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New Rig


MrLlamaLlama

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So yeah... in 8 weeks the government give me free money to learn n shit. Yeah, economic depression and all that :/

TL:DR - 1k budget excluding monitor.

Basically i need a new rig. Needs to be capable of uber spec gaming, aswell as with dual monitor support in the future... needs to be capable of quick image / music / video compiling etc also and with like 2/3 separate drives ( one like 1TB and a couple of 500s? ) also should have 7.1 surround support and enough USB bandwidth to handle tablets, microphones, all that stuff. Built in wireless is a bonus but not essential. I've been looking at the AMD phenom 6 cores and they look like they have a good value for the power... Intel i'm open to suggestions about... but i've just never had anything bad to say about AMD and never needed any more power than i had out of my old 2.8 dual core... though times have changed.

Feel free to post links, etc and i will evaluate as i see fit.

GO!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Right.

After doing some hunting, swapping and reading up, here's what I'm at.

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 3.4GhZ

RAM: 6Gb Corsair Dominator

SSD (OS): OCZ Gladiator 32Gb

HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1Tb

GFX: Gainward NvGTX460 1Gb

PSU: XFX 750w

CASE: Coolermaster HAF932

MOBO: Asus Crosshair IV Formula

Planning to throw in another GFX card after a couple weeks to sli, and another identical HDD dedicated to college work. This should be running through a 24" screen putting out 1920x1080(p).

Suggestions,comments,reservations welcome.

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For 1, good luck fitting an OS on a 32GB Drive.

For me, Vista alone takes up over 20GB. Couple that with AppData, your Desktop and Documents, Restore points, the page file (if you don't move it off the SSD), temporary files, etc., stuff really fills up quick more than you think and you may find yourself running out of space. SSDs also should be kept under 2/3 full for best life/performance. For me, I have nothing on my SSD but the OS, MS Office, and Firefox, and I'm struggling to keep it under 45GB on my 60GB Drive.

Second, you would see nearly identical real world performance at a much lower price if you went for an Athlon II X4.

Last, and some people may disagree, but as much as I love NVIDIA, I've been pretty disappointed with their 4xx Generation and I would recommend an ATI Radeon unless you've got a really good deal on the GTX460. A 5830 is about on par with the GTX 460. But get a 5850 if you can, it has a much better price/performance ratio.

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Sweet feedback. I'll re-evaluate the SSD situation, maybe use the money to grab a faster set of HDDs.

Also the Nvidias are clocking in like £50 cheaper than the 5850s where I usually shop. Also athlons have pathetic clock speeds and even more pathetic caches. I'd rather pay £30 extra for 4x the cache size and another ghz of CPU power.

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Sweet feedback. I'll re-evaluate the SSD situation, maybe use the money to grab a faster set of HDDs.

Also the Nvidias are clocking in like £50 cheaper than the 5850s where I usually shop. Also athlons have pathetic clock speeds and even more pathetic caches. I'd rather pay £30 extra for 4x the cache size and another ghz of CPU power.

If you get a Phenom at a higher clock speed, then yes, it's better. I didn't realize they had 3.4 GHz Athlons . . . . <_<

Anyway, clock for clock the Athlon wins and the cache really doesn't make a ton of a difference. But, read this article and make your own conclusions.

Oh and if the NVIDIA's are really cheaper where you shop, then get it. However, be aware that the GTX 460 is far below the 5850 which is why it's way cheaper. The GTX 465 is roughly on part with a 5830, so figure it out from there.

Source

Source

Not reputable Source but whatev . . .

Edit --> At the top of my first post the last word should be Phenoms, not Athlons. Just so there's no confusion.

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If you had to recommend an Nvidia GPU, which would it be, then? People tend to go around with an elitist view, i have a couple of friends who both run GTX260s and they're pretty beefy... how come all of a sudden the higher models with demonstrably higher specifications are shit-heaps?

Also figured about the athlon / phenom thing.

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If you had to recommend an Nvidia GPU, which would it be, then?

Whatever floats your boat. :D

I just don't like the 4xx series because they use so much power and produce so much heat. Also, they're expensive compared to ATI and if you don't care about DX11 or more monitors, then you can get a 200-series card for the same relative performance for WAY less price.

I would use this article as a helpful reference.

how come all of a sudden the higher models with demonstrably higher specifications are shit-heaps?

Because while I believed NVIDIA's 200 series to be far greater than ATI's Radeon 4000's, when it comes to the GTX 400s and the Radeon 5000s it's completely turned around. The new Radeons are better in mostly every way; power consumption, heat, performance, and mainly, price.

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Get an ATI.Nvidia's 400 series, like raybob said are way expensive.A 5770/5870 will easily outpower the GTX 460.Good thing you picked a Phenom,Athlon X4's still don't have the power as the Phenom's, they may clock better but they suck.And DON'T get a ASUS mobo, they blow.If they fuck up, you can say goodbye to fixing it, or getting answers from ASUS's tech support.Get a Gigabyte one, much better and cheaper for the stuff you need.I'm guessing that you picked DDR3 RAM, since the ASUS Crosshair IV only supports DDR3.So, this mobo is way cheaper,and will give you what you need.

EDIT: or this one.(if you're looking for a newer chipset)

Edited by Sтεαм.
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Again, never had any issue with Asus mobo's, always been flawless in my experience and even if something goes wrong, scan (where i buy my PC stuff from) have awesome warranty, returns and even customer error policies so yah.

Also stated before that the ATi's being mentioned are more expensive. In the same way an i7 980x will outpower the CPU i've chosen, the price band is completely different.

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Steam,

The GTX 460 will wipe the 5770 all over the road, performance wise. They're not even in the same market. Again, I still don't understand how you can compare a 5770 and 5870. Like I said before, the GTX 460 performs similarly to a Radeon 5830.

I'll leave it at that.

And for the CPU's, don't believe benchmarks.If you haven't tried it, shut up.You never had an AMD cpu in any of your pc's, so stfu.

Really?

Well then, I direct you here. See my first post.

I also still have a use that PC regularly.

Like I said, I'm getting a friend talk me through some stuff and show me comparable products infront of me.

Let us know how it turns out/ what you decide to get.

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