Need some advice on New system please

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reaper12

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Hi ALl,

I am fed up waiting for AMD and decided to put together a system. What do you all think of this? I am a little clueless about DDR3 and DDR2, but I know I need an x38 because I have one HD3870 already and want to setup my system with crossfire. Here is what I am getting:-

XClio Windtunnel Extreme Cooling Midi Tower Case - Black (No PSU)
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache
HIS ATI Radeon HD 3870 XT ICEQ3 512MB GDDR4
OCZ 2GB DDR3 PC3-12800C7 1600MHz Platinum Enhanced Bandwidth
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition"
Asus P5E3 Deluxe Intel X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
Scythe Ninja Plus Rev.B CPU Cooler

I am just wondering is it worth the money? I am most concerned with the motherboard and memory. Will there be much performance difference between the motherboard and memory above and the ones listed below?

Gigabyte GA-X38-DS5 Intel X38
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz

Any recommendations will be much appreciated. I mainly game and watch movies on my PC.

Thanks!!
 
DDR-3 is a huge waste of money at the moment. There is absolutely no reason for it on a Core 2 platform. Look for DDR-3 to make in roads only once the next generation Intel Core architecture (Nehelem) is out.

With that said, if you want X-38 I would recommend the ASUS Maximum Formula, as it's perhaps the best (and certainly most popular) X-38 board on the market, and uses DDR-2 memory. For 2x2 gig, you shouldn't pay more than $100, with current deals going as low as $55 (for PC-6400 / 800mhz.) Also note that anything faster than PC-6400 RAM will go to waste on a Q6600, unless you a determined to reach a 4ghz+ OC on water. Enginurd has a great cut and paste explaining the math behind this (you can look for it in many of the other rig-suggestion posts.)

Keep in mind that CrossFire is not worth it if you do not game at a resolution of 1920x1200 or above, and CrossFire / SLI is never worth it as an upgrade path. By the time you are ready to upgrade to that second card, a newer single card solution will be available that will likely out perform two of your older cards in CrossFire. Furthermore, if you sell your old card, the upgrade to that newer card will likely cost less in the end than buying that second card. Coupled with the fact that CrossFire doesn't scale as well as nVidia SLI, and that the HD3870 cards, while not bad by any means, aren't as powerful as their nVidia equivalents, CrossFire is hard to recommend these days for any setup.
 
Coupled with the fact that CrossFire doesn't scale as well as nVidia SLI, and that the HD3870 cards, while not bad by any means, aren't as powerful as their nVidia equivalents, CrossFire is hard to recommend these days for any setup.
Click to expand...

...what?

I thought it was opposite, that Crossfire scales better than SLI. It's true that one HD 3870 doesn't beat an 8800GT, but 2 HD 3870s trade blows with 2 8800GTs if this chart is correct. The fact that you can do Crossfire on an intel board is also a huge plus.
 
The fact that CrossFire is supported on Intel chipsets is a huge plus, and while CrossFire may scale better at some games than SLI, I do indeed believe that SLI is supported in more titles than CrossFire, and/or has better support in more titles. Keep in mind that how well a game scales with a dual video card setup has much to do with the game's code itself, and how the drivers are tuned for that specific game.
 
Well the support part is true, though as an absolute Crossfire should scale better. Then again, if you're worried about support, I don't know why you would even go for a Crossfire/SLI setup in the first place.

I could be colored by my biases though. I'm not a fan of either method.
 
Well thanks for the replies, I game at 1920*1080, and currently I have an opteron 170 oc to 2.6Ghz and 2GB ram on a DFI Lanparty ultra motherboard. The HD 3870 I have blocks the chipset fan on the motherboard and that is why I am upgrading. I got the HD 3870 as a christmas present, and this is why I want to upgrade to a board capable of crossfire. I am not a fan of either crossfire or SLI myself either.

I was waiting for a good phenom CPU to come out because I really like the 790FX motherboard, but a good phenom might never come. So that leaves with an X38 motherboard. I am looking to get some overclock, getting to 3Ghz or a little more is fine for me.

As for the memory, the 1600Mhz sticks that I posted are the first DDR3 ram that I have seen that comes highly recommended, but if PC-6400 will allow me to overclock farily well then I probably shouldn't pay the extra.

I did read that crossfire works better on DDR3 boards. I keep confusing myself!!:D
 
Wll after reading more reviews and stuff I decided to go with some of your advice Marky. I am getting a Foxcon X38A motherboard, which will support DDR2 and DDR3 :cool: It sounds like a very good motherboard and comes with a lot of extras!!

I am getting 4 GB of DDR2-800 memory, OCZ reaper versions (2*2GB)

And I am going to hold off on the second 3870 and see what happens in the next few months!!

Thanks everyone.
 
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