New Build With 3 Real Questions

[Chubs]

So I am planning to finish building this system in early January, all the parts I still need to order are mostly coming from directcanada.com, possibly some from newegg.ca if they have somethings on sale when I am ordering.

The planned use for the computer is mostly playing MMOs (and I am on 70/30 fiber op connection so I am not really concerned with my connection speed as a bottleneck), some strategy gaming, watching movies and usual day to day computing.

These items I already have picked up due to coming across deals that were too good to pass up
Antec 900 case
Enermax 1000W psu
ASUS Sabertooth 990FX mobo
Sapphire Radeon HD6950 1G DDR5 non OC VC
Dual WD Caviar Black 500G HDs (plan on running in raid 0)
Windows 7 HP 64bit

These items I have basically decided on buying
Zalman CNP59500A cooper cooler
3 Acer S231HL monitors (on a custom built stand using the VESA mounts)


Now the additional parts which is where I have some questions

Processor; (whichever chip I go with will have a mild OC basically using built in ASUS/AMD settings, maybe a little more but I have never pushed a chip really hard yet still learning to OC, and yes not only do I already have the socket AM3 board but I prefer AMD)

1) AMD Phenom II X4 980 BE (really my first choice for now with a plan to upgrade to a second gen FX when they come out)

2) AMD Phenom II X6 1100T BE (if the 980 would be a bottleneck issue I would certainly look at this chip as the way to go)

3) AMD FX-8150 (this was the chip I have been waiting for but now that it is out everything I read says it is failing to live up to the hype)

RAM; (no OC)

1) Corsair Vengeance low profile 16G (4x4G) DDR3-1600 Dual Channel

2) Mushkin Blackline Enhanced 16G (4x4G) DDR3-1600 Quad Channel (my first choice but will the quad channel be a detriment not a help)

Video Card; (plan to run in crossfire with my existing 6950 but due to availability and pricing I see 3 options not 100% sure which will work the best)

1) another HD6950 1G non OC (an identical Sapphire card to mine is almost impossible to find anymore for a decent price so it will be another brand)

2) HD6950 1G OC card and make this the primary card (will the different clock rates cause a problem?)

3) HD6950 2G card and make this the primary card (will the different level of on board memory cause a conflict?)

[dandelioneater]

A) For cpu my vote is on the 1100T or even 1090T to save a few loonies, The 8150 doesn't give good performance for the price in games. (I have fx-6100)
B) For Ram I'd go with whichever is cheaper, Running 4 sticks will perhaps make extreme overclocking a little more challenging but it really won't matter, (I run 4 sticks in mine)
C) For the second video card any brand will do with the same 1GB vram as your first card. AFAIK, an OC card will be fine in xfire with a non-oc one. They will match the lowest clocked card.

[Soultribunal]

Since you are looking for AMD my opinion would be the following:

980 BE For the CPU. Unless you are running highly threaded APPS there really is no reason to get a X6 unless you want it for the sake of having a Hex-Core CPU. Your 980 Will not bottleneck you on a Dual GPU setup either.

I have had better luck historically with Corsair RAM (though I miss my old Mushkin Redlines very much). However that being said Mushkin is still good. Either one will suit your needs. Go with the best Value $$$ to you and preference.

For GPU I am not sure you can X-fire a 1GB and 2GB model together. So get yourself another 1GB model and if it has different clock speeds put the slowest card in your Primary Slot. This will force the faster card to downclock for X-fire.
Doing it the other way around can cause issues.

Lastly on your cooler selection. The Zalman are very nice (I have a few) but get the CNPX9900MAX. The 9500 is older and not nearly as good as the new MAX. Otherwise looks good. Very good choice on the PSU.

-ST

[great_big_abyss]

Go for the 1090T and overclock it. Apparently it has better overclocking abilities than the 1100. Forget about the Bulldozer for now.

when it comes to the video card, I would run what you have now, and when the 28nm cards come out in a few monthes, pick up a new 7970 and sell your current video card. If the 7970 is at least as good as the 6970 it should have no problem playing 3x 1080 resolution

[Chubs]

So it seems you guys are looking at the chip similar to me the 980 is the faster chip and since I really do not need a six core chip as nothing I will be running will really make use of that many cores the 980 is the way to go.

With the ram the Mushkin is actually listed as "Quad Channel" which is the only reason I was looking at it but not sure if it was going to be any real benefit. I usually run G.Skill ram but the options for low profile ,which I will need to fit under a cooler on the 990FX board due to how close the dimm slots are to the socket, are few and far between so the Corsair was my next best choice.

