Compatability Issues?

D

Denamian

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 14, 2005
Messages
198
I'm working on making a new system for gaming/personal use. I was wondering if some of you could take a look at it and let me know if you see any glaring problems with my plan that I might have missed (too weak PSU, wrong RAM for mobo, etc). Thank you!

AMD Phenom 9950 BLACK EDITION 2.6GHz Quad-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103273

MSI Platinum AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130136

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4870 - 512MB Video Card (x2 - 1GB total)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102748

Rosewill 600W SLI Ready-ATX12V V2.01 Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182032

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel (x2 - 4GB total)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145177

WD 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA Hard Drive (x2 - 1TB total)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073

ViewSonic VX1932wm 19" DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824116088

Rosewill ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147057

The estimated total price (after rebates, instant savings, and shipping costs) is about $1400 from NE. Does anyone know of any place that I can find any of the parts for less money, or more importantly (as I mentioned before) - any problems with compatibility, etc?

I should probably point out that I am planning to run XP Pro 64-Bit for the time being (since I already own that) - and then will purchase the next generation of windows that is slated to come out in the relatively near future.

Thank you all for the help!
 
Do you already have an AMD CPU lying around or did you forget to add it in your list? Also will you be overclocking?

Anyway, no way in hell is that Rosewill PSU capable of handling 4870 Crossfire. Rosewill PSUs are a hit or a miss and only two of them are worth buying. Even then there will be better PSUs for the price. If you intend to go Crossfire, I recommend ponying up the money for this PSU:
Corsair 750TX 750W PSU - $98

Then again, you do NOT need HD 4870 Crossfire for a 19" monitor. The HD4850 is more than enough for that resolution. So either drop down to a single HD4870 or HD4850 and save the cash for a bigger monitor or multiple monitors. A single HD4850 can hold its own at 1920x1200 (a 24"+ monitor). Still go with the PSU I recommended earlier because it's simple one of the best PSU deals out right now.

Drop the RAM as well. It's seriously overpriced since you can get 4GB of RAM for less:
G.SKILL F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ 2 x 2GB DDR2 800 RAM - $80

Do you really need 1TB of hard drive space? If not, I recommend going with this really fast drive instead:
Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $90

The above drive performs on par and in some cases better than many Raptor drives.
 
Denamian said:
Rosewill 600W SLI Ready-ATX12V V2.01 Power Supply
Click to expand...
I agree with the others that you should get a higher quality PSU. Newegg usually has higher than average prices on PSUs, so shop around.

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel (x2 - 4GB total)
Click to expand...
Get two 2GB sticks. I can't think of any reason to get DDR2-1066 RAM for an AMD build. There are plenty of cheap 2x2 DDR2-800 kits on newegg.

ViewSonic VX1932wm 19" DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor
Click to expand...
This appears to be out of stock. I'd recommend this 22" Acer for $219.99 with free shipping.

Did you forget about a CPU?
 
WHOOPS on the processor! I added a 2.6 to the list instead of the 2.2 I had, and must have forgotten to copy it over. I edited it into the message at the top. But I'll put it here too.

AMD Phenom 9950 BLACK EDITION 2.6GHz Quad-Core Processor


Thanks for pointing that out! My bad
 
Thanks for the links guys! I had looked at the corsair power supplies, but since corsair is relatively new into that market (as far as I know at least) - I wasn't sure if the positive reviews were true, or just some fluff by the fanboys. I'll defiantly toss that one in there.

The listed price on the 4x1gb sticks of RAM that was showing up was NOT the actual price. Because they were on sale, and had a rebate (it turned out to be about $80 bucks for the 4x1). However! Thanks for finding that 2x2 deal for me. I didn't really even think about looking into that TBH, because I figured it would be substantially more expensive.

