$2000 AMD Build - What are your thoughts

F-22Giu · Sep 11, 2010

Hello all,

Well I have been looking at parts and doing some research and would like to build an AMD machine. I'll admit right now I'm an AMD fan boy and have already decided not to go with Intel. That out of the way here is my parts list so far and a few specific questions about some of them, though any suggestions about any of the parts are more than welcome. Also keep in mind I would like to overclock my CPU to 4.0 Ghz if possible and also overclock my RAM, if thats a good idea and/or feasible.

Parts I don't need are: keyboard, mouse, speakers, or monitor I have all of those.

1. Processor: AMD Phenom II x6 1090T Black Edition - $295.99 Newegg

2. Motherboard: MSI 890FXA-GD70 Motherboard - $189.99 Tigerdirect
I chose this motherboard because it had alot of good reviews (it looked cool) and does what I'm looking at doing. Is This a good manufacturer? Also is this a good board or is there one better I might consider?

3. 16Gb RAM: Corsair CMX8GX3M2A1333C9 XMS 8GB DDR3 RAM - PC10666 - $179.99 x2 = $359.98 Tigerdirect
I found this RAM at a great price, but not sure if this will be good enough for overclocking.

4. RAM Cooler: XIGMATEK cuirassier-n002 - $19.99 Newegg
This looked like it might do the job of keeping the RAM cool even while overclocking, although I have zero experience with overclocking so I'm not sure what the best route would be here.

5. Video Card: Sapphire ATI Radeon HD5850 Vapor-X 2 GB GDDR5 - $383.88 Amazon
I'm looking at maybe doing this in crossfire with the same card later on down the road. I like the fact that it has 2Gb on the card.

6. Sound Card: SB X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Edition - $149.99 Newegg

7. Hard Drive: Samsung 1Tb 7200 3gb/s - $69.99 Newegg

8. DVD R/W Drive: Sony Optiarc - $19.99 Newegg

9. Power Supply: Cooler Master RSA00-AMBAJ3-US Silent Pro M 1000W - $164.99 Tigerdirect

10. Case: Thermaltake Spedo VI90001W2Z Advanced Package - $169.99 Tigerdirect

11. 120mm Case Fan: Cooler Master R4-L2R-20AC-GP - $9.99 Tigerdirect

12. 140mm Case Fan: Cooler Master R4-L4S-10AB-GP - $11.99 Tigerdirect
I've been thinking about using this to replace the red 140 that comes with the case.

13. Fan Controller: NZXT SentryII - $27.99 Newegg
It looks really cool thats why I wanted to get it. But how effective are these things? And are they necessary? PS. If there is one that looks cooler let me know.

14. Hard Drive Cooler: Masscool KuFormula SHF1 - $24.99 Tigerdirect
Again an area I'm relatively inexperienced in, so is this necessary? One thing I liked if anything was the cool factor of this one.

15. CPU Cooler: Thermaltake CLP0554 SpinQ VT - $49.99 Tigerdirect
Would this be a good choice for the overclocking I want to do?

Total: $1,969.72

Overall I'm pretty excited about this build. It will be one killer machine when its done. Thanks in advance for any input.

Somebody_007 · Sep 11, 2010

everything is extremly overkill and unneccesary really.

My first question what is this build for?

then scrap the extra fans, fan controller, ram heatsinks, cpu cooler, crappy and overkill psu, ugly and overkill case, HDD cooler, sound card, and 5850 with to much ram.

Let me go over them one by one.

extra fans: unnecesary really, but for high overclocks understandable. However liquid cooling would do better.

fan controller: why? it's ugly and who really wants to control fans? If you have a delta ok but normal fans don't need to be controlled.

ram heatsinks: buying slow sticks and then attempting to OC them by replacing the heatsinks with expensive aftermarket ones is pretty stupid. Just buy fast sticks to begin with and OC those.

The cpu cooler: looks fancy and all but in practise it's far from as good as similarly priced competition.

HDD cooler: there is no point. It wastes space and you can't OC an hdd anyways so why keep it cooler than need be?

Psu: too big so ineffiecient for the most of the time. Also cooler master makes crappy Psu's.

Case: it's a decent performer but really it isn't worth the looks or the price.

sound card: IMO high end gaming sound cards are a waste of money. Gaming is much less important then music IMO. So I'd get a good music sound cards that's good in games like my asus xonar d2x instead of a bad bang for buck sound card that excels in games and is worse in music.

5850: 2gb of ram is epic overkill for a 5850.

A few questions before I post a full build

What is your audio setup?

What screen do you have?

