Building a gaming rig, opinions plz!
 

Hey there,

I'm building a new gaming rig just wanted some opinions on what you guys think!


ASUS Crosshair IV Formula
Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H70
Corsair Professional Series Gold AX850
Corsair Vengeance 8GB 2X4GB CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9
Corsair Graphite Series 600T Special Edition White
XFX Radeon HD 6950 XXX 830MHZ 2GB 5.2GHZ DDR5 (prolly will double this up later on for Crossfire)
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition
LG CH12LS28 12X Blu-Ray Reader & Lightscribe DVD Writer Combo Drive
HD's ill go with one SSD for the OS and prolly a 2TB for storage


Could you guys let me know if that ram is good for this setup?

im almost done the exact same build but intel
asus z68 pro + i7 2600k

the ram should be good

If the build's not urgent, wait for the new AMD Bulldozer that comes out late this summer. If not, go with a Core i5 2500K as that will last you for a looong time, plus you can overclock the shit out of it in case you need moar powah. Keep in mind that Bulldozer has been delayed for years (think GT5, lol) due to disappointing perfromance of their samples, so AMD is tweaking it for a new revision ATM.

Like new cars, new tech has the 'first gen stigma', while the 2500K is tried and true for gaming. The kinks have all been worked out though(see: b3 revision a few months ago involving degradation of Sata ports) Just something to consider. The next processor from Intel to replace the 2500K is said to be released around March or April '12.

I believe you can still go with the last gen AM3 board you picked out if you do wait for BD, but some of the features that the BD offers (e.g. SLI and power management? not 100% sure on that, someone correct me if I'm wrong, thanks) wont be available. Also, 4GB should be plenty for gaming. Save up for graphics instead.

edit: BTW, for SSDs, go for Vertex 2 or 3 as their controllers offer superior performance over its competitors.

So you don't recommend the 1090t? I do love AMD, thier price / performance ratio is really good. I've read that people have clocked it up to 4.1.

The build isn't to urgent but with a GT5 kind of wait, I'm not sure I'd have the patience for it. I have a couple ssd's sitting here that I might just slap in for now I think.

Thanks for the info Donut.

No prob. I too loved AMD for the performance they offered for so little, but these days the 2500K is the winner.

*the wait is only until August. That was AMD's prediction as to when it will be released when they announced their latest delay*

Anyways, there are some other reasons why I chose to get on the 2500K bandwagon. I got OWNED last time I went with first gen AMD (Phenom I 9500). The chips were crusty as hell and AMD eventually released a fix which decreased the performance by 20% or some crazy amount like that. Fk that noise. And there were zero compatible motherboards available for it at that time. The one I bought that was suposedly on the QVL has given me so many problems I'm ready to take a sledgehammer to that POS.

Its also interesting how AMD hasnt said anything about BD. OTOH, AMD doesnt hold back on flaunting Llano. Why? Its most likely because theyre confident that they are able to live up to the hype surrounding it. Right now theyre working on tweaking BD for a new revision because of the incredibly disappointing clock speed or something.

I must sound like a flaming Intel fanboy, but I really am a firm believer in price/performance ratios. When I bought my Phenom, no one else was able to offer a quad core for $200. If AMD proves me wrong this time, I'll be happy for the new owners but I'll be even more happy with the fact that I got to enjoy a fresh new rig instead of waiting for something that has a good chance of not living up to expectations.


I can ramble on forever about why I went SB but I'll spare you the boredom and give you 2 options:

If you can wait: wait until August for Bulldozer and a little bit more for the benchmarks to get posted, then compare to SB.

If you cannot wait: 2500K and a z68x-UD4 (I just bought one today). Easily lasts you 5 years. Dead serious. Plus itll be cheaper than a bulldozer setup, from what Ive seen (leaked pricing).

I'll let you think about the pros and cons of either of these. ;)


Also, here's a handy comparison tool to check which CPU is best for your situation. There are more processors to choose from, and if you google "anandtech bench gpu" theres a GPU version if you want that too.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/146?vs=288

As you can see, the 2500K stomps the 1090T it comes to gaming. Many people are having good experiences with OC'ing it, and its not uncommon at all to see them hitting 4.5GHz with just an air cooler.

^what Donut said. I've always run AMD previously, but for Sandy Bridge and the previous gen i7, AMD got it's face kicked in in both value and in performance.

When I got the deal from Intel on the summer deal, I had to jump on the Sandy Bridge bandwagon. Too good of a processor to pass up.

So jelly ^^^. Really wish I worked in retail. You still gonna get the z68x UD4??

Yup. I managed to print out a cached version of the BestDirect page, hope they take it.