As for the monitor: I'll be honest there. I know almost nothing about flat screen monitors, because my current one was a very nice CRT, and I never had any real issues with it. So I never upgraded. I came up with the selection of flat screen that I had, by building a similar system on a pre-made computer website, and just put their recommended monitor into this build until someone said otherwise. Thanks for the recommendation!

Finally to HD space. Without beating around the bush. the 1TB was in there largly for the TB I could slap on there :p. However, there is more to it than that. I do a fair amount of video editing, and other things of that nature, which take up quite a bit of space. That's not to say that I couldn't make a 500 or a 640 work... but that brings me to the other reason that I had picked two 500s. I was under the (possibly mistaken?) impression that two drives under raid (or whatever it's called these days) would run more quickly than just one drive that had a larger capacity. (?)

Comments on this post? (namely the hard drive issue, since the other 3 sections were more explanations than anything else).

Thanks again for the help! I've got to head out to do some work, but I'll toss in the new parts when I get home tonight, and post a new spec list for C&C.
 
Denamian said:
Thanks for the links guys! I had looked at the corsair power supplies, but since corsair is relatively new into that market (as far as I know at least) - I wasn't sure if the positive reviews were true, or just some fluff by the fanboys. I'll defiantly toss that one in there.

The listed price on the 4x1gb sticks of RAM that was showing up was NOT the actual price. Because they were on sale, and had a rebate (it turned out to be about $80 bucks for the 4x1). However! Thanks for finding that 2x2 deal for me. I didn't really even think about looking into that TBH, because I figured it would be substantially more expensive.

As for the monitor: I'll be honest there. I know almost nothing about flat screen monitors, because my current one was a very nice CRT, and I never had any real issues with it. So I never upgraded. I came up with the selection of flat screen that I had, by building a similar system on a pre-made computer website, and just put their recommended monitor into this build until someone said otherwise. Thanks for the recommendation!

Finally to HD space. Without beating around the bush. the 1TB was in there largly for the TB I could slap on there :p. However, there is more to it than that. I do a fair amount of video editing, and other things of that nature, which take up quite a bit of space. That's not to say that I couldn't make a 500 or a 640 work... but that brings me to the other reason that I had picked two 500s. I was under the (possibly mistaken?) impression that two drives under raid (or whatever it's called these days) would run more quickly than just one drive that had a larger capacity. (?)

Comments on this post? (namely the hard drive issue, since the other 3 sections were more explanations than anything else).

Thanks again for the help! I've got to head out to do some work, but I'll toss in the new parts when I get home tonight, and post a new spec list for C&C.
Click to expand...

the 640 hdd recommended to you earlier is much faster than those 500gb because of its larger platter design. also corsair is a very high quality psu brand so you dont have to worry about that, but you should think about getting a intel build instead as they are proven to be much faster unless you have a amd mobo or cpu already
 
onedestinazn2 said:
the 640 hdd recommended to you earlier is much faster than those 500gb because of its larger platter design. also corsair is a very high quality psu brand so you dont have to worry about that, but you should think about getting a intel build instead as they are proven to be much faster unless you have a amd mobo or cpu already
Click to expand...

Alright, thanks for the info on the HD. I'll toss that in too.

Also, for the re-assurance on the PSU :)

As for the AMD build. I have heard very, VERY good things about the new HD cards (that are in my build). And I figured that if I was going to use those, I might as well stick with as much AMD/ATI stuff as I could.

Also, I have used AMD in the past, and so have many of my friends, and I have never had any complaints.

From what I understand about the BLACK phenom processors, they have a pretty high level of over-clock-ability. That a 2.2 could easily be clocked up to a 3.0 or so. So that 2.6 should be able to hit 3.5 with no trouble.