Are you prepared to consider intel? Intel CPUs OC much higher and are better in games than the 6core AMDs. I don't think you'll hit 4ghz with a 1090t. While a 950 can go 4.2-4.3 easy. Also then you can go nvidia and nvidia really has the bang for buck edge in this price range. Exept for 5970s but, the only advantage a 5970 has over the faster, cheaper and more feature rich 470 sli is that you can add another. But that cpu will suffer then so IMO intel is the way to go ATM.

I assumed you'll game with this but what will you really use it for?

gordon_81 · Sep 12, 2010

i agree with somebody 007 cpu wise i would definitely go intel, what is the point of being a fan boy honestly its ridiculous, i just support the company that has the better performing cpus at the time, its all about getting the most out of your money, the best performance for your cash and right now for a $2000 budget i would definitely go with intel, right now you should only go for amd if you are on a budget build as then you can get the best bang for your buck..... 1 thing i disagree with somebody 007 is suggesting the gtx 470s IMO the gf100 cards are crap.... they run hot and are power hungry yes a gtx 470 outperforms the 5850 by a little but is it really worth it for all the extra heat and so on, the gtx 470 can go up to 97 degrees celsius while playing crysis, my friend has 1 and we cooked an egg on it ( yes!!! we COOKED an egg on IT!!!) i would stick with a 5850 or even go for a 5870 or somewhere on the lines of that

F-22Giu · Sep 12, 2010

Well I'm actually looking for something more along the lines that will do music, video editing 3D rendering, lots of production stuff.

Right now I have a 2.1 speaker set up, though down the road will probably upgrade to something more, maybe 5.1.

Right now the monitor I'm using is an old VGA 20" But that too I will upgrade later on, I have a 32" HDTV that needs to be repaired which I will do if its cheaper than buying a new monitor.

Thanks again for your input.

spentshells · Sep 12, 2010

F-22Giu :

hey you should really have someone here build you something hell 20 mins and I will do it myself

spentshells · Sep 12, 2010

Somebody_007 · Sep 12, 2010

people stop being paranoid about nvidia. They are hot yes. But they are made to handle the heat. And zhen you can get a 470 for the same or less than a 5850 it is a no-brainer. Currently with all the updated drivers 470 performs like a 5870. There is no doubt about it 470s destroy any competition in bang for buck. And when you start adding more cards you get even greater perfrmance compared to ati due to the amazing scaling.

I'd get the build mentioned by spentshells and change a few parts more suited for your OC oriented brain.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163165&cm_re=silverstone_ft02-_-11-163-165-_-Product

don't let the price scare you. This is the best performer on the market. It has amazing build qualityand like said it's the best performing cse on the market. Not only that it's also beautiful, mid-tower(full towers are just to big especially something like the haf which looks plasticy and huge and thus ugly). I don't ussually reccomend expensive cases but this one rocks.

cpu cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608018&Tpk=nh%20d14

more metal than the prolimatech and thus more capable of dissipating themassive heat an OC'd 950 produces. If you get the 3 very good fans like silverstone penetrators on that you'll get amazing performance.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835704001&cm_re=dominator_airflow-_-35-704-001-_-Product

for your ram OCs.

Also get maybe a more OC oriented mobo http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131666&cm_re=asus_rampage_iii-_-13-131-666-_-Product (also fits perfectly with ram and case)

And then lastly the gpu. As I said before ati is lagging behind at the moment. Only the 5970s are good atm but they are expensive and don't come close to the bang for buck of nvidia especially 460s.

If you want to OC the best option is this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131666&cm_re=asus_rampage_iii-_-13-131-666-_-Product

or if OCing your cpu: ram is more important the EE of this will give you better cpu/ram temps.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130568&cm_re=460_EE-_-14-130-568-_-Product

2 Of any of the above will give you the best bang for buck on the market.

Looks all expensive compared to the bang for buck of the above build. But apart from spending 500-700 on watercooling this is the closest you'll get to extreme OCs.

Also drop the SSD and extra HDD of the above build to allow all the additions.

gordon_81 · Sep 12, 2010

the gtx 470 is about $50 more than a 5850

gordon_81 · Sep 12, 2010

this website might help you choose http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/146?vs=100 as you can see the i7 950 slaughters the x6 1090T in basically everything

gordon_81 · Sep 12, 2010

i guess the gtx 470 isnt a bad choice if you are not going to overclock your gpu and if you have a decent enough psu, i just prefer the 5850 or 5870 as they have higher overclocking potential and so on

Somebody_007 · Sep 12, 2010

50USD more? You can get 470s for 270-280 on newegg.

And yeah 470s don't hace a good OC potential. But 460 hawks can OC past 5850s and 5870s. If you want OC potential 460s are the way to go.

sp12 · Sep 12, 2010

IMO get a 1055t and a decent aftermarket cooler. Overclock the NB-CPU and it starts walking all over the i7s in gaming.

