Asus Sabertooth 990FX - RAM & CPU recommendations?

felixdacat

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Jan 20, 2011
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I want to build a new system based on an Asus Sabertooth 990FX (My 4 year old Gigabyte GA m57sli-s4 just croaked - memory slots test bad). I will mostly use it for games (currently Battlefield 3, eventually Counter-Strike Global Offensive) and some graphics work on Photoshop and Bryce 7 (3D rendering). I also convert video between mpeg, wmv and other formats, but not very often)

I already have a Asus Geforce GTX 560 ti, so now I'm considering which CPU & memory to get.

CORSAIR Vengeance - will the heat fins get in the way? Is 8gb enough for Battlefield 3 or will I see any difference with 16gb? I don't mind buying another brand (have only used Corsair for last ten years or so), but it's gotta be quality stuff.

CPU - I'm probably choosing between these three, which are all around the same price on Newegg:
AMD FX-6100 (95W, 6 core)
or AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition (125W, 6 core)
or maybe even the AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition
Does 125w vs 95w matter?

(In this new CPU article, the 980 BE is in the top AMD tier? - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-overclocking,3077-5.html)

Overclocking is not important. I'm getting the Sabertooth for quality and reliabilty.

I'm also considering an SSD drive, but I need to read up a bit more on that first. Thanks!
 
I currently have that MB coupled with a 980BE and couldn't be happier.

For gaming the 6-core processor's won't really help out, since almost all games are single threaded. And the 980BE comes in super fast at 3.7GHZ, easily OC to 4.3

Between the 2 6-core processors, the 1090T will be a bit faster, but uses more Electricity (125W vs 95W) so if you are concerned about efficiency, go with the 6100.

I also have a Corsair Vengeance 16GB kit, and depending on what CPU Cooler you get, will determine whether the fins will cause problems. If they do, you can always remove the heatsink off of whichever one is covered since DDR3 does not have overheating problems.
 

jdwii

Splendid




Go with the 980 if your not overclocking, But if you ever do anything else like encoding the 1090T would be great and you can overclock it to around 3.9Ghz easy at least i could on my 1100T. Also try not to get the 6110fx as its slower then a 1090T.