AMD Build

[scarredtaka]

Hi [H],

It’s been about 3 years since I’ve had a desktop. Last machine was a phenom 945. The motherboard died and took the video card with it. Sold it for parts and bought a laptop. Now I’ve got the cash to upgrade back up to a desktop.

First, the Q&A section.

1) What will you be doing with this PC?
3D Rendering, Photoshop, Gaming, Music Playback

2) What's your budget?
$1500 Max With ~$150 of that sunk into shipping. To a certain extent, the cheaper the better though.
$1200 excluding shipping would be nice.

3) Which country do you live in?
Anchorage, AK. Will most likely be ordering from Newegg.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget?
Motherboard
CPU
Memory
Case
Video Card(s)
PSU
Optical Drive

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing?
Mouse, Keyboard, Monitor

6) Will you be overclocking?
Not planning to.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor?
24” @ 1920x1080

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within The Next 2 Weeks

9) What features do you need in a motherboard?
4 PCI Express Slots
(2 Video Cards, Wireless Card, Soundcard)

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit



Most of the items below are now irrelevant, as I am now thinking about an intel build.

Please see posts below for updated parts lists/questions.



I have a preliminary list thought out, and would like opinions/advice. It’s been awhile and I’m not quite sure what good prices, values and brands are.

Planning an AMD build.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA ATX Motherboard
Newegg Link
This board has enough PCI express slots for everything I want to fit into the computer and is AM3+ for the possibility of Bulldozer down the line if it looks like a significant upgrade.

CPU: AMD Phenom II x6 1090t
Newegg Link
A huge upgrade from my current 2.53 ghz intel core 2 duo mobile, unlocked multiplier.

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1600
Newegg Link

Video Card: Asus EAH6950 DCII Radeon 6950 2GB Video Card
Newegg Link
6 Video Outputs, as I would like to eventually run 4-5 monitors (non eyefinity gaming)
Also should be enough for fairly high quality at 1080p in new and upcoming games (Skyrim, ME3, Borderlands 2)

I would be willing to run 2x nvidia cards (in non-SLI) to get the required number of outputs, as I have several applications that could use PhysX, but only if I could solve the “nvidia driver has crashed and recovered” issue in Windows 7 described here. This happens to me several times a day currently, and is very annoying.

PSU: Corsair Professional Series HX850 (CMPSU-850HX) Modular PSU
Newegg Link
Modular, plenty of power for possible future upgrades.

Case: Corsair Obsidian Series 650D
Newegg Link
High Quality Case, should last through several upgrades.

Everything else I can take care of (HD, CD/DVD, Soundcard, etc)

Yeah, I know Bulldozer is coming. No I don't care. This machine will be enough of an upgrade. (probably ~300% looking at benches)

If anyone has opinions, or experiences with any of these parts, that would be great.

Thanks to all of those who take a look and give feedback.

-ST

 

[jedinat]

Looking at your selections, it seeming to me like you're looking to just throw away money. With that budget there's no reason not to go Intel.

 

[Deleted member 88227]

I'm going to wait until the October Newegg combo deals are posted, but before then are you just dead set on AMD? Because with that budget and what you plan on doing, nothing from AMD will be able to compare to a 2600K build with a Nvidia based video card which brings me to another question. Running a nvidia based card will give you a nice performance boost in Photoshop (Most all of Adobe's products) with Nvidia's CUDA technology, so I would build a rig around that if you do a lot of Photoshop/Design work.

Sure the 2600k ~$145 more for just the processor, but you do not have to run DDR3 1600 RAM with Sandy Bridge, so you can save ~$10 going with DDR3 1333 RAM instead on the SB setup. Still ~$135 more, but IMHO depending on how much work you do it's worth it. Even the 2500k is a faster processor.

 

[scarredtaka]

Thanks for the opinions.

See, this shows I'm out of the loop. I wasn't even considering an Intel build because the last time I looked, (x58 i7-920 days)
it seemed that an Intel build was going to be quite a bit more expensive than an AMD build. (Also, my budget was a bit more limited then.)

Anyways, I was still thinking Intel was running triple channel ram in all their boards.
Did some research and saw that was just the x58 boards.
Again, shows that I've looked a little bit at Intel, but hadn't really given it much thought.

After throwing a few items into the cart over at the egg, I think that I can afford an Intel build.

My initial post has been updated to reflect this change. I not quite as familiar with Intel chipsets, so some more guidance would be appreciated.

A few new thoughts/questions then.

- I will plan the new build around the Intel i7-2600 processor / an Nvidia video card.

- P67 is the newest chipset?

- If I am not planning on overclocking the CPU, is there any reason to buy the K version of the processor?

- Benchmarks show the GTX 560 Ti to be the Nvidia counterpart to the AMD 6950? Yes or No?

- If I want to run 3 or 4 monitors, (I would only game on 1), can I mix and match video cards? Say the GTX 560 Ti for the monitor I game on, and something small like a GT 430 for secondary monitors?

Thanks again for all the help.

-ST

 

[Deleted member 88227]

-I'd recommend going with the 560 Ti or the 570 GTX
-Z68, P67, H67, H61 and B65 are the chipsets with the Z68 being the "feature rich" and newest version.
-If you have to ask then no, the K series are basically just for over clocking
-Basically yes. As recommended above, it's the best card for ~$230
-Yes you can.