Mala's New Computer Build

[Mala]

I'm planning on ordering parts soon for a new computer soon (finally!). Can a few people just check over my parts and make sure they make sense? This isn't my first build but it has been a while, so I just want to make sure I'm not being dumb about part choices. If you have any opinions about certain parts or any better suggestions feel free to share. I'm thinking AMD right now, but if you have a good enough reason to go Intel I'd be open to switch. Thanks guys!

ASUS Crosshair III Formula AM3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory

SAPPHIRE 100283L Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP
(I'm just getting one graphics card for now, but I eventually plan on getting a second one. Still debating on just biting the bullet and getting the 5850 - do you guys think the extra $ is worth it?)

CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91
(Will 850W be enough for 2 5770's? Or 2 5850's?)

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA

I already bought this case: Antec Nine Hundred Two Black Steel ATX Mid TowerA

[Dan(omite)]

Looks good to me. The video card would be the only debatable part. Some like the 5000 series because they are DX11, while others stick with a 4870 or 4890 because they are 256 bit with a little faster clock. I'd say either way you'll be alright.

[Desseler]

You should definitely get a cpu cooler. OVERCLOCKING!!!!1!11!!1111!!! :3

[Dan(omite)]

Yeah, a cpu cooler wouldnt be a bad idea, even if you dont overclock. I dont even OC mine but with how much heat my video card pumps out during gaming, I decided to get a better cooler. You can get them pretty cheap, and could get the OEM cpu instead.

[Stephen]

good build BUT theres few things you can change to save money

cpu go with the 955 the 965 runs has only a 200 mhz increase that can be done easy with adding the multiplier

then for motherboard just go with the asus m4a79-t d youll save about 40 bucks, youll loose out on basicly only the audio having XFI but most games are straying away from it now anyways so whats the point lol

video card id bite the bullet and get the 5850 instead of getting a 5770 and crossfiring it, theres not to much of a performance gain for the money for dual cards.

power supply will be more then what your needing. 750 would still be good enough if you wanna save even more.

[Mala]

Thanks for the advice guys!

I plan on getting a CPU cooler for sure, I just didn't put it on the list.

Stephen I'll check out your suggestions. I may switch the motherboard and I'm seriously thinking about the 5850...we'll see how much everything costs when I put it together.

Thanks again. You guys are awesome =)

[Stephen]

with my suggestions youve saved around 100 bucks

plus not loosing any performance

[Desseler]

with my suggestions youve saved around 100 bucks

plus not loosing any performance

Win suggestions are win

[BoyButtSlapa]

Performance wise, the 5850 is where its at! one of those are enough power being said. As for the board, Steph has the good idea for the board, but i would recommend this board

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131402
since what you probably do, and if your not into extreme overclocking. this would probably best bang for your buck. Lots of people have there worrys bout pci express and runnin crossfire. i know this board only runs at 8x in a crossfire configuration
but since they cpu will be the bottleneck anyways, if you do choose to go Xfire later, pci-e 2.0 has a better bandwidth management then previous pcie -e 1.0 where 16x to 8x was necessary. so basically u wouldn't be able to max out the bandwidth on an 8x Pci-E 2.0 or 2.1 system. As for chip set versions, The AMD 790X chipset still allows u to OC with lots of headroom, but the 790fx from looking at the build you posted, is basically made for Extreme Overclockers, with water / nitro cool.
that being said it would save you another 100 bucks from the board steph posted, since i don't really see the need for 4 pciE slots.
also for the GPU look for either the sapphire vapour x series of powercolour PCS+ series(which is vapour x just their version) sinces it wud run alot cooler and quite to standard cooling fan which is crap.

also scan thru the gigabyte boards, very solid and reliable performance from my experience with them. I am currently running gigabyte from asus, mainly because i'd rather pay for the board instead of all the useless crap asus tends to ship with their boards, and charge more for it.

as for the cpu either or since theres only about a 30 dollar difference between Phenom 2 x4 945 to 965 (same chip just different fequencies)

for the Ram, Kingston seems to be the Ideal ram Asus seems to use on their boards, since before asus boards would automatically set kingston ram to certain or higher frequencies when added to the board. But GSkill has been making pretty reliable and solid Ram. I personally prefer Patriot Ram. DUno Why? But heres a head up, people think the higher the frequnecy ram the faster shit is. NO IT ISN"T you can run all games and applications the same if your runnin ddr2 800mhz ram to ddr3 2000mhz ram no gain watso ever! so which ever suits your budget better get that!

for your PSU looks good, 750w is more then enough for the build you listed, since the 5000 ati series card use alot less power then the 4000 series. I run a PC power and cooling PSU @ 750w and seen build with 4 4850 ati GPu, core i7 OC'd 8 Gbs of Memory, 2-4 HDDs and big J10 CPU Cooler, so i say 850 is more then enough, just make sure the rails are solid!! don't want your rails to fluxuate too too much since that'll cause instability and may burn shit out.

Also look into duel 500 or 640 gb Black edition drives from WD, since you shud run raid and increase your performance but abit more to loading times!!

later

[madmattd]

To tag on what BoyButtSlapa said above, look at the Gigabyte boards. I highly recommend them, I've used them in both systems I've built in the last year (one wasn't mine), and they are rock solid. No problems with either out of the box, and good prices on them. Easy to overclock with them too from what I have heard. The biggest thing I like is that the one in my desktop has a dual BIOS, which saved my ass when I was flashing with a floppy that was a bit too old...needless to say it corrupted half-way through. But the board automatically loaded the backup BIOS on restart and all was good. I'm not sure if anyone else is putting this in their boards, and I don't know if it is in every Gigabyte board, but it's nice if it is there. Typically they carry 8 SATA ports too, which is crazy!

[ATG Aaron]

so it would be faster to raid 3 500gb hd together than to use the 1.5 T hd im using now

[Stephen]

yes, but if one hard drive dies you loose everything

[hulkvsspawn]

I say get one SSD drive and call it good. Who's going to set this up for her? Mala have you done a raid setup before.

[hulkvsspawn]

Also, definately do what Stephen recommends. It's quite easy to get the same performance out of a cheaper chip. That MB is overkill. Make sure your memory is listed by the vendor. This used to not matter, but lately I've seen new builds that didn't perform properly because the DRAM wasn't on the fully qualified vendor list. I think this happened to Shaun and he had to exchange some memory. I only mention this because I didn't see the AM3 platform listed on Newegg's specification section. If your looking for performance, get a SSD drive. If your looking for storage, get a TB platter drive. Most importantly is the video card. don't skimp out, get the 5850.

[hulkvsspawn]

so it would be faster to raid 3 500gb hd together than to use the 1.5 T hd im using now

Yes theoretically twice a s fast. I think the newer versions of raid even use redundancy. (Raid 5) so go get another 1.5 TB drive and double your speed Aaron!