Any Thoughts on This Build?

i would recommend the package deal with the gigabyte mobo and processor because biostars not as good as them. also if you get the combo i was talking about get a 4850 or 4870 because the board supports ati and the 4850 and 9800gtx+ are pretty much the same card while the 4870 is better (and for the price you should pick one up)
 
Motherboard: You will probabaly not using Crossfire as you are going to use NVIDIA card, why getting the 790GX chipset? Just get AMD 770. Or if you want to crossfire, get 790FX chipset instead.
Or if you want SLi, get nForce 980a chipset

RAM: Consair Dominator 4GB is too expensive as DDR2 RAM, personally doubt if it worth to pay extra when you could get other 2 x 2GB DDR2 1066 CL5 for $40 after rebate

Video card: Go for GTS 250 or ATI 4770/ 4850 instead

PSU: IMO, Consair 620W is expensive. you can go for Consair 750W/ 850W with that sort of money, unless you want cable management.
And if you only perpare to run single video card, the 550W one should be enough.
 
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That's a good point about going for an ATI card instead of Nvidia. I prefer Nvidia though, so is there a good board any of you would recommend that won't break the bank? (The main reason I chose the current board was just the discount for buying in a combo w/ the CPU). As of now I'm not planning on SLI, so it's not a necessity...if the board can do it, great, but if not that's okay too.

As far as the PSU/RAM goes, I know Corsair is a great brand and Dominator is one of their better sets and again, since it was being discounted as part of a combo, I just went with it. And I guess if the board has SLI capabilities, I'll stick with the larger PSU, otherwise I'll go down to the 500W.

Thanks for the help!
 
justsometallguy said:
I've tried searching through Newegg and it says there are only 3 boards compatible with AMD's Phenom II X4 CPU type:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128391

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128392

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138141

Is this really the case? Or am I just missing something? What's the best way to search for compatible MOBOs? Thanks!
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PhenomII 940 is with AM2+ socket, cannot use it on AM3 Mobo with DDR3 RAM
GIGABYTE GA-MA770-UD3 if you use Phenom 940

Or you could go for Phenom 810/ 945/ 955 with DDR3 RAM and AM3 socket
 
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Wow that graphics card has a 90 day warranty. I thought electronic manufacturers were required by law to have at least a year. 9800GTX+ is great, but GTS 250 is even better and same price.
 
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Marcin said:
Wow that graphics card has a 90 day warranty. I thought electronic manufacturers were required by law to have at least a year. 9800GTX+ is great, but GTS 250 is even better and same price.
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I was told the 250GTS is just a rebadged 9800GTX+. Specs look the same to me...and it's ~$20 more for the same brand. Is there really a difference between the two?
 
Is there a particular reason you are using AMD? I'm assuming either price or brand loyalty. I know we could debate all day which processors are better but that's not what I'm here to do. I was a loyal AMD fanboy for a long time, but the bottom line is, they have fallen way behind. Intel offers way better processors right now. I just built a new computer with a core i7 and I couldn't be happier. Pound for pound intel is out performing AMD. Intel's fastest dual core is faster than AMD's fastest quad core.

But if you are happy with AMD, by all means, have at it.

By the way, I have and EVGA motherboard with the x58 chipset that supports both crossfire and SLI.
 
dmiller21283 said:
Is there a particular reason you are using AMD?
By the way, I have and EVGA motherboard with the x58 chipset that supports both crossfire and SLI.
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It depends on your budget.

If money isn't an object, which an i7 build would be, then yeah, go Intel.

But, you can get mid range Intel compared to upper range AMD for comparable prices and have just as good of a build using AMD.
 
you could go mid range intel for the same price as AMD I just priced out an intel core 2 quad and motherboard and the price was about the same as what they wanted for the AMD proc and mobo. If I were looking to build on a budget, I'd check out the benchmarks on the Phenom II. They are kinda sorry considering that is AMD's flagship processor. You get what you pay for though.
 
dmiller21283 said:
Is there a particular reason you are using AMD? I'm assuming either price or brand loyalty. I know we could debate all day which processors are better but that's not what I'm here to do. I was a loyal AMD fanboy for a long time, but the bottom line is, they have fallen way behind. Intel offers way better processors right now. I just built a new computer with a core i7 and I couldn't be happier. Pound for pound intel is out performing AMD. Intel's fastest dual core is faster than AMD's fastest quad core.

But if you are happy with AMD, by all means, have at it.

By the way, I have and EVGA motherboard with the x58 chipset that supports both crossfire and SLI.
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I looked at the AMD 940 because it got favorable reviews and it's less expensive than Intel's comparable CPUs.

dmiller21283 said:
here is a good article to look at. The link is to the first page of test results.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...0,2114-15.html
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So based on this, my Intel options are:
i7 - too pricey for the overall system
any extreme QX6___ or QX9___ - at least twice the price of the AMD 940
Q95__ or Q96__ - $75+ more than the AMD 940

dmiller21283 said:
you could go mid range intel for the same price as AMD I just priced out an intel core 2 quad and motherboard and the price was about the same as what they wanted for the AMD proc and mobo. If I were looking to build on a budget, I'd check out the benchmarks on the Phenom II. They are kinda sorry considering that is AMD's flagship processor. You get what you pay for though.
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Just out of curiosity, which Intel did you price out? And does it beat the AMD 940?
 
Jackassluver said:
its kinda fine i thinkx but i would NEVER EVER EVER EVER get a biostar!!!
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Recently I bought a Biostar MCP6P M2+ for $66 CND. It has definitely suprised me. It even has a BIOS feature where I can set the time of day, and it will turn itself on in the morning. I am really happy with the purchase.
 
I priced out the Intel Quad core Q9400 ($219). the Q9450 is on in the test but not the Q9400. The only difference between the 2 is the L2 cache size. Intel would be a little more expensive, there's not doubt about it. I just haven't been impressed with anything from AMD since the Athlon XP days. Its sad when you best processor gets out performed by your competitors middle of the road cpu's.

On the other hand, I've never had any problems with AMD's and always liked the price point. If price is the determining factor, then go with AMD. You MAY get a little more bang for your buck.

As far as motherboards, have you checked out Gigabyte or EVGA? They might be to expensive if you have a budget though.
 
dmiller21283 said:
I priced out the Intel Quad core Q9400 ($219). the Q9450 is on in the test but not the Q9400. The only difference between the 2 is the L2 cache size. Intel would be a little more expensive, there's not doubt about it. I just haven't been impressed with anything from AMD since the Athlon XP days. Its sad when you best processor gets out performed by your competitors middle of the road cpu's.

On the other hand, I've never had any problems with AMD's and always liked the price point. If price is the determining factor, then go with AMD. You MAY get a little more bang for your buck.

As far as motherboards, have you checked out Gigabyte or EVGA? They might be to expensive if you have a budget though.
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I'll check out those two Intels and price it all out. I've always had an Intel, but they've been in pre-built systems. This is my first custom build and I'm trying not to break the bank, so AMD jumped out at me.

I may have to switch to Intel though, because I'm trying to find a decent MOBO that can use DDR2 @ 1066 and supports SLI. It seems most AMD boards support Crossfire or nothing at all.
 
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