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Advice needed on gaming build

Last response: in Systems
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Dear forum members,

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BUDGET: 1000 euro's for the tower

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: 1-2 months, time is not an issue. I'm a careful buyer.

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming!, general usage (office, web, multitasking, nothing special like rendering).

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: Everything outside the tower, software (OS) and DVD drive.

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: Any Dutch.

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Holland.

PARTS PREFERENCES: None.

OVERCLOCKING: Maybe. SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe down the road.

MONITOR RESOLUTION: Have to buy new screen.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: Only the tower, no screen, looks aren't important. Quality is very important.

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Here's what I've come up with.

CASE: HAF 922 (80,-)
PSU: Either Seasonic X-750 (150,-) or Corsair TX-750 (115,-) or Antec TP-750 (103,-)
RAM: Corsair Dominator CMP4GX3M2A1600C9 (125,-)
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 500 GB (45,-)
GPU: Either HD5850 DIRECTCU (300,-) or HD5870 Vapor-X (380,-)

And now here's where the troubles are:

MOBO + CPU

1156: Either Asus P7P55D Pro (145,-) or MSI P55-GD65 (120,-) with either i5 750 (190,-) or i7 860 (240,-)

AM3: Asus M4A89GTD PRO (115,- w/o USB3 or +20,- w/ USB3) with Phenom 955 (150,-)


Any input is welcome.

Thanks in advance!
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The ideal mobo for Intel would be P7P55D-E Pro, not sure how much more it is.

i5 750 over the 860 pretty much everytime.

Whether you go i5 750 or go AMD is up to you and dependant on what fits in budget. The i5 750 is better but then it and the mobo costs more, if the price difference means getting a lesser graphics card in order to get the Intel chip then it may be worth going AMD.

Are you able to get G Skill RAM? They tend to be cheaper than Corsair. The G SKill Ripjaw CL7 should be a similar price but better latency

P7P55D-E Pro is almost 200,-

G.Skill RAM isn't widely available in my country so I can't get those. Especially the low CL ones are very high priced IF they are available...

In europe the only good deals are mushkins and corsairs. The corsairs are very good by the way they are just conservativly clocked. I went with the mushkins due to the low profile though.

First of all, the 750 is a better gaming cpu than the 955. Plus, it overclocks like a dream.
Secondly, you can also overclock the 5850 to bring it's performance to near 5870 levels. The 5850 is the current performance/price champion in the upper-end card segment. Overclocking will increase it's value even more.
An OCd 750+5850 combo will serve you well atleast for the next couple of years. No doubt going the AM3 way will make you eligible for a future processor upgrade, but as of now, it's performance is lesser than 750.

you won't go wrong with either really.

There just is no right answer to that question really.

5870 will be better in gaming and the i5 may improve some loading times and other applications.

If you want FPS than go 5870.

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The question is, will the i5 vs. 955 be worth it with either the 5850 or the 5870. It's a hard question imo.


So here I'm assuming that you can afford the 5870 either way.
Then between the CPUs, its 750. Holds it's own against the more expensive i7s plus trumps the 955 in almost all the benchmarks.

Doing some quick googling, I see people that have gotten the C3 stepping 955 to 4+ GHz.

(all first page of google results for "x4 955 overclock c3")

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=629...
http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id-11067-view-Phenom-II-...
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/pii_...

And since we all know that overclocking is highly dependent on the actual physical chip you get, not just the model, is there actually any point to saying "oh well chip X overclocks better than chip Y all the time"?

And...seeing as how the OP is saying that he'll "maybe" overclock, I don't think overclockability is going to be a huge factor in the purchase.

If the price difference doesn't allow you to buy a better graphics card, then it's up to personal preference.

I'd say it's not worth the cost difference, but other people may feel differently. Either chip will be good for your purposes though.
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