My Build / Upgrades

[stevensl2]

So I am planning on upgrading my Current system


Asus M4a78 Pro
Asus Xonar Dx
AMD Phenom II 940 @ 3.2ghz 1.36v
Ocz Reaper Hpc 2x2Gb 1066mhz
Corsair Tx750w
Xfx 4870x2 2gb
Coolermaster Storm Sniper Case
Thermalright True Black 120 w/ 2 120mm 1200Rpm Fans
Western Digital Caviar Black 640gb 32mb Dual Proc

With A new Crossfire motherboard, 16x 16x
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=36840&vpn=GA-MA790FX-UD5P&manufacture=Gigabyte

8 Gb's 1066mhz of RAM
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=30492&vpn=PDC24G8500ELKR2&manufacture=Patriot 2 sets

Revolution 1050w Modular / Because it is smaller than the Corsair 1000w, which might fit my case without removing the bottom fan.
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=36299&vpn=ERV1050EWT-00&manufacture=ENERMAX

A Second 4870x2
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=36103&vpn=HD487ACDF9&manufacture=XFX


and An SSD for my OS and Some Slower loading games.
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=31806&vpn=PE32GS25SSDR&manufacture=Patriot

So what I'm wondering is that What would be the "Best" Monitor I can get at 2560x1600 without spending too much. ( Work Occasionally, I'm only 17 )
- Yeah. I Max out all my games, I don't know why I can't stop upgrading my computer, its like an addiction!

My current Monitor is the BenQ E2400HD 1920x1080 16:9 <-- Does the job, but has like 1 dead pixel I cant notice.

Here's a few pic of what I have now:

http://s272.photobucket.com/albums/jj197/stevensl2/?action=view&current=DSC00320.jpg - Im also replacing the bottom Dvd Drive with a blu ray player.

http://s272.photobucket.com/albums/jj197/stevensl2/?action=view&current=DSC00318.jpg

http://s272.photobucket.com/albums/jj197/stevensl2/?action=view&current=DSC00319.jpg

http://s272.photobucket.com/albums/jj197/stevensl2/?action=view&current=DSC00271.jpg

I'll be going to visit Taiwan, so I am going to be buying a Logitech G9x, Logitech G19 and some other stuff there too.

Peace!

P.S - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi-uYQqjLtQ If you want.

 

[Proximon]

If this is just for games, the extra RAM won't make any difference. Have a look at your current usage and you'll see you don't get to 4GB.

If you really want the performance though, you'll be needing an i7 920 on an X58 board. AMD 940 will bottlleneck quad 4870.

 

[stevensl2]

Oh shi.. really?... how much of an OC would i need for it NOT to bottleneck?

 

[stevensl2]

I mean, Would A trifire not bottle neck it? 4870x2 + 4870 1gb?

 

[Proximon]

Look at this article

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-versus-i7,2360-13.html

i7 920 and CF 4870
Are very similar in performance to
AMD 955 and CF 4890

You'll want to look at all the games benchmarked, as you'll see they trade places. Both processors are overclocked and at stock also. Of course, there is no max resolution used in those tests.


Over at Anandtech they have this to say about quadfire:

As we mentioned in the 3-way article, our experience with stutter increased with the number of cards. Two way seems to be the smoothest of the multiGPU options, and we ran into the most problems with 4-way. Both AMD and NVIDIA showed some stuttering in Crysis, and there were issues in other games where scaling didn't happen the way we would have liked. Honestly, gamers who choose 4-way options will need to be hands on to get the best experience, disabling SLI and CrossFire when they get in the way of themselves.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3520&p=4

 

[stevensl2]

Look at this article

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-versus-i7,2360-13.html

i7 920 and CF 4870
Are very similar in performance to
AMD 955 and CF 4890

You'll want to look at all the games benchmarked, as you'll see they trade places. Both processors are overclocked and at stock also. Of course, there is no max resolution used in those tests.


Over at Anandtech they have this to say about quadfire:

As we mentioned in the 3-way article, our experience with stutter increased with the number of cards. Two way seems to be the smoothest of the multiGPU options, and we ran into the most problems with 4-way. Both AMD and NVIDIA showed some stuttering in Crysis, and there were issues in other games where scaling didn't happen the way we would have liked. Honestly, gamers who choose 4-way options will need to be hands on to get the best experience, disabling SLI and CrossFire when they get in the way of themselves.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3520&p=4

Oh jeez man.. do you think i should wait for the 5 series to come out and then just crossfire the single GPU cards? after selling my 4870x2 of course!.
thanks for the info, it really helped make sure I didn't Have the wrong facts/opinions about 3 way or 4 way crossfire
I will now only consider 2 gpu's, until further notice

 

[sighQ2]

greets from ON.

8 megs is a great idea. What's not so great is the 1066 idea.