Lastly, I am a bit of an AMD fan. I do not consider myself a fanboy by any means (because, by definition, I am not fanatical about the issue :p) -- but as I said before, I have used them in the past with good results, and more importantly, I believe that competition is good for the market. And every person that makes an AMD build is helping to support that competition. Which in turn supports innovation. Which is good for all of us :)
 
Denamian said:
From what I understand about the BLACK phenom processors, they have a pretty high level of over-clock-ability. That a 2.2 could easily be clocked up to a 3.0 or so. So that 2.6 should be able to hit 3.5 with no trouble.
Click to expand...

Actually they don't. 3.1Ghz is about the max OC I've seen so far for any Black Edition Phenom CPU.

Denamian said:
Lastly, I am a bit of an AMD fan. I do not consider myself a fanboy by any means (because, by definition, I am not fanatical about the issue :p) -- but as I said before, I have used them in the past with good results, and more importantly, I believe that competition is good for the market. And every person that makes an AMD build is helping to support that competition. Which in turn supports innovation. Which is good for all of us :)
Click to expand...

One could also make the argument that by going with the better company forces the losing company to work even harder to improve their products and get back their lost customers. In other words, don't reward or buy from failures.

In any case, if you want AMD, go for it. But a quick rundown just to make sure you know what your buying:
- Clock for clock any Intel C2D derived CPU will outperform an AMD CPU
- The $200 Q6600 can OC to about 3.2Ghz to 3.6Ghz and outperform any Phenom CPU even at stock speeds.
- But socket 775 is on its death bed while socket AM2+ still has some life in it.
 
Danny Bui said:
Actually they don't. 3.1Ghz is about the max OC I've seen so far for any Black Edition Phenom CPU.



One could also make the argument that by going with the better company forces the losing company to work even harder to improve their products and get back their lost customers. In other words, don't reward or buy from failures.

In any case, if you want AMD, go for it. But a quick rundown just to make sure you know what your buying:
- Clock for clock any Intel C2D derived CPU will outperform an AMD CPU
- The $200 Q6600 can OC to about 3.2Ghz to 3.6Ghz and outperform any Phenom CPU even at stock speeds.
- But socket 775 is on its death bed while socket AM2+ still has some life in it.
Click to expand...

Thank for the info, I really do appreciate it.

For me, I am running a single core 64-bit 1.8 ghz right now... so quad core at 3.0ghz is a lot to me, and I'm not going to ball my eyes out over the 0.5ghz differences that currently exist, because I am looking to keep this computer base for upgradability (2x2gb ram so I can add more, one 620gb HD so I can double that in the future, one 512 video card (so I can quadruple that in the future if I wish).

With all of that in mind, I didn't really comfortable with going back to a 775. Heck, even my 3-year-old single-core uses 939. I want to be able to plop another AM2+ in there in 18 months or so, and have a decent upgrade for a reasonable price.

Not to mention that I am looking to keep as few companies tied up in this build as I can (with the new PSU recommendation, I can pretty much keep it all in Corsair and AMD/ATI).

Will post new expected build with prices later tonight for a final look-over.

Thanks!
 
Alrighty, here's my semi-final thinking on the subject. I would love to hear your thoughts!

AMD Phenom 9950 BLACK EDITION 2.6GHz Quad-Core Processor

MSI K9A2 Platinum AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard

CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Memory

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Video Card

Western Digital Caviar 640GB SATA Hard Drive

CORSAIR 750WPower Supply

Acer 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor

Rosewill ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

A few things to ask of you all at this juncture.
  1. Will this power supply hold up under my future planned upgrades (another 512mb video card, another 620gb hard drive, and another 2x2GB memory kit)?
  2. Does anyone know of a different motherboard that I should be getting? This one was fairly well reviewed, and had lots of 2x PCI-E 16x capabilities
  3. Cases - does anyone know of a better case with a reasonable price that would have better ventilation (preferably while avoiding the window-on-the-side look)?

Total price after shipping and MIR: ~$1200 on NE.

