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New build after 6 years

Tarvaln

Tarvaln

Senior member
First I'd like to say I'm kinda sad that I'm retiring my AMD 2800+ xp on a A7N8X Deluxe. This comp has served me very well these past 6 years. The only problem I've every had was I burned up my Gainward ATI 9800 pro 2 years ago and replaced it with an Asus ATI 3650.

Budget $1,400 (I have another $100 to play with depending on my bills.)

Uses: Gaming, Photo Editing, Light Video Editing, Internet, Music, Movies, and saving the world (saving the world is optional).
Things I need: USB 3.0 and SATA 6 (or III "anyone else notice that's the same thing that happened to Final Fantasy 6 or III?") for future proofing, which is an oxymoron.

System type: I'm going AMD due to budget, past experience, and the native SATA III support.

Store: All of these are from newegg. I've always had a great experience with them. I'll see if I can find cheaper from a good site before I order.

Build:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition - Combo deal
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103849

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 - $400 w/CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231277

Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair IV Formula AM3 AMD 890FX - Combo deal
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131644

Video Card: ASUS EAH5850 DirectCU TOP/2DIS/1GD5 Radeon HD 5850 - $540 w/mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121370

HDD : SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb (x2 for RAID0) - $180
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152185

PSU: Antec CP-850 850W Continuous Power CPX - Combo deal
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817371024

Case: Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX Full Tower - $230 w/PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129043

Optic Drives: Need advice: Want Dvd burner/BluRay Player internal.

Shipping: $36.50

Total: $1,385.74

Concerns: RAM. I'm about damn near lost on RAM. I'm wondering if the Ripjaw will be too fat for the slots on the board and will I have to OC the ram and the mobo or just the mobo.

The only thing I haven't included is the OS. I'm planning on getting Win 7 64 Pro via my gf student discount. That should be around $65 - 70.

Silly Question: Does the CPU come with the grease I need to connect it to the stock cooler? Also I have some ArticSilver 5 laying around somewhere from my last build but that was 6 or so years ago. I assume that stuff doesn't go bad but I'm not sure.

Any suggestion or advice would be appreciated. Also, I could use some advice on Optic Drives. I realized while writing this that my two DVD burners probably won't work on my new board.

Thanks for reading all of this!

Edit: Going with the Samsung drives. I found an article that said newer WD Black drives will not do well in a RAID config. http://community.wdc.com/t5/Desktop/WD-Black-drives-in-RAID/td-p/7711
 
Last edited:
BTRY B 529th FA BN said:
Ok, for sure, get two of these drives for your RAID setup. And at 50 some dollars a piece, you forget that they are actually faster than those WDs
Click to expand...

Agree on the Samsung F3s (and I have quite a few WD drives). You can't beat the price or performance of the F3s, especially for RAID-0.

The power supply seems like overkill. The case/power supply combo seems like a good deal, but that is a huge chunk of your money that could be better spent elsewhere if you aren't using it.

You can get a SATA DVD burner on newegg for around $20 or so, if you can hold off on Bluray for a while longer. Just go with whichever one is on sale and has hundreds of ratings averaging over 4 stars. The Bluray reader/DVD burner combo drives are around $100, or you can get a Bluray reader for $50 and the DVD burner for $20, so its cheaper to have two drives.

The regular GSkill RAM will be fine, get that instead of the Ripjaw, your CPU is unlocked so you don't have to worry about OCing the RAM. Are you planning on overclocking? You might want to look into an aftermarket cooler if you are.

What kind of display are you using, and will you want to be upgrading that soon?

I don't know much about the AMD side, so I don't know how that motherboard is. But you may want to reconsider the USB3, SATA3 requirement. Based on your usage you don't really seem to need either, and you might be able to get a cheaper board by giving them up. Any savings you can get (hard drives, case/power supply, motherboard) could free up enough change to get a 5870 in place of the 5850, or to get a smaller SSD as a boot drive. For gaming and photo editing those two pieces could make quite a difference, at least moreso than you would feel with the 850W power supply and USB3.

Though the power supply could be useful if you are thinking of adding in an additional 5850 down the road for crossfire...
 
That's all too much for what you're using your computer for. The Thuban shines in multi-threaded apps, and gaming wouldn't fall under its rays of joy. If you'd like to spend your budget's worth, you can snag the i7-860 + Gigabyte mobo + 4gb Ripjaw + 5850 + Antec 300/CM 690II or some other mid-tower + SSD. Full towers take up unnecessary space. Also, drop the PSU down to something in the 600w range (Corsair, Seasonic, Antec, etc.). If you don't have spare drives for data, pick up some 1TB green/black drives. The stock heatsink comes pre-applied, and aftermarket heatsinks usually come with a tube of their own stuff. I'd get a Hyper 212+ for low to moderate OC'ing, or a Scythe Mugen 2 if you wanna get the most out of your chip. If you choose Intel, the TurboBoost should let you get away with leaving everything at stock. Happy building!

