Thinking of building a new AMD system

[DJ12]

I was mulling over an upgrade recently and now have thought more about it and have decided to go ahead with it. I was debating whether it would be best to just get a new GPU, but I have decided I will be better off keeping my current GPU (Radeon x1950 xt) for now (I will most likely upgrade that later this year) and update everything else.

This is what I have sort of decided upon, but I am open to suggestion.

Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DS5 - £104.59 - Motherboard there is a better one, but I have no intention of getting four ATI cards so this one will do rather than it's more expensive DQ brother.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ - £96.95 - Best X2 available, reasonable price will do until the phenom is viable.

Zalman CNPS 9700 LED - £34.76 - From what I can gather this is the best cooler for both noise and temperature.

OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800Mz/PC2-6400 Memory REAPER X EDITION ENHANCED - £87.99 - Overkill maybe, but it's cheap enough. recently paid more for 2gb of ram for my current PC and it was cheap stuff.

Thermaltake Soprano VB1000SWS Silver Mid-Tower Case with Side Window - £48.47 - Nice case with good cooling, 2 large fans front and back and a smaller fan on the side.

£372 in total, any thoughts/suggestions?

This will be my first PC build.

I've decided to go AMD as I will be able to just drop in a phenom at a later point and the performance per pound seems to better than quad core intel cpu's.

 

[Davros]

is there a big difference in performance between a 6400 + A phenom ?
why get the 6400+ at all ?
but then again according to toms hardware the 6400 beats the phenom9700 by a small margin

 

[MulciberXP]

...

 

[AlphaWolf]

is there a big difference in performance between a 6400 + A phenom ?
why get the 6400+ at all ?
but then again according to toms hardware the 6400 beats the phenom9700 by a small margin

The new phenom's are a step up. Dunno when they will hit retail tho.

 

[Davros]

really ? according to the article they're the same but without the tlb bug

personally id wait and put the savings toward a gfx card

 

[DJ12]

is there a big difference in performance between a 6400 + A phenom ?
why get the 6400+ at all ?
but then again according to toms hardware the 6400 beats the phenom9700 by a small margin

Yeah the current phenoms aren't much good, I would say they are broke and the fix kills the performance they do have.

I plan on waiting for the 9850 black edition to be superseded and get it's replacement.

personally id wait and put the savings toward a gfx card

I checked on tomshardware using the charts and a new CPU gave me between 60 and 70 fps more in most games over my Athlon 64 3500+, getting an OCed 8800gt increased it by about 40.

Anyway it's a moot point as this little lot leaves me enough to get an OCed 8800 gt anyway.

 

[AlphaWolf]

really ? according to the article they're the same but without the tlb bug

personally id wait and put the savings toward a gfx card

If the bug was making as much difference as the results in their tests, I suppose it was a good thing they fixed it. With perhaps the exception of LAME encoding it seems the new Phenoms will offer a pretty decent value.

 

[DJ12]

The new ##50 phenoms have higher clock speeds as well as the fix for the tlb bug.

Anyway. The thread has been hijacked

What about the parts I have selected, are they the best option available?

 

[Davros]

Never mind your bloody parts - we want to talk about the tlb bug

seriously though first get 1 chip or the other getting both is just a waste imho
but the best option would be to go intel - sorry

 

[ShaidarHaran]

I see no reason for anyone buy AMD right now, unless they simply refuse to use Intel hardware.

 

[DJ12]

I do.

Seriously though if I match my processor with it's nearest intel competitor (in terms of price the intel one is about £20 more as it's not available in OEM form) it's basically a wash.

If I could get an E8500 in the UK maybe I would've considered paying £60 more, but seeing as there are nowhere, not even speciality PC sites I decided the path I have chosen will be OK for me. As I said it's my intention to drop a phenom in the box in a 6 months to a year down the line.

 

[Accord1999]

I do.

Seriously though if I match my processor with it's nearest intel competitor (in terms of price the intel one is about £20 more as it's not available in OEM form) it's basically a wash.

The E6750 is also faster, and uses something like 40% of the full load power of the Smithfield-like 6400+. And of course, it's far more overclockable if it's something you care about.

If I could get an E8500 in the UK maybe I would've considered paying £60 more, but seeing as there are nowhere, not even speciality PC sites I decided the path I have chosen will be OK for me. As I said it's my intention to drop a phenom in the box in a 6 months to a year down the line.

If I were you, I would just bite the bullet and get the Q6600 now and save myself the hassle and cost of getting two processors that still aren't as good as the Q6600.

 

[Blazkowicz]

what about a 4400+? "slow" but 65nm, low power and you have everything needed to o/c it.

AMD still looks very good on the low end : nice low power CPUs. I've rebuilt my PC with a sempron LE-1100, two cheap gigs of crucial PC5300 and a used 7600GT, it's so much faster than my older XP2400+ w/ 512MB, I didn't even o/c it (I don't have the HDD space for newer games nor the cash, mind you). I'm never in a hurry, when needed I can always get a 45nm triple core phenom, more gigs of ram and storage and a used 9600GT.

 

[the maddman]

I "upgraded" to a X2 4400+ this christmas. I only paid $80 for a 690G mobo, processor and 2 gig of DDR2 after rebates.

I'm happy with the speed of the machine, the onboard graphics managed to push WoW at 1440x900 30fps most of the time until I got a X1950 Pro. I know it's not cutting edge, but it was cheap and I could pass my old A64 3000+ and X800 to my wife.

 

[BrynS]

Since you're getting a decent cooler, you could save nearly £40 and pickup an X2 5000+ Black Edition with unlocked multiplier. There's no guarantee, but you should get at least 3GHz out of it, and if you check the comments on Ebuyer, alot have clocked up to 3.2GHz (6400+) with no problems.

I don't know if there are any ATX 780G motherboards available yet, but if so it might be worth considering if you don't need CrossFire. You'd get SB700, the ability to possibly use Hybrid CrossFire (via the integrated HD3200) in future and the power saving benefits of switching between discrete and integrated graphics; 780G should be cheaper to boot (sorry ).

 

[mrcorbo]

Apparently, the Intel prices are inflated at retail right now because they aren't making the most desirable parts (the dual core 45nm especially, but even the quads) in enough volume yet and demand is driving the price up.

In the 10 years since I built my first PC around a K6-2 + socket7 MB I have never built a system with an Intel chip in it and even I can't see the sense in going AMD right now. It's only a mater of time before supply catches up and the prices on those 45nm chips fall to at or below MSRP at which point it becomes a no-brainer (IMO).

Right now I'm running a dual-core S939 Opteron and my own plan is to give it 3-6 mos, grab a 45nm quad and hopefully by that time there will be movement on DDR3 price/performance so I can go with that and have the option to carry it over to my next build whether it's based around Nehalem or Bulldozer.