New build looking for parts help

[darkane64]

Ok i'm replacing/upgrading my current computer

AMD Phenom II x4 925 (slightly OCed to 3.0 ghz)
Biostar mobo (A770E3)
8 gigs of DDR3 (g.skill)
Nvidia Geforce GTX 285 (BFG brand)
Power Supply is a CORSAIR 750W
Antec 900 case
Windows 7
ect.

as for as storage
c drive is: 2 OCZ 30gig SSD in raid 0 for my main windows drive but have my desktop set to run off my d drive
d drive is: 1tb 7200 samsung drive.. 32 meg ram.. blah blah blah
e drive is: misc storage 2tb

and i run 2 23" screens both at 1920x1080


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Heres what i need
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Approximate Purchase Date: next week or 2

Budget Range: 800-900 (MAYBE 1000)

System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming mostly MMO's SWTOR currently, surfing, watching shows

Parts Not Required: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS, hard drives, Case

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com

Country: USA

Parts Preferences: What ever is gonna give me the biggest Bang for the Buck

Overclocking: sure as long as its stable

SLI or Crossfire: in this price range.. probly not.. but not opposed

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080 (2)

Additional Comments:

I only game on 1 monitor use the 2nd one for surfing and movie watching while playing

Would like after market cpu fan/heatsink currently runnign a zulman 9500 on my amd cpu

Heres links to the the gear i plan on reusing

PSU CORSAIR 750W
Case Antec 900
Monitors Acer 23"
Windows Drive SanDisk 120g
Drive for game(s) Raid 0 OCZ Vertex Series 30GB
Mouse Razer Naga
keyboard Logitech G110
Headset GameCom 367

My plan for HD is as follows
120gig SSD as windows drive
60gig raid for a few games (currently would be SWTOR)
1tb drive for storage

and the 2 tb drive i have will probably end up as a NAS or just external

i think thats about it..

 

[darkane64]

You can use 2 kinds of RAM, however, it's not recommended. I have a 4GB kit of G.Skill RAM @ 1333 and also an 8GB kit of RAM @1600 and it works, however, you can't OC the RAM if it's at different clock rates

thats the thing.. both sets would be 1600 and there times would be 9-9-9-24 (sniper) and 9-9-9-24-2N (Ripjaw).. not exactly sure what the 2N means on the end tho.. they both have the same Cas Latency (9) same voltage (1.5)

 

[r0aringdrag0n]

They should work together

 

[darkane64]

Well i got all the part yesterday and got it all built windows installed and updated SLI seems to be working

Only issue i had building it was the fan on the door of the case had to be taken out.. because it ran into the heatsink.. damn that things big LOL

Only thing left to do is the tweaks for SSD and see about overclocking it...

Should i OC the videos cards? right now playing a game for about an hour my temp on them are 58-60/50-52 (Card1/Card2) and fan speeds are 70%/60%

cpu is running at around 40-42

whats a decent temp for this cpu? my AMD hated being over about 60 with the stock cooler thats when i put the zulman on it and it never went over 40 again..

also i did just stick with the 8gigs of sniper ram

 

[r0aringdrag0n]

I wouldn't OC the video card with the temps you're getting right now. As for a decent CPU temp, anything under 60C is acceptable, although the i5 2500k with stock is around 30C.

 

[darkane64]

I wouldn't OC the video card with the temps you're getting right now. As for a decent CPU temp, anything under 60C is acceptable, although the i5 2500k with stock is around 30C.

30c at idle? at idle with the 212 i'm getting around 18-22

 

[darkane64]

Did i get a bad card?

yesterday i got everything all set up and running and was going fine.. go home from work and decided to install 3dmark11 to see how it worked.. went fine.. then loaded up Star Wars The Old Republic went fine for about 3 mintues then screens started blinking and saw some artifacts (think that the right term.. checker boarding and such) then crashed rebooted same thing.. i havent OCed anything yet.. so i disabled SLI crashed again.. so i unhooked the SLI same thing.. took out the 2nd card. Same thing. So i swapped cards (put 2nd card in same slot at 1 was in to make sure it want the port) and its working fine..

To me it sounds like the card is/was bad.. oh and it was even screwing up in post/boot

anyone had this happen before? i've see video cards do this from OC but never from working fine now and 20 minutes later doing this when nothing has changed... and i have a temp monitor up at the time.. never got over 45

I'll be calling newegg tomorrow to see about either a refund or exchange.. when it was working i was getting an average of abotu 85fps in game.. with just 1 560 i'm getting about the same (within 5%) not sure the extra card is doing anything for the game at all.. so i'm not sure its worth the money and i mainly play MMOs and very little else.. well minecraft..

But.. then again if i keep it i'll be good for anything else that come out for a while and if the optimize SWTOR for sli it shuold help

 

[darkane64]

Best answer selected by darkane64.