Yeah, the 2600k was a SMOKING deal. Serious bargain. Plus I got OF: Red River too, and I grabbed the SSD deal to use as a OS disk. :fuckyea:

Nice. I brought my laptop with me lol

Guess I should look for retail work now and accumulate those points or credits for when ivy bridge shows up. :D

The 6core price-performance ratio dwindled after the new 2600K and 2500K came out. If u want the rig now, go intel!

Buying an AMD system today is not a good idea. I just compared the top 2 amd chips to Core i5 recently actually, check it out at www.hardcoreware.net
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Curious as to why you decided on the h70 for cooling. Its very loud. I'd go with a noctua d14 instead compareable if not better cooling performance to the h70. And its significantly more quiet.
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I went with the setup I had configured, after reading the motherboard I went with will be compatible with the Bulldozer chips that are coming out. The H70 is easy to work with and form what I have been reading with the 1090t/H70 combo people have achieved a stable 4.1-4.4GHz clock, and the noise won't affect me too much, my current gaming rig is a Alienware M17X and when that ramps up its like a vacuum cleaner. I also noticed while overclocked the 1090t jumps a bit ahead of the 1100t in performance. Also with spending $179 on the 1090t it isn't going to be a huge deal to jump over to a Bulldozer chip when they are released.

This is my final build:

Corsair Professional Series Gold AX850 CMPSU-850AX 850W ATX Fully Modular 80PLUS Gold Power Supply
ASUS Crosshair IV Formula AM3 DDR3 ATX AMD 890FX 4PCI-E16 2PCI CrossFireX 6 SATA 6GB/S Motherboard
Corsair Graphite Series 600T Special Edition White Mid-Tower Case ATX 4X5.25 6X3.5INT
Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H70 High Performance CPU Cooler System AM3
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 6 Core Processor 3.2GHZ Socket AM3 Retail Box
Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA3 3.5IN Internal Hard Drive OEM
LG CH12LS28 12X Blu-Ray Reader & Lightscribe DVD Writer Sata Combo Drive
Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 Vengeance 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1600 CL9-9-9-24 Dual Channel Memory Kit
XFX Radeon HD 6950 XXX 830MHZ 2GB 5.2GHZ DDR5 PCI-E 2XDVI HDMI 2XMINI DisplayPort Fansink Video Card

waste of other components with an AMD cpu LOL

might as well get a 2600k and its easily stable at 4.5Ghz+ not to mention a hell lot faster than any AMD chip

didnt read any of the other posts but im sure most would say get the sandybridge chip. and if u plan to double up on the graphics card; h70 is a mediocre watercooler IMO cuz i have the h50 and its barely acceptable so i guess h70 isnt far from it, if my assumptions are true than im guessing u would need to upgrade cooler system when u get the crossfire/sli , needing more power, so why not go for a 1000W psu.

the 1090t gets compared to i7s quad even though it has 2 more cores,,,

personally i didnt overclock my gaming rig and everything runs fine, its overkill and shortens cpu life

Hmm really eh. Well maybe ill switch it up. Luckily I ordered late on the weekend and it wont be shipped/packaged till monday.

What mobo & cpu do you recommend. I'd rather stay with the ATI vid cards tho. Besides the H70 (i really wanna try it out) what else should i get?

Z68-based board (the Gigabyte UD4 is a good deal right now) and i5-2500k or the i7-2600k if you can afford it.

If you want mutli-GPU setup, you dont need a 1kW PSU. The AX850 is alot even for 2 cards.

And your H70 has pretty much no impact on how well your cards are cooled. I'd say when you get your 600T, switch to the mesh side panel pictures and position a fan or two where the GPU fan intakes are since they will effectivly be obstructed once you install the cards so close to each other.

http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/548/dsc0027t.jpg

i2500k is fuckingg money picked one up last week for 195$ (price match) with a msi p67 mobo, on air and stock voltage, 4.3ghz OC 100% stable. so good

Well im going to get the I7 2600K, now I just need to chose a mobo. The ram still ok for this setup?

QFT

I'm not sure if this is still true, but in the first generation of the i7/i5, the only difference was that i7 had turbo... something. So OC an i5 and it'll work out to be the same as an i7. IMO

The 2600K has hyper threading which isnt going to give much benefit for gaming purpose given the extra $100+ cost over the 2500K.

Ok so how about the i5 2500k + the Gigabyte Z68X-UD7-B3? + the other components?

Sounds like a plan man. i7's good if you do editing for video/photo or rendering, but i5's awesome for gaming.

Both OC like mad out of the box too.

^^^ This. As long as the mobo's features suit your needs, youre good to go.