Requesting feedback
 

Greetings! Long time reader, first time poster here.

I'm planning on upgrading my old toaster of a computer come sometime next month, I'd love some suggestions or any feedback. My budget is roughly $700 CND not counting taxes. Note: I've only really used AMD/ATI in the past, I'm an AMD/ATI fanboy at heart, but I'll use whichever would be the best bang for the buck. I run at 1920x1080 res for gaming. I'm going to be keeping everything in my current computer (can't remember half the parts it's been so long) but the mobo/cpu/ram/gpu.

What I'm going for is:

Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition (planning to OC)
Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H AM3
4GB Corsair 1333mhz DDR3
Corsair H50
EVGA GTX 470 (hoping to OC!)

Regarding the video card:

I was originally going to get a 6870, but I noticed AMD raised the prices of the 6000 series by 20 bucks ($279.99 now for the Sapphire one, which I was going to buy from NCIX). Now, with that increase in price, the EVGA GTX 470 (from NCIX) is only 4 dollars more, comes with a free lifetime warranty and a free game (Metro 2033). I've asked a few tech savvy friends and they said jump on the GTX 470 offer. Now, I checked the reviews and benchmarks and the 470 and 6870 are fairly neck and neck, each performing better in some cases, but the 470 uses more power and runs hotter. What concerns me is how hot can the 470 actually get under load? I've heard so many ranges of temperatures (from 70-75c to extremes of 90c+) that I really don't know which is the 'average' for actual gaming. I'm fairly set in stone on the GTX 470 considering EVGAs offer of a free lifetime warranty (the game is just icing on the cake), unless there's any other suggestions on other video cards that could perform as well for roughly the same price. I'm sort of unfamiliar with Nvidia cards, hence the wall of text!


Summary(TLDR): How hot does the GTX 470 actually get while gaming? Is there any overclocking room on the GTX 470? I'm almost positive my PSU is enough to power this thing, am I correct? And is there any other suggestions to the setup I have listed? I'm open to pretty much anything, even complete switches as long as it'll offer similar/greater performance and stay at or under 700 dollars and is available on NCIX due to getting discounts.

Many thanks for reading!

Welcome to HWC!

I still have a LOT to learn, so these are just a few points to get things going until the smart guys chime in:

1 - If you can shop the listed components out to roughly $700 CND, you're getting great value. Shopping for value, leaning AMD, there may be other CPU/mobo permutations where you can unlock cores and OC to save a few bucks, but this is pretty strong kit out of the box.

2 - You're going to hear a lot about power supplies on tech boards. They're not as sexy as CPUs and GPUs, but either they're very very important or everyone here secretly works for a PSU manufacturer. I'm beginning to believe the former. If you mention your current PSU, case and fans, it'll be easier to guesstimate the OC potential for the GTX 470 and when the meltdown will occur. From what I understand, while still outstanding choices, neither the GTX 470 or 6870 have the OC potential of the GTX 460 or 6850.

3 - Warranty is attractive to everyone. XFX has an even better one (and makes 6850, 5850 and 6870)
Double Lifetime Warranty

Good luck!

I'd go with the X6 1055T or 1090T if you can afford it. And bump it up to the H70 if it'll fit in your case.

However if you can be swayed to Intel, you may want to wait for Sandybridge. It should be pretty speedy. Might not fit your budget though.

Also what PSU do you have? Antec 650W is kind of vague.

Buy SAPPHIRE [21179-00-40R] Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 900MHZ 1GB 4.2GHZ GDDR5 2XDVI 2XMINI DisplayPort HDMI PCI-E Video Card

$241.79 Canadian Funds
Reg. Price $261.80 Save $20.01
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go with the 6870 sonny, dont look back. the antec will be fine, seasonic made i guess? what the model number, and the ul one as well? :)

212+ cm for cooling, around 23 bucks. newegg has a c3 black phenom II oem for 100 bucks



edit or...


Buy SAPPHIRE [11180-00-20R] Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 775MHZ 1GB 4.0GHZ GDDR5 2XDVI DisplayPort HDMI PCI-E Video Card


$184.79 Canadian Funds

Much obliged for the feedback! The prices came out to exactly $703, and the discount I get should take care of the taxes and maybe a bit more, definitely a good deal. I honestly cannot remember my cases name, it's been about 2-3 years since I've gotten it. The case itself has pretty good airflow, I remember paying about $70-80cnd for it. I've read about the OC potential of the 460 and the 6850 and how nuts it can be, I may check into a GTX 460 FTW before I make the purchases. Also didn't know about XFXs warranty, always good to know! Thanks! And I forgot to elaborate more on my PSU: it's an Antec Earthwatts 650W 80+ cert SLI/Xfire ready. I've been using it for about two years now and I've had no issues at all.

A friend of mine mentioned the X6. I'm kind of hesitant due to the fact that I don't think I'd be able to use all 6 cores at all. I don't do any rendering etc. I was also thinking about the H70, would of actually bought it if I could squeeze it in my budget. Sandybridge probably wont fit my budget, sadly. I was actually trying to work out a build with an I5, but I couldn't get it under 700 with the H50, and if I took out the H50, I couldn't really OC one of the best CPUs to OC.

Many thanks for the reply!

Exact same PSU I have is this: Newegg.com - Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W Continuous Power ATX12V Ver.2.2 / EPS12V version 2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC "compatible with Core i7/Core i5" Power Supply It's served me well for the last two years so far with no issues.

The prices on those cards are very very nice, but the deals will be over by the time I order in the CPU/Mobo/RAM/?videocard next month, kinda just want to do it in one go considering I will have to strip everything out anyway. Buddy of mine works at NCIX and gets discounts ranging from 10-50% depending on the item, so I've been trying to get everything from there. This thread has definitely opened my mind on video card choices; GTX 460, GTX 470, 6870 and even the 6850 all look very nice. But as learning of the XFX double lifetime warranty, I may lean to the 6870 for $270 on NCIX, or even an EVGA GTX 460.

no worries. price match if your buddy's discounts dont work.

your psu will be fine for 2 6870's and more :)

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules/NDR...0/DSCF0026.jpg



500 and spare watts on the 12v more than enough

Another reason to lean to the 6870 or the GTX 460 that I didn't even think of: Xfire/SLI with less power/heat draw than 470 SLI. Completely forgot I added that specific mobo for SLI/Xfire. I heard the 6850/70 scale insanely well with Xfire, and SLI scales well with the GTX 460. I think it's down to a 6870 or a GTX 460, most likely a 6870 due to them performing better in the benchmarks I've seen. Many thanks for all the replies, folks.

well, yes and yes


http://tpucdn.com/reviews/ATI/Radeon...rfrel_1920.gif




but then again you can get two 6850's and clock them sky high.