Someone linked the exact same corsair PSU on a website called PROVANTAGE (I had not heard of them before) - and it was like $10 cheaper than NE. Does anyone know anything else about that site? Do they have a good reputation? If so, I will price check between Newegg, Provantage, and zipzoomfly. Any other suggestions of websites that I should check on? (It's been a while since I put a PC together, figured I would check to see if there were any other new eTailers out there that have a good reputation with decent prices.

Thank you all so much once again!
 
i would go with s775 even though its "dying" the 45nm chips are so far ahead of amd's offering you might still have a better chip than anything amd may put out this or even the beginning of next year. most apps dont even fully utilize 4 core anyway so if you were to get something now and then jumped on a reduced price of the higher end s775 cpu's later like the q9xxx's. thats what im going to do since it might be awhile before nehalem becomes mainstream
 
To answer your questions:
  • Yes it can... but the real reason we're recommending the Corsair TX750 is because it has one of the best PSU deals around.
  • If you're getting a 22 inch LCD, you don't need SLI or CrossFire. (By the way, the board that you chose supports SLI, which only works with NVIDIA video cards. But again, you don't need that feature.) If you plan on keeping that monitor for several years, then all you really need is a board like the Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3.
  • If you're willing to spend a bit more, the Antec Three Hundred is a good choice. Another consideration is the Cooler Master RC-690.
One piece of advice: Don't count the amounts from mail-in rebates into your total. You still have to pay the full before-rebate price first and then wait weeks for the check to arrive. You're not saving any money right away.

Provantage is a good site which offers many components at a lower cost than NewEgg. So far, I haven't heard many problems from Provantage (though every site has its detractors). There is a large list of retailers listed in the GenHard FAQ/sticky that's located on the first page.

If you want the best performance possible out of your rig, again, go Intel (especially if you could afford to). As Danny mentioned earlier, the Q6600 -- Intel's entry-level quad core -- can beat most of the Phenom quads at stock speeds, and all of them once it's overclocked. And that's at the $200 level; the newer Q9-series processors perform better than all of the Phenoms at stock speeds, and they have the potential (though YMMV) to be overclocked at or near 4GHz. Buying something along the lines of an Intel Q9450 and an MSI P43 Neo3-F motherboard will give you better overall performance for around the same price frame. (And onedestinazn2 is correct: Though it will be eventually replaced by the Nehalem platform, the Socket 775 boards and processors will still have plenty of life left over the next 6-12 months.)
 
tiraides said:
To answer your questions:
  • Yes it can... but the real reason we're recommending the Corsair TX750 is because it has one of the best PSU deals around.
  • If you're getting a 22 inch LCD, you don't need SLI or CrossFire. (By the way, the board that you chose supports SLI, which only works with NVIDIA video cards. But again, you don't need that feature.) If you plan on keeping that monitor for several years, then all you really need is a board like the Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3.
  • If you're willing to spend a bit more, the Antec Three Hundred is a good choice. Another consideration is the Cooler Master RC-690.
One piece of advice: Don't count the amounts from mail-in rebates into your total. You still have to pay the full before-rebate price first and then wait weeks for the check to arrive. You're not saving any money right away.

Provantage is a good site which offers many components at a lower cost than NewEgg. So far, I haven't heard many problems from Provantage (though every site has its detractors). There is a large list of retailers listed in the GenHard FAQ/sticky that's located on the first page.

If you want the best performance possible out of your rig, again, go Intel (especially if you could afford to). As Danny mentioned earlier, the Q6600 -- Intel's entry-level quad core -- can beat most of the Phenom quads at stock speeds, and all of them once it's overclocked. And that's at the $200 level; the newer Q9-series processors perform better than all of the Phenoms at stock speeds, and they have the potential (though YMMV) to be overclocked at or near 4GHz. Buying something along the lines of an Intel Q9450 and an MSI P43 Neo3-F motherboard will give you better overall performance for around the same price frame. (And onedestinazn2 is correct: Though it will be eventually replaced by the Nehalem platform, the Socket 775 boards and processors will still have plenty of life left over the next 6-12 months.)
Click to expand...