If you'd like to get the best performance for your $$, the 955BE wouldn't be a bad choice either. Of course it doesn't perform as well as the Intel opponents, but you're saving more money without sacrificing significant performance.

Of course if you don't hit your budget, that's more money saved towards future upgrades. Maximizing your PC now, especially if it surpasses your needs, is just a waste of money and speed. Never a bad idea to save, save, save!!
 
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That Mobo/GPU combo "deal" isn't much of a deal at all. It's only $30 off of an overpriced AM3 mobo and an overpriced 5850. Get these instead:
XFX 5850 @ $310 (double lifetime warranty and you can easily OC it to the speeds of the other 5850)
ASUS M4A87TD EVO @ $110

That saves you $120 off of your combo. You can either pocket the money, or use the extra cash to dump the RAID0 config and go SSD+HDD. I would definitely do the latter, as any SSD is far faster than even a pair of WD Blacks in RAID0 (5x or so where it matters).
WD Green 1TB (for bulk storage) @ $80
OCZ Agility 2 50GB @ $195
These changes will give you a machine that is much faster for general usage, but costs the same!
 
Last edited:
mfenn said:
That Mobo/GPU combo "deal" isn't much of a deal at all. It's only $30 off of an overpriced AM3 mobo and an overpriced 5850. Get these instead:
XFX 5850 @ $310 (double lifetime warranty and you can easily OC it to the speeds of the other 5850)
ASUS M4A87TD EVO @ $110

That saves you $120 off of your combo. You can either pocket the money, or use the extra cash to dump the RAID0 config and go SSD+HDD. I would definitely do the latter, as any SSD is far faster than even a pair of WD Blacks in RAID0 (5x or so where it matters).
WD Green 1TB (for bulk storage) @ $80
OCZ Agility 2 50GB @ $195
These changes will give you a machine that is much faster for general usage, but costs the same!
Click to expand...

Personally, if I could swing it, I'd stick with the Mobo he has listed. The Onboard Audio itself is a nice feature, Tri-Crossfire capable, Core Unlocker, every Overclock feature possible, and a killer colour scheme makes it a pretty sweet Mobo.
 
OP before you pull the trigger , newegg has a pretty good deal on gigabyte 890 GX. Lifted from the deals forum

Schmide said:
Since I spazed out on the 1055t deal. Edit: Oops forgot the coupon code $139.99 - $10 (instant) - $20.00 promo code "MB42316" - $2.60 bing = $107.39 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128435 (credit kel_be SD)
Click to expand...

I just used the promo code, added to my cart and its working but not sure when this expires though.
 
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sandorski said:
Personally, if I could swing it, I'd stick with the Mobo he has listed. The Onboard Audio itself is a nice feature, Tri-Crossfire capable, Core Unlocker, every Overclock feature possible, and a killer colour scheme makes it a pretty sweet Mobo.
Click to expand...

Is my sarcasm detector broken???

The mobo I mention has onboard audio (as does pretty much every other mobo out there), core unlocking (not that it matters with an X6), and overclocking features. OK, so it doesn't have tri-crossfire, but who cares at a $1400 budget? The color scheme comment really makes me think that you're joking with me...

Anyway, at 1/2 the cost, the M4A78TD EVO is a much better deal. An SSD will make much more of a performance difference than the mobo's color scheme. Quick, get a Type-R sticker for Sandorski! :awe:

EDIT: Post 666 baby :twisted:
 
mfenn said:
Is my sarcasm detector broken???

The mobo I mention has onboard audio (as does pretty much every other mobo out there), core unlocking (not that it matters with an X6), and overclocking features. OK, so it doesn't have tri-crossfire, but who cares at a $1400 budget? The color scheme comment really makes me think that you're joking with me...

Anyway, at 1/2 the cost, the M4A78TD EVO is a much better deal. An SSD will make much more of a performance difference than the mobo's color scheme. Quick, get a Type-R sticker for Sandorski! :awe:

EDIT: Post 666 baby :twisted:
Click to expand...

There's quite a difference between the 2 Mobos Onboard Audio capabilities. Don't diss the colour scheme man, you're walking a fine line! 😀
 
RAID 0? Why? I realize its slightly faster for reads and writes, but you are setting yourself up for disaster there, one goes out and youre screwed. I dunno, maybe its just me but i've ALWAYS been way too paranoid to use RAID 0 in anything unless its RAID 0+1, which is always rare since it requires 4 drives. I'd almost hesitate to just say do RAID 1, redundancy, and you still get a TB of space. 1TB is a godly amount of space in and of itself.
 
The x6 is overkill for what you list your uses are, as is the motherboard.

850W PSU for 1 video card? Overkill. You'll need no more than 400W, seriously. 500W to be safe. 650W if you want to keep a 2nd video card as an option. I have 2 HD 4890s (power hungry vs 5XXX) in crossfire (overclocked), unlocked x3 720 overclocked to 3.6Ghz (so basically a PII x4 965), 3 mechanical HDs (2 old less efficient models than today's), 5 case fans, USB devices, CD ROMS, etc... runs fine on my Antec 650W.

