Suggestions on my build

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Nikop23

Weaksauce
Joined
May 23, 2008
Messages
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I am in the proccess of piece building my system. As of now I have

Asus M3A32-mvp Deluxe Mobo
AMD X2 5600 OC 3.2 w/ coolmaster cooler
Corsair XM2 4-4-4-12 2x1gig
2x WD 160g SATA 7200 in Raid0
Coolmax 400watt psu
ECS 7600gs nvidia
Triple boot XP64, Vista64 Ultimate, Ubuntu 8.04 amd64

My plans for this are to do the following and in order of importance

#1 Change the PSU.

#2 Change the Video Card

#3 Change the CPU

#4 Change the Ram

Now as it stands right now I am going to buy a cheap newer motherboard for all of the components I am replacing and building a second PC my roomates can use.

This is where I need the advise. I plan on putting in a quad phenom when the 45nm core comes out later this year early next year. In the mean time I need to replace my PSU and Videocard so I can play some games because lets face it, my 7600 is all but useless. Eventually I plan on having 3 hd 3870's in crossfire(Most likely the Saphire Toxic Edition) How do those cards stack up to other ATI based crossfire cards? Will one be good enough to start with or whould I get 2 right off the bat? What is a good power supply that will run all of that when I am done? I think I need at least 800w but I am not sure. This is the first gaming rig I have built in 4 years and so much has changed. Any advice would be an imense help.
 
Good thing replacing your PSU is your highest priority now. That Coolmax is crap. I recommend getting this PSU:
Corsair 750TX 750W PSU - $105

Anyway, I recommend holding off on the GPU upgrade till June 18th. ATI is releasing their new HD 4870 card then IIRC. From the rumors so far, the HD 4870 might be twice as fast as the current HD3870. Also from the rumors so far, that card is debuting at $300 or so.

So, I recommend waiting till then for the GPU upgrade and see if ATI's HD4870 will be as good as the rumors say. More than likely the HD4870 will be just as fast as two HD3870 cards in Crossfire.

What size monitor do you have?
 
New Nvidia cards are also on the way, so that could help you avoid complications inherent in a multi-GPU setup as well.
 
I will not be getting nvidia since my board is Cross fire not SLI. As for the the PSU, The Corsair is a single 60 amp rail. how does that compare with multi rail psu's? and as for the 4870. I had seen that they were coming out, but I want have the capibility to run 3 if not 4 cards in crossfire. Building for me is not stricktly for performance, I also like to try new things and see how they work. Hence the Toxic Edition 3870. Its a Single slot cooler. Do you think there will be a single slot 4870?
 
ps. Right now I am running a single 20". But I occasionally hook into my 55" hdtv and plan on at least a 24" monitor
 
So, then my question becomes is 750 going to be enough?

I guess I should throw out what my intended final setup will be

M3A32-MVP
AMD Quad Phenom
8 gig DDR2 1066 4x2
3x ATI hd 3870's (Maybe 4870's)
2x WD 160 gig SATA 7200 in raid0
1 DVD Burner
1 Blu-ray burner

Will 750 watts fullfill those requirements?
 
The new 45nm Phenoms should A: Fit My Mobo, B: Stack up better against intel especially on a per dollar basis and CI wanted to go with a spider platform, and the best mobo's for spider platforms imo are AMD
 
Nikop23 said:
The new 45nm Phenoms should A: Fit My Mobo, B: Stack up better against intel especially on a per dollar basis and CI wanted to go with a spider platform, and the best mobo's for spider platforms imo are AMD
Click to expand...

I wasn't thinking about your already having a board. There you're right -- don't need a new board. However, no, they're slower clock for clock and on a per dollar basis than current Intel CPUs outside of a couple very specific benchmarks.
 
again, you are talking about right now, and I am talking in 6 months when the new 45nm chips with the 6mb l3 cache come out. I think the next round of AMD CPU's will gain a little ground back
 
Nikop23 said:
I will not be getting nvidia since my board is Cross fire not SLI. As for the the PSU, The Corsair is a single 60 amp rail. how does that compare with multi rail psu's? and as for the 4870. I had seen that they were coming out, but I want have the capibility to run 3 if not 4 cards in crossfire. Building for me is not stricktly for performance, I also like to try new things and see how they work. Hence the Toxic Edition 3870. Its a Single slot cooler. Do you think there will be a single slot 4870?
Click to expand...

Dunno if there will be any single slot 4870s available come June 18. But 4850s will be released at the same time. They are single slot and if any of the leaked specs are true they look to be a lot faster than 3870s.
 
Nikop23 said:
again, you are talking about right now, and I am talking in 6 months when the new 45nm chips with the 6mb l3 cache come out. I think the next round of AMD CPU's will gain a little ground back
Click to expand...

However it isn't exactly guaranteed that your mobo will actually support the 45nm AMD CPUs. It's been shown in the last year or so that AMD doesn't really enforce the specifications or BIOS updates on mobo manufacturers needed to run those Phenom CPUs and other AM2+ CPUs. There are still many AM2 and even some AM2+ mobos that do not support Phenom CPUs.

And also note that Intel's mainstream Nehalem CPUs will be release in Q1 2009, which is the timeframe for AMD 45nm CPUs from what I can see.

Anyway, for now lets concentrate on the GPUs. Just wait for the HD4850 or HD 4870s to be released. Either of those cards look like they'll be substantially faster than the HD 3870.
 
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