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building new am3 system

A

alldat

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 23, 2005
Messages
72
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming, web-browsing, movies, music, a little photoshop
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$1200-1300 taxed & shipped.
3) Where do you live?
Arizona
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
The whole pc the case and everything inside
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
none
6) Will you be overclocking?
I have never overclocked before and I am rather hesitant to do so; I would not mind giving it a try, but stability is my top priority
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
20 inch plan on upgrading later to an 22 inch.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Late August or early September
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
Firewire would be nice.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
Yes, vista 64 bit will be upgrading to windows 7 64 bit
 
motherboard: $125 AR ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard (1 rear panel firewire and 1 firewire header on the motherboard)
CPU: $200 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz (if they ever get it back in stock)
RAM: $75 G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel
PSU: $140 SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus SS-650HT 650W (80 plus cert)
GFX: $250 XFX HD-489A-ZDEC Radeon HD 4890 Xtreme 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 (comes with a free copy of HAWX, double lifetime warranty) or for $217 XFX GX275XAHFF GeForce GTX 275 896MB 448-bit DDR3 (both of these cards can easily max out almost every game @ the resolutions you plan to use em on)

ill leave the hard drives out for now and case.. at least for me personally i think the cases are purely the person buying its personal preference since not everyone likes the same style cases.. and for the hard drives it really depends on if storage is your primary concern or speed..

btw you could also go with a gtx 260 216 core instead of either of those cards i picked.. might have to use a little lower AA setting but its much cheaper..

also there are a lot of sales going on right now and id expect there to be even more by the end of this month and going into september since the new generation cards are due out in october(ATI) and november(nvidia)..
 
this is what i am thinking about now tell me what u think
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz
RAM: mushkin 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX 620W
GFX: MSI R4890 Cyclone OC Radeon HD 4890 1GB
CASE: Antec Nine Hundred Two Black Steel
HDD: 2 Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB
MOBO: GIGABYTE

GIGABYTE GA-MA790FXT-UD5P AM3 DDR3 AMD 790FX OR ASUS Crosshair III Formula AM3 AMD 790FX What do u think?
 
well skip the MSI card.. its cheap for a reason and i dont trust their customer service/RMA service or lack there of.. but other then that all of those are good choices..

both motherboards are good.. the only reason id go with the 790FX is if you plan to do crossfire.. then you can take advantage of the dual 16x pci-e slots.. other then that in a single card flavor it would be identical to the 790GX boards running 16x first slot and 8x in the second slot while at the same time having on board video as a back up....
 
the msi card got really good reviews maybe i will go with a his card my current video card is a his and i have had no problems with it
 
for ATI cards.. spend the extra and get the XFX cards.. top of the line customer service and double lifetime warranties(just make sure when buying it that it is the version with the double lifetime warranty.. because they do sell a 1 year warranty version as well) atleast for me.. the warranty is everything.. especially since i tend to build and use a system for atleast 2-3 years..

for nvidia XFX, EVGA, BFG all have lifetime warranties.. and excellent customer service..(same as before EVGA and XFX also sell cheaper 1 year lifetime warrantied cards)

i cant say much for HIS cards though since ive never owned one..
 
COOLER MASTER RS-700-AMBA-D3 700W ATX12V V2.3 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Retail and COOLER MASTER Storm Scout SGC-2000-KKN1-GP Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail Combo $170

AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Processor - Retail $170

GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail $85

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10600CL8D-4GBHK - Retail $78

Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM $75

SAMSUNG DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-S223L LightScribe Support - OEM $29

or

LG Black 8X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 40X CD-ROM SATA Internal Combo LG Blu-ray Reader & 16X LightScribe DVD±R DVD Burner - Retail $125

XFX HD-487A-ZHFC Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail $150

Total before S&H $757 (dvd burner) or $853 (blu ray/dvd burner combo)

4890 is bit overkill for 22" display
 
I would go with the 3.2Ghz 125W quad instead of the 3.0Ghz 95W.

I love mine, it's so fast!
 
if they both overclock to the same levels (945 will get to 4.3 @ 1.5v on air), extra 200 mhz at stock really isn't worth $30 and 945 is about 25% less power hungry than its big brother? why get the 955...
 
lt_shiro said:
if they both overclock to the same levels (945 will get to 4.3 @ 1.5v on air), extra 200 mhz at stock really isn't worth $30 and 945 is about 25% less power hungry than its big brother? why get the 955...
Click to expand...

Think of it this way.

1. It is actually a quad core cpu, so you're gaining 800mhz in speed, not 200mhz.

2. The 3.2 @ 125W will probably not consume much more power than the 3.0 @ 95W because the 3.2 cpu will not always be consuming 125W, it will only consume that much power when it is running at full tilt. Or at least, it won't have to work as hard as the 3.0ghz. So the cpu that is clocked higher but consumes more power at full usage may actually consume a similiar amount of power running at average speed as a lower clocked cpu that consumes more power at full load.

Confused? I am. But do you see what I'm getting at?
 
Oh you're right, I quoted, but didn't properly read your reply about overclocking.
 
For a 22" or lower, you'll probably never need crossfire. If two CPUs OC the same and perform similarly at or near the same clockrate, get the cheaper one.
 
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