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AMD system for gaming

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Hey all. I'm ready to pull the trigger on this maching but wanted to see if anybody has any last minute advice or comments.

Case: Antec Lanboy Air
MB: Asus Crosshair IV
CPU: AMD Phenom II x6 1090T (considered X4 970BE as I'll be primarily gaming, but found the X6 for only about $15 more)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master V6 GT (I've spent more time looking for a cooler than almost anything else so I'd really appreciate any advice here!)
RAM: G.Skill Trident+Turbulence II 8GB DDR3 1600 (CAS7) (8GB is a bit overkill, I know. I really wanted to go with 6GB, but no 6GB kits for dual channel!)
HDD1: G.Skill Sniper 120GB SSD
HDD2/3: 2x Western Digital 640GB Caviar Black 6.0Gb/s (Raid 0) (I know that mechanical drives won't touch 6.0Gb/s... but the 6.0 drives have a 64MB cache instead of 32)Graphics: VisionTek Radeon GD 4870X2 (for now - waiting for 6900 series to emerge before I upgrade).

I have a 750w Thermaltake PSU that I"ll be using for power.

Okay everybody... FIRE AWAY!

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Looks good overall. I am a fan of the Cooler Master Hyper 212+ (many Tom's forum members are as well) and I highly recommend it. Otherwise, I would tell you to proceed. Someone will always have a "better" idea for what you should buy (like I did above). You did good.

Yeah, I strongly considered the hyper 212+. Seems to have a good following and is actually about 60% of the price of the V6GT. I'll admit, I got lured in by the look of the V6. My case box is going to be on display quite a bit and not to be superficial, but the hyper 212+ is pretty "bleh".
I know... I'm surely paying too much for "looks" and losing cooling performance in the process. I'm not really happy about it, but asthetics do play a part in this build.
Bah! Still can't decide...
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Just games no other CPU intensive apps/multi tasking?


955BE
Asrock 870/880g Extreme3
4GB CL7 1333
2-3 F3 1TBs (more storage, cheaper price)
60 GB Sandforce based SSD like Corsair F60, GSkill Phoenix Pro, OCZ VertexII, Mushkin Callisto, etc

I definitely considered a 60GB SSD instead of the 120, but I'm going to have a multiple O/S installation (I need to keep XP around for work) and then I still wanted some room left over for some apps. Probably still overkill to go with the 120? Yeah, maybe. And it is a total extravagance, I know. Not at all necessary in the grand scheme of things.

I've had a couple people suggest the Asrock MB but I'm a little scared off by their reputation to be honest. They seem, well, cheap. Any opinions on that? I've had really great successes with Asus in the past and would probably need a compelling reason to go somewhere else.

Also, if I drop to 4GB RAM, why wouldn't I go with CL7 1600 as opposed to 1333?

Understand that price isn't a HUGE consideration. I mean the vault isn't full of gold or anything, but I can afford $1500-$2000. My job is subsidising the build as I'll be using it 50% of the time for work (at least as far as they know).

I guess I should consider the spinpoint HDDs. Everybody keeps suggesting them, but again, I am a little hesitant to go away from a company that I've had good success with (WD). The Samsung drives are much cheaper and have excellent reviews though so I think it makes sense. Is there a version with a 64MB cache though? I can't find one. And does it really matter?

This machine is both for my own entertainment (games) and work. The multi-threading is mildly important for some of the work apps that I'll need to run.

Question though... is the 955BE just a monster for OCing or what? Why the 955 instead of the 970 for instance? They price difference is about $30 I guess so not a huge deal there. Just curious what makes the 955be so highly recommended.

AS Rock is a spinoff of ASUS. Its their entry into the entry-level/lower priced motherboard market. They and MSI are really second only to ASUS and Gigabyte.

CL7-1600 vs CL9-1333 is going to be a very slight speed improvement (1%-2%) that would be mostly seen in Benchmarks, not real world use, before dealing with any potential overclocking situation. 4GB is all you need for games, but if you're going to be doing a ton of layers in Photoshop, 3d Rendering, virtual machines, or such, 8 GB is probly a good idea.

Spinpoint HDDs are the fastest mechanical SATA 2 drives around, WD, Seagate, and Samsung are all about even in quality, and while spinpoints are fast, WD & Seagate aren't that far behind.

If you're going to be doing a ton of multithreading, consider an X6 processor instead -- you won't see a difference in games, but you would in other processes, a 1075t is the best overclocker of the Athlon hexacores, easily exceeding 4 GHz

Sticking with the 4-cores, the reason peopel recommend teh 955 over 965 or 970 is you can turn a 955 into either of the others due to it's unlocked multiplier. Change the multiplier from x16 to x17 and you get a 965, 17.5 and you get a 970. If you go for a really extreme overclock, the 965/970 MIGHT get a little more at the very top of an overclock, but not that much if your going for a stable 24/7 overclock.

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gsgoody said:
I definitely considered a 60GB SSD instead of the 120, but I'm going to have a multiple O/S installation (I need to keep XP around for work) and then I still wanted some room left over for some apps. Probably still overkill to go with the 120? Yeah, maybe. And it is a total extravagance, I know. Not at all necessary in the grand scheme of things.

I've had a couple people suggest the Asrock MB but I'm a little scared off by their reputation to be honest. They seem, well, cheap. Any opinions on that? I've had really great successes with Asus in the past and would probably need a compelling reason to go somewhere else.

Also, if I drop to 4GB RAM, why wouldn't I go with CL7 1600 as opposed to 1333?

Understand that price isn't a HUGE consideration. I mean the vault isn't full of gold or anything, but I can afford $1500-$2000. My job is subsidising the build as I'll be using it 50% of the time for work (at least as far as they know).

I guess I should consider the spinpoint HDDs. Everybody keeps suggesting them, but again, I am a little hesitant to go away from a company that I've had good success with (WD). The Samsung drives are much cheaper and have excellent reviews though so I think it makes sense. Is there a version with a 64MB cache though? I can't find one. And does it really matter?

This machine is both for my own entertainment (games) and work. The multi-threading is mildly important for some of the work apps that I'll need to run.

Question though... is the 955BE just a monster for OCing or what? Why the 955 instead of the 970 for instance? They price difference is about $30 I guess so not a huge deal there. Just curious what makes the 955be so highly recommended.


I built a very similar build to what you're considering back in May, so I'll offer what advice I can and any lessons learned. Check my profile for specs.

In order:
1) If you can afford the 120 GB without skimping on anything else, go for it.
2) The Crosshair IV is expensive, and overkill, but it sure does look awesome and has a lot of features. I still haven't used most of the features, and I probably could have gone with a less expensive board. I do intend to start poking around soon, though.
3) I'd go with CL7 1600 MHz or CL 9 2000 MHz. Just make sure to avoid RAM with super tall heat spreaders, you don't want to interfere with your heatsink.
4) Spinpoint F3s, Seagate 7200.12 (500 GB & 1 TB), and the WD1002FAEX Caviar Black all use 500 GB platters. This makes them approximately equal in speed, due to the data density. Cache size doesn't matter at all once you're talking 32 GB vs. 64 GB. 64 GB vs, say, 2 GB might make a difference. :) 
5) As ScrewySqrl points out, the unlocked 955 is generally easy to overclock to the levels of the other processors. I bought a 965 myself, as the extra $15 or $20 wasn't a big deal to me. You can generally assume that the max overclock for any of the chips will be about the same, but the 965s and 970s tested better as a batch. Depending on your luck, the 965 or 970 might be a little more likely to be stable while overclocking, but it isn't a huge deal either way. The 955 is the best value, however.
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