So... I just built a new Quad Core AMD system

[DjfunkmasterG]

Yesterday I spent nearly the entire day trying to build a new PC. It had been nearly two years since I last built a PC so I figure hey, what the hell why not build something newer so I after doing some research and reading reviews I grabbed the following parts.

AMD Phenom II x4 955 3.2ghz Quad Core Black Edition processor
MSI 790 GX55 Motherboard
8gb of Patriot Red Series DDR 3 ram at 1666mhz clock speed.

I originally had a Gigabyte motherboard but the frigging thing was DOA out of the box, so I had to spend time returning that to the store. Anyway, once I got that squared away, by 10:00 last night I was able to get the thing fired up and running.

I carried over my sound card, video cards, power supply, and hard drives because frankly they still work. My power Supply is over 1000W so that was more than adequate for my power needs, I had 9TB of working hard drive space, originally had more but I had 4 four hard drives bite the dust in the last two weeks (all seagates, for which I will never buy a seagate again)

Once everything was installed the time from power on to desktop is about 9 seconds. I am running Windows XP professional Media Center Edition 2005.

So far the system is fast, but I have yet to benchmark it with 3Dmark06. I will do that tonight.

All in all total for parts $460.00 (Rounded up)

Processor $187.99
Motherboard $159.99
Memory $109.99

The processor has won newegg.com customer award 3x running now, and let me tell you it is worth every penny. :D

[Tricky]

What graphics card you put in there chief? Get yourself a bit of ArmA 2 action on the go :D but if you do make sure you download all the latest patches & check the BIS forums to make sure you get all the graphics settings tweaked for sweet performance as its a demanding beast!

[DjfunkmasterG]

Anyone who wants to snag my old parts... here they are.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320429233316&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT


What graphics card you put in there chief? Get yourself a bit of ArmA 2 action on the go :D but if you do make sure you download all the latest patches & check the BIS forums to make sure you get all the graphics settings tweaked for sweet performance as its a demanding beast!


GT280 Nvidia cards, although I am going to upgrabe them to ATI since they will run better with the AMD motherboard. Right now though I have had no issue, and may just leave it be, who know.

[SymphonicX]

nice rig, I looked seriously into buying the phenom but was advised against it based on the i7 chip intel have got...AMD need to catch up a little bit before I'll buy them again.

In the end I got a quad core xeon 2.83ghz which out-benchmarked most CPUs on the market aside from the i7 and a few other intels.

[DjfunkmasterG]

First gen Phenom processors weren't all that, but 2nd gen, known as Phenom II are awesome. They are the chip you need to go after.

[SymphonicX]

nah never going back there - even my xeon kills the phenom 2 in benchmark...plus, my mb is so super shit hot that I can run two quad core processors at once, thereby increasing the output to around 22.6ghz max capacity...woop!

[MinionZombie]

Yeah, I'd heard VERY mixed reviews of the Phenom I, which is why I went with Intel for my Quad Core which I was getting specced up this time last year.

Had the Phenom II been out then - and in my price range - I would have automatically gone AMD/ATI, but instead went Intel/nVidia.

[DjfunkmasterG]

Based on my limited time playing around witht he new build last night I can say I am impressed with the Phenom II chip, however that could change once I start to exploit the hell out of it.

Right now the best part out of all of it was getting the chance to clean out the ol' PC which needed a very extensive cleaning anyway.

[kortick]

Sounds like a great system.

Hope u get a lot from it.

Sucks that AMD is on the edge of bankruptcy.
Being aable to buy a quad core from them at thier
price and the almost 2 or 3xs what Intel charges is rough.

Hopefully things will turn around for AMD but it dont
look good for them.


Advanced Micro Devices

When will AMD actually make money again? The question is becoming more important by the day since it carries over $5 billion in long-term debt.

After losing almost $3 billion from 2007 – 2008, analysts expect the company to lose more money in 2009 and 2010.

While the shares rallied from their February $2 low, they still appear stuck in a long-term down trend from $40 highs way back in 2006.


From $40 stock drop to $2 is harsh.

[Tricky]

Ive always preferred AMD to Intel as well, they were always better for gaming! My current one is an AMD athlon 64 x2 6000+ running at 3ghz & its still more than enough for most of the newest games!

[krakenslayer]

Ive always preferred AMD to Intel as well, they were always better for gaming! My current one is an AMD athlon 64 x2 6000+ running at 3ghz & its still more than enough for most of the newest games!

Yeah, I'm using an Athlon 64x2 5000+ and that's way more than enough for anything I can throw at it gaming-wise. These days, however, games are much more dependent upon the graphics card rather than the CPU, so if a computer is running games slowly, it's most likely the graphics card that's too slow and not the processor. The CPU is almost never the bottleneck nowadays, and you can get away with a relatively shitty one so long as the GPU is up to scratch.

Where CPUs are important, though, is in data-intensive tasks such as converting or encoding video, editing audio, or whatnot.

[Tricky]

yeah, ive got an 8800GTX in my PC and thats served me pretty well over the last couple of years,still tackles most things with ease like Far Cry 2, Crysis etc, although I am starting to get a little jealous of all these quad core PC's with 8GB ram & twin GTX 295's in SLi mode that people on gaming forums all seem to have now!

[krakenslayer]

yeah, ive got an 8800GTX in my PC and thats served me pretty well over the last couple of years,still tackles most things with ease like Far Cry 2, Crysis etc, although I am starting to get a little jealous of all these quad core PC's with 8GB ram & twin GTX 295's in SLi mode that people on gaming forums all seem to have now!

Yeah, but that's overkill for at least another few years yet. If you want to run games at framerates and resolutions twice as high as the human eye can differentiate (i.e. Twice as high as you need) then yeah. Otherwise is just "mine's bigger than yours!" :D

[SymphonicX]

Ive always preferred AMD to Intel as well, they were always better for gaming! My current one is an AMD athlon 64 x2 6000+ running at 3ghz & its still more than enough for most of the newest games!

I had the 3800 2.0 ghz and it was awesome!


Yeah, but that's overkill for at least another few years yet. If you want to run games at framerates and resolutions twice as high as the human eye can differentiate (i.e. Twice as high as you need) then yeah. Otherwise is just "mine's bigger than yours!" :D

hahaha totally...

if I maxed out my pc is kinda runs at 22.6ghz processor, 128ghb ram, 2x nvidia 1.5gb gfx cards....

at the moment though its running with 2.83ghz quad, 4gb ram, and 256mb gfx card - because I really can't be arsed to spend so much on components that games or whatever are barely going to use!!