Nees help deciding cpu

[jpiluke]

Hello,
I plan on playing Company Of Heroes. I am building my own PC, but at the moment, am undecided on which CPU to buy. I purchased an AMD Athlon II X3 455, but now I'm looking at the Phenom II X4 965. My MOBO is Asus M4N68T-M V2, and I currently have 4 gb worth of Kingston memory. Video is going to be Radeon 5770. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Raiddinn]

I would take the Phenom 2 x 4 965 over the Athalon 2 x3 455 if you are interested in gaming.

Also, other video cards deliver better performance for the same cost, the HD 5830 and the HD 4890 are both at least 50% better for maybe $10 more and the HD 6790 is about double the 5770 for about $30 more.

Whatever you do, I would not go cheap on the PSU. Get one from Antec, Seasonic, Corsair, XFX, or another brand made by the same makers.

- Edit - I lied, I quickly checked the prices on the 5770 and I thought they were less, the first two of those cards should be available for equal or less price than the 5770 is. Even less reason not to get one of them instead. The 6790 only like $10 more than the 5570. All of them still much more powerful.

 

[jpiluke]

Thanks for the speedy reply. The retailer said I could bring the CPU back and exchange (plus a couple bucks) for the phenom. He only seems to have the 5770 or the 6790. My brother told me to make sure I can run Direct X11, and the card should be PCI express 2.0 but not better than 2.1. Thanks for the info on the PSU, I was going to ask in another thread, but now I have an answer.

 

[Raiddinn]

How much is the retailer charging for those cards?

Most likely you can get one from Tigerdirect or Newegg for like 1/3 cheaper at least.

The 6790 is available for about $130 online and the 5570 about $115 - $120.

- Edit - You can probably get the whole PC 1/3 cheaper by buying it online. If you post specs and current price at the retailer, we can probably beat it in both performance and cost with stuff available online.

 

[jpiluke]

At the moment, I'm up to $186 for the Asus M4N68T-M V2, 4gb Kingston mem, and AMD Phenom II X4 965. Video is looking like $120 for the 5770 and $150 for the 6790. Still need a PSU (cuz the one in my unit is oe) I still have my optical and 2 Hard drives (which is good, as he can only sell one per customer?)

 

[Raiddinn]

I suppose the $300 for the parts you have in mind isn't too bad.

I would consider the Antec EarthWatts 430w PSU for that setup.

 

[Welve]

Hard drive market is going CRAZY with the flooding in Thailand, avoid it if you can...a 1 TB hard drive that was 59.99 at Fry's about a month ago is 109.99 today!

As far as PSU, there are good calculators around, http://www.corsair.com/learn_n_explore/

corsair's is simple and I think it automatically puts aside for components etc because it appears pretty accurate. Don't skimp on the PSU, buy a trusted, well reviewed power supply as mentioned above.

 

[jpiluke]

Just did a quick check on PSU's. I think this is the one I want (incidently, I used the power calculator, said I only need 455 watts, so I think 600 watts is a good choice)

Antec High Current Gamer Series (HCG-620) 620W from Newegg $77
from Wintronic $79

 

[Welve]

Try this, slightly cheaper +10% off and loaded with manufacturer responses, more well reviewed as well. I am not down on Antec, I just like it when manufacturers take the time to respond to their negative reviews and try to help customers.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=17-341-017&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=false&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=%28keywords%29&Page=1

big MIR too!

or for a single rail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139028

 

[andywork78]

I still have ati 5770 card.
It works really great.
Of course i can not run max or high max but hey~ i can not tell the difference between max high - high ~

 

[wiyosaya]

I'm running a 965 at 3.8 GHz on Air, however, with a Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme cooler. No stability problems, no voltage tweaks. Personally, I think that the 965 is a great value chip.

 

[jpiluke]

Best answer selected by jpiluke.