Is this a good gaming system?

[happymatei]

ok, i am pissed as hell cause i wrote everything earlier and the No sub-category message owned my ass

now i am reducing the message due to stress

my goal: i wanna play crysis on 1024*768 with all details maxed out except AA
i am outdated cause last time i checked about the nvidia/ati and intel/amd battles was in 2005

my choices:

http://www.pcgarage.ro/placi-de-baza/gigabyte/ga-ma785gt-ud3h/

due to AM3 socket, large quantity of memory and affordable price

http://www.pcgarage.ro/procesoare/amd/phenom-ii-x2-550-black-edition-310-ghz-skt-am3-box/

i've read the CPU guide in the CPU section and said that this is a very good gaming cpu + i've read that this is the fastest dual core in his price section

http://www.pcgarage.ro/hard-disk-uri/samsung/1-tb-sata-ii-7200rpm-32mb-pmr-spinpoint-f3/

i need more space and i've read that this hdd is very fast

http://www.pcgarage.ro/placi-video/palit/geforce-gts-250-e-green-1gb-ddr3-256-bit/

i saw some reviews and vs's between 4850 and 250gts and the last one had slightly more fps

http://www.pcgarage.ro/memorii/teamgroup/elite-ram-4gb-ddr3-1333mhz-cl9-dual-channel-kit/

due to the AM3 motherboard i must choose dd3
it is the cheapest there, also the latency is not extraordinary but the fsb and quantity would luckily make up for that

also if this can play games from 2010-2011 with mid to high settings then it is a bonus

 

[happymatei]

so i have found a hdd with more buffer
http://www.pcgarage.ro/hard-disk-uri/western-digital/1tb-sata-ii-7200-rpm-64mb-caviar-green/

since it will be mainly for games, should i choose this one over the first one?

 

[happymatei]

also for the same amount of money i pay for the gts 250 i can get a 5670
is this a better choice? ( considering it will let me play on dx 11 in the future )

http://www.pcgarage.ro/placi-video/sapphire/radeon-hd5670-1gb-ddr5-128-bit/

 

[MadAdmiral]

Ok, I can't read any of the text, but some comments.

First, stay away from nVidia right now. It's not a good investment. I'd highly recommend going with an HD 5770. That's about as low as you should go in any "decent" gaming computer right now. Absolutely DO NOT get the 5670. It's a great home theatre GPU, but horrible at gaming.

Second, that RAM isn't that great. Try to find some with CAS Latency 7.

Third, the Caviar Green is a horrible choice as a main HDD. Stick with the Spinpoint F3.

Fourth, if you ever want to Crossfire (and you should want to keep your options open), that board isn't going to be good at it. Is the Asus M4A79XTD EVO available there? That's a good board, and shouldn't be a whole lot more expensive.

The CPU you choose is good, but you might want to look into a triple core (X3 425 Rana comes to mind). Testing shows that increasing from 2 to 3 cores has a large benefit in gaming, while going from 3 to 4 provides very little.

 

[happymatei]

i don't want to be a wise guy, i just want to understand so don't get me wrong

why choose x3? it has 2.6 ghz
i've read that the cache lvl and the 3.1 ghz of the x2 550 BE are things that matter more in a gaming process

also why isn't that board good for crossfire? besides that, is there anything wrong with it? cause i am not that sure i will crossfire ( not sure! )

 

[MadAdmiral]

The X3 is a triple core. As you increase the number of cores, the speed will go down. However, that hit to the speed of an individual core is made up by the additional core. Remember, speed isn't everything. The best gaming CPU is the i5-750, and it's clock speed is only 2.66 GHz.

As far as what matters most in gaming, it's actually the video card more than the CPU. There isn't a GPU that's out yet that has made the CPU the system's bottleneck.

The board you used has the second PCIe slot running at only 4x. That severely handicaps the usefulness of the second card. The slots are set to operate at a maximum of 16x, but most boards will only allow 8x/8x speeds in Crossfire. Reviews have shown that this is only a 4% performance decrease from 16x/16x. However, when you drop it to 4x/4x (the cards will only operate as fast as the slowest one), that hit to performance is much higher.

 

[happymatei]

is a 4850 a better option then 5750? i can't decide and they have the same price
lean towards 5750 cause it is newer and has dx 11 promised

 

[happymatei]

The X3 is a triple core. As you increase the number of cores, the speed will go down. However, that hit to the speed of an individual core is made up by the additional core. Remember, speed isn't everything. The best gaming CPU is the i5-750, and it's clock speed is only 2.66 GHz.