In the new listing I had the corsair TX750 I thought? I'll double-check though. I appreciate your warning on the MIR thing, hehe, and I know that. I was just talking about TOTAL cost... not the initial outlay. I have about $3000 right now anyways (not for my computer budget, mind you, but in all), so I'm not too worried about the initial. Just what it ends up at in the end.

Does the motherboard that I have in there not even have crossfire? I know that it has SLI, but I figured that since it was an AMD-socketed mother board, that it would have crossfire as well. Not that I will be using that for at least a year (when I get the second card). But I would like to have it for the future.

I'll take a look at that sticky, thanks!

Gotta head to bed now. Got work starting in 6.5 hours :mad:
 
The board that you chose has Quad-SLI, but no CrossFire. But with the 22 inch monitor you're planning on buying, CrossFire and SLI would be a waste of money... especially if that's the only monitor you're going to use for the next few years.

You did choose the Corsair TX750 that's on sale at Provantage. I was just reiterating the main advantage of the e-retailer -- its lower prices on certain items (and it has some pretty reasonable shipping costs as well).
 
tiraides said:
The board that you chose has Quad-SLI, but no CrossFire.
Click to expand...

Its the other way around, the k9a2 plat. has an amd chipset (790FX) and can do quad crossfire, it will not be unable to do any sort of sli
 
pstang said:
Its the other way around, the k9a2 plat. has an amd chipset (790FX) and can do quad crossfire, it will not be unable to do any sort of sli
Click to expand...

Hehe thank you! That's what I was thinking. But now I'm second-guessing myself.

Can anyone else confirm that?

tiraides said:
But with the 22 inch monitor you're planning on buying, CrossFire and SLI would be a waste of money... especially if that's the only monitor you're going to use for the next few years.
Click to expand...

I do know that for now, but thank you for double-checking :) I just figure that if I am going to build it, there's no point in limiting my options, in case I do get a bigger/better monitor in the future, etc.
 
Denamian said:
Hehe thank you! That's what I was thinking. But now I'm second-guessing myself.

Can anyone else confirm that?
Click to expand...
Newegg can confirm that if you look under Specifications.

"4 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 Slot configurations: Dual CrossFire (16X+16X), Triple CrossFire (16X+8X+8X), Quad CrossFire (8X+8X+8X+8X)"
 
dhc014 said:
Newegg can confirm that if you look under Specifications.

"4 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 Slot configurations: Dual CrossFire (16X+16X), Triple CrossFire (16X+8X+8X), Quad CrossFire (8X+8X+8X+8X)"
Click to expand...

Thank you :) I was 99% sure, but just a little tenative after the warning that it was SLI.

Two final issues to raise. First of all, somehow I totally forgot to put in an optical drive :eek: so, are there any in particular that people would strongly recommend? (lightscribe cool - but not required). Just as a jumping-off point, here's the one that I was thinking of. So far as I can tell it has good reviews, good speeds, good price.

Secondly, as for cases, is there any significant difference between the cases that were mentioned above, and these two?
First
Second
I looked into the reviews on all 4 of them, and they all averaged 5/5 scores although the "second" one listed in this post had a smaller percentage of 4/5's.

All 4 of the cases seem to have some problem with motherboard alignment inside the case to one degree to another (reported by users at least). The case listed under "second" also has a lot of good reviews for having very good airflow.

Anyway -- what are you guys' thoughts on the matter of a final case selection? The price differences between them are negligible - so that isn't really a big deal either way.

As a gut feeling, I'm leaning a little more toward that Centurion 5 ("Second") case - but if someone knows more about any of those cases than I do, I would love to hear it!

Ty once again!
 
The Antec 300 and Coolermaster RC-690 are better cooling and better constructed. They're also a little bit easier to work with to due to their larger size.