The problem with your current sys is that you are using 940 and that wants to keep you in AM2+. and ddr2.

I usually suggest that people buying ram and mobo and cpu move to ALL AM3 system.

You really should be aware of the mobo MSI GD-70. This is the board that the most serious performance gamers are drooling over now. It uses DDR3 SPEEDS that are off the scale - in excess of DDR3 2000.

However, that would mean you would have to swap your 940 for a 955 - and better yet would be to wait until August 13th when the new Phenom II 965 @ 3.4 Ghz stock clock is released. (see link below)

And you might also like OCZ Platinum Ram @1600mhz - or even higher cos that mobo will handle it.

article on similar system here: in progress
http://www.amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=136513
http://www.amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=136256

mobo here:
http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=12980BD6766&vpn=790FX-GD70&manufacture=MSI

cpu mid August
http://www.amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=135850&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=150#p161702
http://www.amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=136510#p161829

= 965 @ 4.4 =
http://www.amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=136493

ocz ram info: see links in blue - get part number and search
http://www.ocztechnology.com/aboutocz/press/2009/334

Article re ram scaling etc
http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/cpu/amd-p ... 55-p1.html

Do a little research on the tour
That will keep you busy.
Also Direct Canada is somehow affiliated with NCIX.
Another good one is Canada Computers.

 

[sighQ2]

btw - nanandtek is a paid spintel shill site - they are constantly misrepresenting amd. when the 4870 released he condemned it, only one on the entire net who did. his amd tests are mainly sabotaged. i won't even go there. i got booted out of there once for protesting the blatant hijack of an amd thread by the spintel fanboys.

 

[Proximon]

8 megs is a great idea. What's not so great is the 1066 idea.

No. Tests were done right here.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-module-upgrade,2264.html

You really should be aware of the mobo MSI GD-70. This is the board that the most serious performance gamers are drooling over now. It uses DDR3 SPEEDS that are off the scale - in excess of DDR3 2000.

How interesting. Do you even know where the memory controller is on an AMD build?


From Legion Hardware
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=845&p=5

It is fair to say that just about anything goes, as we found timings and even frequency had little impact on performance, at least within reason. Naturally no one is going to use DDR3 memory clocked at 800MHz, and even 1066MHz memory is really out of the question as it's almost impossible to buy. The most common option is DDR3-1333, and as we found this appears to be the best all round option.
Ideally DDR3-1333 memory with CAS6-7 timings would be best, but again we found that CAS8-9 timings made very little difference, so it is hardly worth spending extra money on the lower latency memory if it is fetching a price premium.

 

[stevensl2]

Oh jeez im so confused

 

[Helloworld_98]

don't get another 4870 X2!!!!!!

wait for the 5870 X2 which comes out in 2 to 3 months.

 

[Proximon]

don't get another 4870 X2!!!!!!

wait for the 5870 X2 which comes out in 2 to 3 months.

Far better advice

If you really must upgrade something consider a more conservative approach. Get an X4 955 and a water cooling setup.

This is a good starter kit:
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/8411/ex-wat-140/Swiftech_H20-220_Apex_Ultima_Liquid_Cooling_Kit_Universal_Mount_LGA_1366_Included.html?tl=g30c321s818

 

[Helloworld_98]

^ or if you just want a CPU WC, the Corsair H50 seems to beat all the top air coolers and it's quite cheap too.

I'd guess you could hit 4-4.2GHz with the H50 on your phenom.

 

[megamanx00]

I think you may as well hold off on going quad crossfire unless you are playing something right now that would really benefit from it. The truth is, the Catalyst drivers use more CPU overhead as you add cards and they seem to be mostly single threaded and are more dependent on clock speed than the number of cores. If you want to upgrade your system and go quad crossfire anyway then it would be a good idea to get a water cooler to overclock your CPU so it won't be as much of a bottleneck.

 

[stevensl2]

I think you may as well hold off on going quad crossfire unless you are playing something right now that would really benefit from it. The truth is, the Catalyst drivers use more CPU overhead as you add cards and they seem to be mostly single threaded and are more dependent on clock speed than the number of cores. If you want to upgrade your system and go quad crossfire anyway then it would be a good idea to get a water cooler to overclock your CPU so it won't be as much of a bottleneck.

Yeah i Currently have a Thermalright True black 120 with 2 fans, i think that is sufficient enough to OC to 3.7, and yeah. i might just be holding off for the 5870's crossfirnig those would make me look sooo up to date Hahahahah! watercooling sounds really complicated, I prefer simple things lol,

unfortunetely i am not very good at OC'ing is there anything i need to change except the multipliers and the volts?

 

[stevensl2]

Oh I am currently in Taiwan, holy *** the parts are cheap. I found the core i7 920 for about 280$ CAD / there is NO tax on anything you buy there! dang.