Somebody_007 · Sep 12, 2010

sp12 :

Nothing Amd can build can beat an i7 in gaming absolutley nothing. Overclocking just plays into intel's hands because they overclock WAYY better than AMDs.

sp12 · Sep 12, 2010

I believe you're wrong. AMD CPUs are bottlenecked in games by the legacy CPU-NB link.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3877/asrock-890fx-deluxe-full-review-and-an-investigation-of-thuban-performance-scaling/7

The 1055t overclocks very well. It's a full 3 steppings ahead of the old X4s, and uses a completely different high-K process node.

Somebody_007 · Sep 12, 2010

It might OC well even up to 4ghz but i7s are amazing in games. Those six cores will beat i7s in multi thres apps but when both are overclocked to their limits the i7 will be the clear winner in games. Also note those tests you posted are with a 1090t instead of a 1055t.

sp12 · Sep 12, 2010

That test was just to prove that when you overclock the NB the Phenoms match/beat i7s in game per clock. IMO either will be fine, but if he goes AMD he's not really losing anything game-performance wise compared to an i7 if he OCs the NB.

I agree, the 1090t is a waste compared to the 1055t. Either get it for 178$ at newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.482997 or get the 95TDP edition from Tiger http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6455299&CatId=4433for 190$.

bigpuns · Sep 12, 2010

You can save yourself a lot of money on this build with a bit of common sense...

16gb ram is too much. 4gb is usually enough, 8gb will give you plenty of breathing room for the future. And get better ram (1600 mhz, cas 7, better heatsinks etc) rather than more ram.

Those 5870s and 5850s with double the memory are a massive waste of moolah. Get one with an uprated cooler, tho, they oc better than stock ones..

The six core AMD cpus aren't a great step up on the X4's, they are fine if you need the extra cores for productivity, but not the best for gaming. I'd go with the X4 955 BE personally.

As stated before, extra coolers for HDDs are pointless, and you really dont need to spend so much on the case, although a decent PSU is important.

All this is based on the AMD fanboy approach. Theres no doubting Intel CPUs are better, and NVidia GPUs aren't any worse or better for the most part, you get what you pay for usually. However, the AMD route will give you a better CPU upgrade path with AMDs next gen cpu's slotting right in, but if you want to use a dual GPU setup you will only be able to use Radeons in Crossfire.

Everyone here thinks you have some significant overkill (read as: bad choices) in your suggested build.

Somebody_007 · Sep 12, 2010

sp12 :

I agree 1055ts are a good buy, but getting a very high stable clock out of them is hard at best. Linus tried to push a 1090t as far as possible and he only got to 4.2.

http://www.youtube.com/user/linustechtips?blend=2&ob=4#p/u/185/FP0tYTlxzj8

With normal cooling and a normally skilled Overclocker I don't think you'll get a 1055t higher than 4.0, a 950 however can hit 4.5 no problem. May ease it down to 4.2 for longevity. But if you've only got a year left you could technically push it to 4.5-5.0

Sure 1055t has the bang for buck medal but now that 950s have come down in price I would go for them as in the end they still are better CPUs on a better platform.

If he sticks with his fanboyness then the 1055t would be the way to go.

gordon_81 · Sep 12, 2010

and remember you can also overclock i7s an i7 950 beats any amd cpu period, an OCd i7 950 slaughters any OCd amd CPU, im not a fanboy, i think the whole fanboy thing is sad and pathetic, amd builds are good for budget builds but if you have $2000 to spend on a gaming build intel is the way to go....

sp12 · Sep 12, 2010

My friend got her 95 watt version 1055t to 3.9 on stock volts, so I think Linus just got a bad chip. She's running 4.6 at 1.24 Vcore right now on a 212+.

F-22Giu · Sep 12, 2010

Wow this is all really good input. I'm a very new builder so this is all quite educational for me. Thank you all I will consider carefully all that has been said thus far, yes even the bit about being a fan boy lol. But any tips on builds, overclocking etc. Would be greatly appreciated as well.

spentshells · Sep 13, 2010

Somebody_007 :

NO you can not OC a 460 past 5870 levels it really is not possible unless you have proof then ...it is possible
but I in no way believe that at all

anything over 1000 dollars you should not be adding a 5830/460/465 video card

Somebody_007 · Sep 13, 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ipoEjI29qk&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/user/LinusTechTips#p/u/8/HMg-yhZtxw8

here the hawk rivals a 480. The second one shows the 460 score and the first the 480 score.

And a 480 is far ahead of a 5870 so yes a hawk can go past a 5870.

spentshells · Sep 13, 2010

Somebody_007 :

sample card........

Somebody_007 · Sep 13, 2010

spentshells :

eurm??? so? That hawk is even a sub par overclocker. As linus says in the video that card is below the standard of a hawk.

Don't underestimate a 460. They pack a punch.

$2000 AMD Build - What are your thoughts

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