Phenom II build

A

Araanor

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 28, 2005
Messages
207
Howdy. After 3½ years with my trusty Athlon X2 build I feel I have to get with the times.

Internet, multimedia, hacking, playing rusty old games:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 810 2.6Ghz
Motherboard: Asus M4A78T-E (integrated graphics)
Memory: 4GB DDR3 Crucial, choice between 1066Mhz Cl7 and 1333Mhz CL9
Case: Antec P182
PSU: Seasonic S12-2 550W (at least twice as many watts as I'd ever use, eh)
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB (they should've sorted out the problem now, hm?)
DVD-unit: Yes.
Mouse: Logitech G5 v2

Will scavenge a X-Fi soundcard. Will throw in a standalone video card if need arises.

Looks fine?
 
I would suggest getting pair of WD 640GB Blue in place of that Seagate 1.5TB.

Right now there is no advantage over DDR2 with DDR3.
 
lt_shiro said:
I would suggest getting pair of WD 640GB Blue in place of that Seagate 1.5TB.
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I need a better density than 640GB per drive, I have some left-overs from my current computer. And I can't say I trust WD any more than Seagate...

Right now there is no advantage over DDR2 with DDR3.
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Well, DDR3 draws less power, right? Not much of a price difference any way?

chongl said:
Seasonic M12 maybe for modular?
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I was concerned about efficiency... But after checking with a test over at SPCR I guess those look fine too. Good point.
 
Araanor said:
Well, DDR3 draws less power, right? Not much of a price difference any way?
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Draws less power but it's really not that significant. There is a big price difference between DDR3 and DDR2 RAM.
 
Some people are still having firmware issues with the Seagate drives. You may want to visit a few more forums and/or threads to see if the problems have been fully resolved by now.

You can find DDR2 RAM that runs between 1.8V-1.9V, which isn't that much greater than DDR3 RAM (1.5V-1.6V). That said, $80 buys you at least 8GB of DDR2 memory versus 6GB of DDR3 RAM, so if may benefit you more (from a price/performance perspective) to go with DDR2 RAM.
 
The difference from switching to DDR2 for me would be like $25-45. It's not much considering total system cost so I'm willing to take that for the small benefits it may give.
 
Still seems like a lot of people are having problems with the Seagate drives. That sucks. It's the only one available in that class (1.5TB/7200).
 
I wouldn't risk my data with 11th gen 'cudas. Caviars (blue and black) have been working great for a while now (no widespread issues like seagate had), so I'm not sure why you wouldn't trust WD other than personal preference. Personally, I have over a dozen of each brand at home (caviar blues and 10th gen cudas), and have had no problems with either. At work, I have a dozen 1TB 11th gen cudas, of which 3 have bricked even after the firmware update. :( I know, my experience is anecdotal, but I thought I should share it anyways. ;)
 
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enginurd said:
I wouldn't risk my data with 11th gen 'cudas. Caviars (blue and black) have been working great for a while now (no widespread issues like seagate had), so I'm not sure why you wouldn't trust WD other than personal preference. Personally, I have over a dozen of each brand at home (caviar blues and 10th gen cudas), and have had no problems with either. At work, I have a dozen 11th gen cudas, of which 3 have bricked even after the firmware update. :( I know, my experience is anecdotal, but I thought I should share it anyways. ;)
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Since we're sharing our anecdotal experiences, gonna share mine: I've had one 11th gen 1TB 'cuda for about a year now and haven't had a problem with it. I've recently bought two more 11th gen 1TB 'cudas and they've been working just fine for about a week now. We'll see what happens in a few months from now with my two new drives but so far so good. One of my fdz got the 1.5TB drive and it's been working fine for the last four months.

With that said, even I wouldn't recommend the 11th gen 'cudas without providing info about the firmware problems. I'm more than willing to risk my data on those 11th gens since I have all my important data backed up. But I'm pretty sure not everyone is adventurous or have the time to deal with any problem as much as I do.
 
Well, I liked the cudas for their warranty, but now they're back down to 3yrs, so bleh. I go with Caviar Blacks now, if I want 5yr warranty.

btw, updated my post above, forgot to list the 11th gen cudas as 1TB.
 
The Caviar Blacks have 5 year warranty? Taking note here.

silent-circuit said:
Get at least a 920. You'll miss the cache otherwise.
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It also has a TDP of 125W (vs 95W for 810) which is something I'd like to avoid.

I'd actually prefer something below 95W but didn't find any good offerings when I took a look.
 
Well, I'm planning to use this computer for 3 years forward so I'm somehow imagining that the extra core would be good to have for the long haul...
 
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This is what I ordered:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 810 2.6Ghz
Motherboard: Asus M4A78T-E (integrated graphics)
Memory: Crucial 4GB DDR3 1333Mhz CL9
Case: Antec P182
PSU: Seasonic M12-II PSU 430W
HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB
DVD-unit: Some Samsung brick.
Mouse: Logitech G5 v2

Extra extra extra:
Keyboard: Logitech UltraX Premium
Speakers: Harman Kardon Soundsticks II
Switch: CNet Switch 5P 10/100 (for like $15 - I remember when they cost 10 times as much...)

Thanks for the help!
 
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