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Best Configs - High-End AMD Gaming PC

Last response: in Systems
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Which High-End AMD Gaming PC build do you like the best?

Total: 214 votes (51 blank votes)

  • The Silvune Build
  • 15 %
  • The lp231 Build
  • 26 %
  • The ice919 Build
  • 34 %
  • The MadAdmiral Build
  • 28 %

Our editorial team has selected the top builds submitted by users for our Best Configs feature. Please vote on your favorite of the following builds:

Silvune
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.2Ghz
Motherboard: MSI 890FXA-GD70
RAM: G.SKILL ECO Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) F3-12800CL7D-4GBECO
Graphics Card: HIS H587FN1GD Radeon HD 5870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 $350 x3=
Hard Drive: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB
Case: Cooler Master HAF 922 $100
Power Supply: NZXT Hale90-1000M 1000W 80Plus Gold Modular
DVD Burner: Sony Optiarc
Heatsink: Thermalright Silver Arrow

Link to Build

lp231
CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 @ 2.8GHz
M/B: Gigabyte GA-890FX
RAM: G.Skill RipJaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600
GPU: 2x Sapphire HD5870
HDD: WD Black 640GB
SSD: Crucial RealSSD 64GB
Case: CM Cosmos S
PSU: Corsair 850w
ODD: LG Blu-Ray writer

Link to Build

ice919
Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX
Motherboard: ASUS M4N98TD EVO AM3 NVIDIA nForce 980a SLI ATX AMD Motherboard
RAM: GeIL Evo Two 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Desktop Memory Model GET34GB2000C6DC
Graphics Card: (2) * MSI N480GTX-M2D15-B GeForce GTX 480 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
Hard Drive: OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) and a Western Digital Caviar Black WD1501FASS 1.5TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Case: Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Power Supply: Antec CP-1000 1000W Continuous ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V v2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
DVD Burner: Sony Optiarc Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA CD/DVD Burner - OEM
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U9B SE2 92mm SSO CPU Cooler

Link to Build

MadAdmiral
CPU: X4 955
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-890XA-UD3 $105 after rebate
RAM: G.Skill Eco 2x2 GB 1600 mhz CAS Latency 7
GPU: 2x HD 5970
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1 TB $75
Case: HAF 922
PSU: Corsair 950W
Optical: Cheap SATA DVD burner

Link to Build

More about : configs high end amd gaming

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^^ In MadAdmiral's build, the mobo is a problem... The 2 PCIe X16 slots would run at x8x8 when 2 cards are populated, so x8 speeds for HD 5970, then the HD 5970s would surely run crippled...
Just change the mobo to 790/ 890FX and you have a very good build...
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@schwizer: SSDs don't do anything for gaming. I left it out because I'd rather spend the money on a part that actually impacts gaming.

@gkay: That's not really a problem. All of Tom's testing has shown it's maybe a 4% loss at the most, which isn't significant. Obviously, if this had been a real build (i.e. if I used combos/other deals), I would have thrown in a 16x/16x board, but it's not an issue normally.

@letsgetsteve: Games are almost never bottlenecked by the CPU. It's always the GPu that bottlenecks them. The X6s aren't better than the X4s for gaming. They're basically equal. Once you overclock, the X4 would be better than the X6. Really, unless you're doing video rendering or other similar work, the X6 isn't that great. Would the x4/x6 bottleneck dual 5970s? It's actually likely. However, every CPU you can get your hands on today would do the same, so it's a complete non-issue.

Picking the right items to build a system is perhaps even more personal than tuning a car. There's no best and worst mostly. Just the most/least suitable for the task and user's needs.

For instance, you're all arguing about choosing X6. For now it may seem worse but next year we're to see games that scale well on 6 cores or more. Then the extra overclock to be achieved currently with X4 wouldn't keep up. So the purpose makes it personal, doesn't it?

To my own experience ATA/SATA drives in general are pathetic in terms of performance and reliability. I guess no-one is silly enough to build a high-end PC with the sole purpose to play games. Personal data are valuable!

@MadAdmiral I seriously doubt that...
If it was a HD 5870 Crossfire or GTX 480 SLI, then what you are saying is right, but as you know a HD 5970 in actual is 2 HD 5870s running at 5850s speed, thus 4 chips would have to share x16 bandwidth which would seriously limit its performance...

@gkay: I know that the loss might a little higher than 4%, but it's certainly not significant. It's certainly not enough to drop it down to the level of dual 480s or other multiple card solutions.

drinkbleach said:
Didn't Toms recent editorial 2k build massively fail with the x6 1055t and 2 480's??

The cpu was too much of bottle neck, I wonder if this applies for the x4 and ice919's build.



The cpu will definitely be the bottleneck of this system but amd's next gen processors are supposed to be compatible so once they come out you could easily upgrade and get that much more performance. This is also why I added a good cooler to max out the processor as much as possible. And if 480s bottleneck the system then 5970s surely will.

I love all the builds here. When it came down to choosing one build it simply came down to 1 or 2 minor differences. Hard choice but I made my decision. I'm still surprised none of the asus crosshair builds got chosen for the top 5. There must be some reason. Only thing i could think of is that maybe its the cost of that mobo and just maybe also due the fact that it doesn't come with a floppy drive controller and IDe connector like the other mobo's do.

Well anyway best of luck to the final people looking forward to seeing the final results :) 

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