 125w 955 BE.

Zalmans older coolers have been surpassed by new core contact tower coolers. Something like the Coolermaster Hyper 212 plus will outperform it for $30. Zalmans new CPNS10X is a good core contact tower, but its a bit expensive.

If gaming is your main concern, the i5 750 is as good of a CPU as the i7s and doesnt cost much more than the 965.

I thought about the 955, but the savings was so minimal I figured what the hell.... (like $20)

That is good to know about the coolers. What about the Corsair Hyrdo Series H50 cooler?

I was looking at some other MB's, but the Crosshair III seems to be of the few that has true dual x16 at the PCI-E.

Well the ASUS Crosshair III board you mentioned is Crossfire only, not SLI.....

Personally I favor the AMD chipsets, but to support SLI afaik you'll have to go with an nForce based board. 8800 Series cards are still quite usable though, so it may be worth it, alternatively you could sell them and look into either an ATI or single slot nVidia soloution.
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kiren said:
Well the ASUS Crosshair III board you mentioned is Crossfire only, not SLI.....

Personally I favor the AMD chipsets, but to support SLI afaik you'll have to go with an nForce based board. 8800 Series cards are still quite usable though, so it may be worth it, alternatively you could sell them and look into either an ATI or single slot nVidia soloution.


I'm glad you mentioned that because I didn't realize it was Crossfire only. :cry:  I guess I'll start looking for a different board then.

I would like to get a different GPU, but it just isn't going to happen at this time, plus I spent a lot of cash for these two cards.

What is the latest nforce chipset?

kiren said:
And yes, you're right about the x16, iirc the 790FX is the only AMD chipset to support two 'true' x16 slots.

nVidia side the 980a chipset boards like this one from msi support x16+x16: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...



That's a nice board. Only problem I see is I wouldn't be able to use the PCI Creative SB card I currently have as the 8800GTXs would cover both PCI slots. This isn't a huge issue, but I'd have to look into a PCI-E sound card or use the onboard which I have found isn't the best in most cases.

I found the ASUS M4N82 Deluxe, but it can't do anything above 1200mhz on the RAM side.

nforce chipsets seem to be going away....

it seems that way, AMD side anyway. I haven't used any of the most recent nVidia chipsets, but I'm using an AMD790 board and I have to say, onboard audio has come a long way since my previous boards, so I'd give it a chance before ordering a PCI-E one.

Anyone with experience doing this or should I just look at a 980a board? I really like the Crosshair board and what it has to offer, but would it be any advantage over the MSI board mentioned above?

For my sake I really would like to stick with an AMD system. Just personal preference. I have other intel systems in my life and for my personal build I'd like to stick with the AMD. Not a fan boy or anything, just the way I want to go. I will keep them in mind though.

Thought I'd update everyone to what I decided... I stuck with the AMD 965 125w, crosshair iii and changed out my original G.Skill ram for the G.Skill ripjaws with cas 7. Even though I only have timings set to 8-8-8-24 @1600mhz. AMD doesn't support cas 7 yet, but I hope for a bios update that supports it. I ended up getting the Megahalem cooler with x2 120mm Scythe slipstream fans (110cfm). May upgrade these to the Scythe Kaze, but was unsure if they would fit. This cooler keeps the quad core super cool. It is massively huge and barely cleared one of my side fans in my Sunbeam Transformer case.

With my x2 8800GTXs I was able to use the latest Sli Hack (4.2) and was able to easily get sli enabled on this 790fx chipset using Windows 7 x64. Seriously, I ran the install file, rebooted and sli was enabled and working. EASY!

It has been working great thus far. Nvidia could use some work on their latest drivers (195.xx) though. They have made the hack very user friendly now. One install file and one uninstall file. Run it, reboot, enable and enjoy :) 
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