New Build. AMD Based but undecided.

[moblati461]

Approximate Purchase Date: End of February

Budget Range: Around $500.

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Mainly used for medium gaming, Video Encoding and Watching Blu-Ray.

Parts Not Required: Parts I'm interested in upgrading will be listed. Video card is a plausible upgrade down the road.

Parts Preferences: I prefer AMD might be interested in an Intel build if the price/performance is comparable.

Overclocking: Maybe

Here is the current situation of what I'm looking at upgrading. The main components I wanna change up are the CPU, Motherboard, Move up to an SSD (I have terabytes of space with other HDD) and DDR3 Ram.

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Quad-Core
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103727

CPU Cooler: ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 92mm Fluid Dynamic CPU Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186134

Motherboard: MSI 870A-G54 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130275

Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231303

SSD: Crucial RealSSD C300 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148357

So knowledgeable people of this forum, What do you think of this for the price range?

 

[carfreak3504]

I would get a new graphics card instead of a SSD.

GTX 460 is great, this is a really good one for super cheap ($140):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130591&cm_re=EVGA_GTX_460_1GB-_-14-130-591-_-Product&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=3463938&SID=

I have one and it works great.
As for the other parts, they should work nicely.
Also, it would be good if your mobo has additional RAM slots for future upgrades.

Message me if you need any more help!

 

[moblati461]

I thought about adding an nvidia card, Cuda enabled encoding programs looks pretty good. I currently have a Radeon HD 4670 and it does the job pretty well for what I need.


Edit: Whoops, Forgot to add the link to the mobo. It has 4 slots for ram so I'll be good for the future. Once thing I noticed is that newegg doesn't offer 6gb ram kits for the type I was looking at. It's 4gb (Usually 2x2gb sticks) and 8gb. 8 seems like a tad more then I need and 6 sounds like the sweet spot. Anyone know why that's the only sizes offered?

 

[gkay09]

^^ Video encoding ? A lot ? You can easily get an Intel i5 in that budget,... but whether it is really required, depends on your usage,...
CPU + Mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.575883

RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277

Cooler - Skip the cooler, the stock can handle slight overclock and when you feel the need to overclock higher, get a cooler then,...

SSD - The Crucial is a good one, but check the Vertex 2, comes with 2.5 to 3.5" adapter so you dont need to buy 1,...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227550

 

[moblati461]

I do quite abit of encoding, Mostly backing up blu-rays down to a reasonable size for the media centers around the house using handbrake.

I was thinking of overclocking to get better performance and thus faster encodes but I haven't dabbled in it before so it was just to be set if I decided to.
With that CPU+Mobo combo it puts at about $515 I think. Very reasonable.

That SSD doesn't come with Sata III, Would the speeds with the 3gb/s vs 6gb/s be noticeable?

 

[gkay09]

^ AMD 6-Cores would be good option if you will mainly be using Handbrake as it takes good advantage of multiple-cores,...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.581363
But nearly in all other tasks, the i5 might beat the 6-Core

SSD - The Crucial has better read speeds, but the OCZ has better write speeds, anyways both would be significantly faster than mechanical drives and are close in performance,...

 

[moblati461]

I think i'm gonna take a dive and go with the latest and greatest in Sandy Bridge. Thanks much for the help gkay, that combo deal is perfect.

 

[moblati461]

Best answer selected by moblati461.

 

[gkay09]

^ Good Luck,...

 

[clarkjd]

If you look the 6GB kits are all triple channel kits (3 memory sticks) whereas the AMD motherboards support dual channel(2 memory sticks). To get 6GB in a dual channel setup, you would need a 4GB kit and a 2 gb kit (and use all 4 memory slots on the motherboard.

DDR3 comes in both dual and triple channel kits.

 

[gkay09]

^ IMO 2x 4GB kits are better,...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231422
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231417
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226095

And there Dual-Channel or Tri-Channel mainly depends on the CPU and not the kit itself,... You can buy 2 or 3 separate RAM sticks and run them @ Dual or Tri Channel if you want to,...

 

[moblati461]

I did a (short) amount of googling on dual vs triple channel and the consensus looks to be the increase in performance isn't much.

I'm on the edge about going for the 8 or staying with 4gb. I'm doubling the amount for $30 bucks more with the mushkin.

I'm still probly a week out from purchasing but I think I got the final parts picked out. It's fun to oogle at all the good tech =)