Questions about building new AMD system

[sebazvideo]

I'm planning on buying a GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD5 motherboard for a AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 3.2GHz, with the goal of overclocking it to 4 Ghz.I got a few questions regarding different components.

1) What's a decent power supply to start, considering that I plan to overclock to 4 Ghz and it will supply power to 3 or 4 hard drives? Is the KINGWIN Mach 1 ABT-1000MA1S 1000W a good PS? It has good ratings on NewEgg. That's already above my budget for the PS, so I can't go any higher than that.

2) Maybe this is a duh! question, but is it a big deal to buy two separate memory kits to get to 16 GB of RAM instead of buying one 16 GB kit? I'm asking because searching on newegg for the two options, full 16 GB kits are very expensive and just a few, while there are tons of 2x4GB kits that if I buy two kits will be far less expensive for the same amount of RAM. This is obviously planning on buying two of the same brand and model. And talking about RAM, which is the most reliable brand? So far I've been using OCZ Platinum DDR2, and only one time I had a stick die on me, and OCZ replaced it without much trouble. But what about Corsair, G Skill, Geil, Patriot, A-Data, etc?

3) For what I've read if I want to OC I have to buy a fancy CPU cooler. Which one will allow me to reach 4 Ghz having a fully stable system? My main application for buying this CPU is to encode video to h.264, so the computer will stay on 24/7 and it will work at 100% for long periods of time.

Thanks,

Sebastian

 

[mbevolution]

1. 750w psu would be more than plenty of power, 650w could prolly do the job fine. get a quality one from antec/corsair/seasonic etc.
2. don't buy 16gb kits, if you want that much memory just get 2 2x4 kits. they are essentially the same. as for ocz you are taking your chances, as for the other brands you've mentioned, they have much better quality control and its likely you'll get something that works right out of the box.
3. sunbeamtech core contact is a decent cooler for 25 bux, requires a little force to put on but nothing major. my temps at 3.5ghz is about 30idle and 49 linpack occt for 1 hour.
if you have a huge case you can go with noctua 14cm cooler.

 

[Reincus]

What video card(s) are you running, that has the most impact on what power supply you should get. Get an Antec, Corsair or Seasonic. If you are running 1 video card, 500W-650W will be more than fine. If you are running discreet graphics, then you don't need more than 400W.

G.Skill, Corsair, Crucial and MUSHkin are all excellent brands. OCZ has had a rash of bad memory as of late.

Almost all of the direct heatpipe tower coolers perform very close to each other. There are slight variations in temp and noise, but overall, it comes down to price and what will fit in your case.