As far as what matters most in gaming, it's actually the video card more than the CPU. There isn't a GPU that's out yet that has made the CPU the system's bottleneck.

The board you used has the second PCIe slot running at only 4x. That severely handicaps the usefulness of the second card. The slots are set to operate at a maximum of 16x, but most boards will only allow 8x/8x speeds in Crossfire. Reviews have shown that this is only a 4% performance decrease from 16x/16x. However, when you drop it to 4x/4x (the cards will only operate as fast as the slowest one), that hit to performance is much higher.

thanks, it was a good read, learned something new

 

[happymatei]

is a 4850 a better option then 5750? i can't decide and they have the same price
lean towards 5750 cause it is newer and has dx 11 promised

also why is x3 a cheaper then x2 if it is that good?

 

[MadAdmiral]

You really shouldn't get the 5750. The 5770 shouldn't be much more expensive, and you get a lot more performance from it. Either way, I would go with the 57xx card. Both of them are more powerful as a single card, and a lot better in Crossfire.

There are several different X3s. The one I mentioned is the low end, and one I knew would be in the budget. There are many reasons it may be cheaper. You could be looking at the Black Edition of a CPU, which offers easy overclocking for a higher price. You might want to refer to this chart. It groups CPUs by overall gaming performance. If it's in the same level, it should perform about the same. I would look for ones that have similar gaming performance first, and then look at the CPUs that are about the same price.

 

[lothdk]

is a 4850 a better option then 5750? i can't decide and they have the same price
lean towards 5750 cause it is newer and has dx 11 promised

also why is x3 a cheaper then x2 if it is that good?

For the same price I would choose the 5750, they are about equal in gaming performance.

The reason why the X3 that MadAdmiral mentioned is cheaper than the X2 you chose, is that the X3 is of a different architecture, to compare to an X3 of the same type

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...er=BESTMATCH&Description=phenom+ii+x3&x=0&y=0

To compare them take a look at this

Phenom II X2 550 vs Athlon II X3 435
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=97&p2=112

Phenom II X2 550 vs Phenom II X3 720
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=97&p2=83

Athlon II X3 435 vs Phenom II X3 720
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=112&p2=83


- edit - gah I'm too slow at this

 

[happymatei]

so i am back

i have the budget already and i started looking for pieces

Processor AMD Athlon II X2 250 3.00 GHz skt AM3 box
Kingston ValueRAM 4GB DDR3 1333MHz CL9 Dual Channel Kit
Sirtec HPC-400-H12S 400 watts
Hard disk Samsung 500GB SATA-II 7200 rpm 16MB SpinPoint F3
Asus M4A78LT-M LE motherboard

but i can't figure out the gaming card:
either get Leadtek WinFast GTS 250 512MB DDR3 256-bit v2
or
Sapphire Radeon HD5770 1GB DDR5 128-bit

nvidia has a lower price, physcx, proven to be good
5770 is more expensive, i heard it is hotter, consumes less, dx 11 is not popular

considering i am in a tight budget and i only play games WITH 1280*1024 RESOLUTION, i think i won't see any difference between them ( with all effects activated )

what do u think?

 

[happymatei]

if i get the 250gts i can get 4gb ddr3 1333 latency 9
if i get 5770 i will have to get the 4gb ddr2 800 mhz latency 5

 

[lothdk]

The two cards trades wins in benchmarks, so I guess it comes down to if you want physx or dx11.
If you have no intention of changing your monitor anytime soon, you could even go with a less powerful card.

The motherboard you have chosen takes DDR3 memory, so do not get that DDR2 kit, as it will not work.

And please, list some of the choices you have for PSUs. I do understand that you are on a budget, and though you can do worse than that sirtec, you can just as easily do a whole lot better.

 

[happymatei]

http://www.pcgarage.ro/surse/
i already have a 550 w, but it is a no name and is old so i won't trust it

what do u think? physx or dx11?

here is my system atm: http://www.pcgarage.ro/vizualizare-wishlist/208116/

 

[happymatei]

ok so after reading some threads on the forum, i've decided to go with ati
is the http://www.pcgarage.ro/vizualizare-wishlist/208116/ good?
also will those + a 120 gb HDD, run without problems on a 400 w PSU?