A $130 MB and Phenom II x4 9XX will give you exactly the same gaming performance, and similiar performance for everything you listed but video editing (and maybe saving the world!).

RAM has a very small impact on (gaming) performance. Get some cheap 1066 or 1333 from a good manufacturer (G Skill, Corsair, Mushkin... OCZ seems to have had a lot of DOAs recently, for myself included). Should run you about about $100

Ditch the Raid 0 set up. Get a 2TB HD for storage. Take all of the above savings and get a decent SSD, 80-120GB from Intel or OCZ. You will have much better performance than from Raid 0 and more reliable, plus SSDs draw less power (mean time before failure for SSD vs mechanical drives isn't even a comparison). They run about $200-300, but you just saved that much from your MB+CPU swap.

Antec 1200 is probably much larger than you need as well, but cases are hard argue for/against. But it's a easy spot to save $100+

Net cost is the same, but I think you'll be happier with the result.
 
Thanks for all the advice guys I appreciate it. Quick question. What I have listed I assume I need to buy some SATA III cables. I found these
Link Depot 19.69" SATA III Round Cable with Left Angle Model LD-SATA3L-0.5M
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812189202

I understand I may have to tweak them a bit but for $0.99 that's not a problem.
I'm wondering if that will be fine with the mobo I have listed.

Also is there anything I'm missing?

Thanks again.
 
Tarvaln said:
Thanks for all the advice guys I appreciate it. Quick question. What I have listed I assume I need to buy some SATA III cables. I found these
Link Depot 19.69" SATA III Round Cable with Left Angle Model LD-SATA3L-0.5M
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812189202

I understand I may have to tweak them a bit but for $0.99 that's not a problem.
I'm wondering if that will be fine with the mobo I have listed.

Also is there anything I'm missing?

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

The SATA 6Gb/s cables are the exact same as SATA 3 Gb/s cables. The motherboard will come with SATA 6Gb/s "certified" cables.
 
My last debate on this build is whether to go with the Phenom x6 with 2 Samsung HDD in RAID0 or do a

AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition (unlock and hope for the best)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103846

OCZ Agility 2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227531

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152185

I'm honestly a little weary of SSD and how long it will last. I'm wondering if it will die 1 month after the warrantyhas expired. Also, I'm wondering if it's worth me waiting a few months and getting a SATA III SSD drive.

Thoughts appreciated.

Thanks again for everyone's input it has honestly helped me a lot.
 
SATA3 really isn't something you should worry about. No mechanical drive will come anywhere close to maxing out SATA2. Only one SSD pushes the SATA2 limit, and that is only by a small amount in certain situations.

Once the warranty has expired on the Agility 2 (3 years), you can get a comparable SSD for pennies on the dollar. SSD is still very new tech and the speeds will be much faster and prices so much lower 3 years from now.
 
Pulled the trigger on this:
1 x CASE CM|RC-922M-KKN1-GP BK RT - $89.98
1 x BD-COMBO LG | UH10LS20 OEM - OEM - $104.99
1 x PSU CORSAIR|CMPSU-650TX 650W RT - $89.99 ($20.00 MiR)
1 x DVD BRN ASUS | DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS% - OEM - $24.99
2 x HD 1T|SAMSUNG HD103SJ 32M 7K % - OEM - $179.98
1 x MEM 2Gx2|GSKILL F3-12800CL8D-4GBRM - $118.99
1 x CPU COOL ZALMAN|CNPS9900NT RT - $68.99
1 x CPU AMD|PH II X2 555 3.2G AM3 C3 R - $99.00
1 x VGA ASUS|EAH5850 DIRECTCU TOP/2DIS - $339.99
1 x MB ASUS| CROSSHAIR IV FORMULA 890FX - $229.99

1 x DISCOUNT FOR COMBO #382715 $-30.00
1 x DISCOUNT FOR COMBO #383385 $-17.00

Payment Term: Paypal
Subtotal: $1299.89
Shipping and Handling: $32.61
Total Amount: $1332.50

I'm going to wait a few months untill I get a SSD. I think much better things are just a few months down the line. I'll probably also pick up another 5850 for cross fire. I'll be gaming at 1920 x 1080. I think those will do me fine for awhile.

Thanks again to everyone who posted. It helped me out a lot.
 
Scholzpdx said:
If it doesn't unlock that 5850 will be underutilized. That's a gable I'd never take.

Enjoy your dual core.
Click to expand...

This. Don't go with a dual core at this stage in the game and it definitely isn't worth the risk of not being able to unlock the additional cores. At a minimum, get an Athlon II x4 (a great value).

EDIT: Oops, sorry, I didn't see you pulled the trigger. Good luck.
 
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