I wounldn't go with your second case because it still uses a front 80mm fan that's pretty loud. You can't replace it with a 120mm fan either. So for those two reasons, I'd avoid the Centurion 5.

Personally I'd go with the RC-690 if costs wasn't a major factor. It's a pretty well constructed case with more cable management features than any of the four cases mentioned.
 
Danny Bui said:
The Antec 300 and Coolermaster RC-690 are better cooling and better constructed. They're also a little bit easier to work with to due to their larger size.

I wounldn't go with your second case because it still uses a front 80mm fan that's pretty loud. You can't replace it with a 120mm fan either. So for those two reasons, I'd avoid the Centurion 5.

Personally I'd go with the RC-690 if costs wasn't a major factor. It's a pretty well constructed case with more cable management features than any of the four cases mentioned.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much! I will probably do that then. Just a couple quick info questions about the 690.
  1. Are there LED lights? (I've found that sometimes the pictures lie)
  2. If so, can they be disabled by unplugging them from the mobo?
  3. Are the fans that come with it pretty quiet?

I'm asking those based on the fact that your wording sounded like you might personally own a 690. If I'm wrong about that, my apologies :)
 
Denamian said:
I'm asking those based on the fact that your wording sounded like you might personally own a 690. If I'm wrong about that, my apologies :)
Click to expand...

To be honest, I don't own a 690 nor have I seen one in actual operation. I usually buy Antec case/PSU combos for clients (i.e friends and families). But I always play with the RC-690 whenever I head down to Fry's. I've messed around with it enough to know that it's a pretty good case. Did the same thing with my current P180 case and that turned out just well for me.

Anyway:
1) The LED lights are from the fans themselves.
2) You can only get rid of the LED lights by getting rid of the fans themselves
3) Can't answer this one.
 
Danny Bui said:
1) The LED lights are from the fans themselves.
2) You can only get rid of the LED lights by getting rid of the fans themselves
Click to expand...

Booooo, lol. oh well. just another tower that I'll have to throw a towel over if I have to leave it on at night (cuz in my dorm room, those LED's make a decent amount of light when the other lights are turned off).

Ahh well, a minor inconvenience I suppose.

======

I just had it pointed out to me on another forum that the optical drive I had picked out was IDE not SATA. Whoopsie! :eek:. Back to looking for a diff one to toss in there :p

======

One final issue for my computer's parts. I just read the preview on the new dual core (x2) ATI card that was announced this week (a.k.a. the R700). I am VERY interested in tossing one of those into my system instead of the 4870 single. I realize that it will probably be another month or more before the x2 is released. But I can wait for that.

The main things that I am concerned about concerning the R700 are:
  1. Power consumption
  2. Wiring

As for consumption. The test comps were running at about 470w on max-load. However, some of their specs were a little low. I would ballpark mine at being around 600-650 on max load. With the efficiency of the corsair PSU that I have in mind for my build. Do you think I would be able to run the x2 (R700) without getting a different PSU/Mobo?

As for the power connections, it uses a 6-pin power connector, and an 8-pin. I'm assuming that on a PSU such as the corsair one we tossed in here would have plenty of those laying around. But I just wanted to double-check.

Thanks!
 
The Corsair 750TX will be enough power for the HD4870X2. The 750TX also comes with all the connectors you need for the HD4870X2

Also, I'd say that you'd use about the same amount of power as the HardOCP test did. And the specs are significantly better than yours.
 
Danny Bui said:
The Corsair 750TX will be enough power for the HD4870X2. The 750TX also comes with all the connectors you need for the HD4870X2

Also, I'd say that you'd use about the same amount of power as the HardOCP test did. And the specs are significantly better than yours.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info!

(Really? Well, I guess I did kinda glance over the exact specs, but I remembered them saying that the other parts were dumbed down a bit so as to intentionally cause the bottleneck to be at the GPU. So I just kinda assumed. My bad on that part)
 
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