As for the video card I had not read anything yet on the new 7970. My only concern with that option is being able to run my triple monitors on only a single 6950 and that the 7970 is going to be too much $ when first released.

[great_big_abyss]

I can assure you that, based on experience with my 965, you should have no problem running any application or game with a 980.

As for GPU do what ST says. Get the 1GB card and install the slower one in your primary slot. Two 6950s should be plenty to run a triple monitor setup for the next few years.

[Dragonstongue]

I would go for a 955 or 965 C3 revision, they can overclock just as good on average as a 980 and are less costly, most Phenom II x4 C3 chips will do from 4.1-4.4Ghz, the higher binned chips of course have a better chance of hitting the higher end, but if I recall correctly, the highest clocks hit on the Phenom II x4 were set by the 940 the 955 and the 965.

6 core only if you will be using it.

M5A99X EVO if you are planning on a single card, is almost identical in most everything to the Sabertooth, but is more meant for single or dual card, sabertooth dual or multi.

CPU cooler, I would be going with Hyper 212+ with dual stock bladmaster fans, they may not look as nice as the Zalman one you listed, but trust me they work excellent on the Phenom II, I have mine 955 at 4.2Ghz 1.43v and my temps, not once, have ever hit above 47c even heavily stressed

Ram, Gskill Ripjaw or Ripjaw X, Sniper SE, ECO, or Vengeance, Kingston Hyper X, or as mentioned mushkin or even Crucial. I love my ripjaw X set, no problems in overclocking, the dimms stay cool, and most importantly, have 0 clearence issues, and were cheaper then pretty much every set I had seen at the time I got them, for an 8gb kit at 1866 2x4gb 9,10,9,28 1.5v(which run fine in the M5A99X EVO board I am using)

Video card, I would wait 1mth for the 7k series to show up, use what you have if you can, then decide on final choice, you may very well get an excellent deal on a 6k or even a 7k card.

1kw power supply is a hell of alot more then you need, its a waste of coin really, a 750 will be fine for single card if not dual an 850 will be ample for most any setup even with overclocking, i7 930 and dual 480 would use approx 52a and 624watt at high usage in an overclocked state.

For hard drives, if you can find them, caviar black 640 are faster then the 500, at least if these are the older models you are referencing.

If you save enough coin with changes I showed, you can esily drop one HDD and add an SSD and still walk away with a fast system, with room to overclock, and the SSD will make sure the system is super snappy :)

For gpu, I myself with current choices, recomend XFX dual fan 1gb or 2gb XXX(facotry oc to 830 core) they are among the best 6950 available, are decently priced, and tie up with the best overclocking 6950 there are. Just a suggestion, I have a few in my clan that have them, and they actually run cooler then my 6870 does with an aftermarket cooler with penty of airflow and obviously, much faster.

But just an FYI, 1gb card will not CF with a 2gb card to my knowledge, and 1gb cards will not flash to a 6970, at least 2gb cards have a "chance" of doing this if you wanted the chance, by themselves the 2gb cards only see the benefit of the extra Vram in CF or in some games that will use the extra Vram.

[lKashl]

Crossfire is pretty versatile, it will run even if the clocks/memory size is different or in some cases even if the card model is different (eg. 6950 & 6970's) .

-You should note that the memory of the smallest card will be used for the crossfire, so if you have a preexisting 2gb 6950 I'd recommend getting another 2gb 6950 as a 1gb model will reduce your usable vram to 1gb.
-As far as clock speeds ago, the higher clock card will ESSENTIALLY be reduced to the performance of the lower clocked card. I say essentially as there is no change in the clock rate, but you will notice that during games the card with higher clock speeds is less utilised resulting in identical performance. To minimise microstutter i have found that you want to sync the GPU usage at 99% on both cards, which will actually sometimes result in a clock difference between the cards due to innate differences in core potential.

[Chubs]

Thought I would throw out an update as my parts landed today. Since I already had the PSU and Sabetooth 990FX board those stayed the same, I did however get my 1G HD6950 sold. So here is the final parts list including some items I already had

Antec 900 V1
Enermax 1000W PSU
ASUS Sabertooth 990FX
AMD 980 BE
Zalman CNPS7X cooler
16G (4x4G) Corsair Vengeance LP DDR3-1600
2X Sapphire Radeon HD6950 2G
2X WD Caviar Black 500G
ASUS 24X DVD
3X Acer S231HL 23"
Logitech G500 Mouse
Logitech G15 Keyboard
Logitech G13 Game pad
Logitech X540 Speakers
Logitech G27 Wheel
Plantronics Headphones

Thinking I may document this build, since I never did for my last couple and wish I had for posterity sake.