New PC Opinion

[a tw player]

Hey all, I just put in my deposit for my new gaming rig...From my limited knowledge it seems good, but what do you more tech savy guys and gals reckon?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

zalman z7 case
windows 7 home premium 64 bit
dvd/rw dl x22
6gb ddr3 ram @ 1666mhz (following discussion below, this might just be a typo, in fact running at 1333mhz)
phenom II x4 975
1tb samsung HD sata 2
gigabyte gtx 570
750 watt psu Corsair
gigabyte am3 890gx mainboard

Hoping I haven't wasted a load of money!

Edit - Oh, and I'll be getting a 24" IYAMA TFT monitor to run it on

[Erax]

6gb ddr for AMD?? Thats 3x2?
Either get one more or throw one out, AMD processors work best with dual-channel memory. 2x2 or 4x2 for example.

[a tw player]

6gb ddr for AMD?? Thats 3x2?
Either get one more or throw one out, AMD processors work best with dual-channel memory. 2x2 or 4x2 for example.

Oh okay, didn't know that

I'll see if I can get 8gb of ram instead then, will only cost me about £20 more so it's worth it if 6gb would cause me problems...

[Top-Tier-Tech]

There are no 6GB dual channel kits and that is a dual channel motherboard so you need to choose either 4 or 8GB.

There is no such thing as 1666Mhz. RAM, it would have to be either 1600 or 1866. 1600Mhz. is plenty fast enough but to achieve that speed you will have to overclock it, by default it will run at 1333mhz.

[a tw player]

There are no 6GB dual channel kits and that is a dual channel motherboard so you need to choose either 4 or 8GB.

There is no such thing as 1666Mhz. RAM, it would have to be either 1600 or 1866. 1600Mhz. is plenty fast enough but to achieve that speed you will have to overclock it, by default it will run at 1333mhz.

Okay cheers, I assume the 1666 was a typo then and was actually 1333, seeing as they are next to each other on the number pad

Apart from the ram issue and assuming I get 8gb, do you guys rate the system on the whole?

[snuggans]

even though the Zalman Z7 case does not have top exhaust, it seems like a pretty good case with decent airflow. will you be overclocking your CPU? if so, i would recommend an aftermarket cooler.

with the 24 inch monitor, i'm assuming you'll be running games at 1920x1080 resolution? if so, the 570 seems like an appropriate video card.

[a tw player]

even though the Zalman Z7 case does not have top exhaust, it seems like a pretty good case with decent airflow. will you be overclocking your CPU? if so, i would recommend an aftermarket cooler.

with the 24 inch monitor, i'm assuming you'll be running games at 1920x1080 resolution? if so, the 570 seems like an appropriate video card.

No I won't be overclocking the CPU, I don't really want to risk blowing up anything when the CPU should be plenty good enough for gaming without it

As for the resolution, I'll be running at the native resolution I think; 1920x1200.

[Capt. Fozdike]

That's a fairly nice system. However, I echo most others in this thread when saying you should get an 8GB dual channel kit rather than a tri-channel 6GB kit with an AMD CPU.

[a tw player]

That's a fairly nice system. However, I echo most others in this thread when saying you should get an 8GB dual channel kit rather than a tri-channel 6GB kit with an AMD CPU.

Thanks Glad I asked in here before I ended up getting the 6gb - +rep to everyone who posted here to help

[mrcrusty]

Where will you be buying?

[a tw player]

Where will you be buying?

Small PC shop in my town, why?

[mrcrusty]

Just wondering, some shops are cheaper than others. Don't want you to get ripped off.

But if you can hold on for a couple of months, I would suggest waiting for AMD's Bulldozer in June.

[a tw player]

Just wondering, some shops are cheaper than others. Don't want you to get ripped off.

But if you can hold on for a couple of months, I would suggest waiting for AMD's Bulldozer in June.

Okay cool, it's pretty much a 1 man shop which is quite nice actually rather than a generic customer service you get at a large chainstore company

I would have done...But really I needed my upgrade sooner rather than later and the 975 seems to be alright; much better than my current Q6600 Too late to go back now apart from minor alterations anyway, put in my £1000 deposit today which should cover most of the cost, might need to pay about £100 more though to get the final total

[mrcrusty]

If you needed an upgrade now, I would've made two changes. If the guys at your PC store are nice, try and change two things.

Get the Phenom II x6 1090T instead of the Phenom II x4 975. 6 cores instead of 4, and it will prove itself to be better over time. If you decide to learn "the art" of overclocking, the 1090T is a much better candidate. It handles RAM better, overclocks the northbridge better and of course, it's 6 cores, not 4 so it won't fall behind when games start using more than 4 cores. You could also dedicate 4 cores to gaming and the remaining 2 to other stuff. So you could run a virus scanner in the background with little lag.

Secondly, get the Asus 890GX motherboard. Not Gigabyte. Current Asus motherboards will add compatibility for Bulldozer CPUs with a BIOS update. So that's something to consider. It is also a better overclocker, and has better features.

The price difference between the switches is small, maybe $20 on a US site like newegg, and around $25 on an Aussie site like PC Case Gear. So that's like 10-15 quid.

It's a small price, but much better for the long run.

[Erax]

If you needed an upgrade now, I would've made two changes. If the guys at your PC store are nice, try and change two things.

Get the Phenom II x6 1090T instead of the Phenom II x4 975. 6 cores instead of 4, and it will prove itself to be better over time. If you decide to learn "the art" of overclocking, the 1090T is a much better candidate. It handles RAM better, overclocks the northbridge better and of course, it's 6 cores, not 4 so it won't fall behind when games start using more than 4 cores. You could also dedicate 4 cores to gaming and the remaining 2 to other stuff. So you could run a virus scanner in the background with little lag.

Secondly, get the Asus 890GX motherboard. Not Gigabyte. Current Asus motherboards will add compatibility for Bulldozer CPUs with a BIOS update. So that's something to consider. It is also a better overclocker, and has better features.

The price difference between the switches is small, maybe $20 on a US site like newegg, and around $25 on an Aussie site like PC Case Gear. So that's like 10-15 quid.

It's a small price, but much better for the long run.

I don't know about the compatibility with Bulldozer CPUs, but overall I've been hearing only good things about Gigabyte.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi...pa_ud3h/19.htm

[a tw player]

Sorry to raise this topic again, but I just wanted to say that I got the PC today (with the 8gb of ram) and it runs a treat, thanks to all those who helped out

[a tw player]

Hey all, just thought I would resurrect this thread rather than make a new one to ask a question entirely hypothetical at this moment in time...

zalman z7+ case
windows 7 home premium 64 bit
dvd/rw dl x22
8gb ddr3 ram
phenom II x4 975
1tb samsung HD sata 2
gigabyte gtx 570
750 watt psu Corsair
gigabyte am3 890gx mainboard

The above is the system I bought in the end. However, recently I discovered how my processor is compared to the Intel counterparts, and I fear it may be bottlenecking me when gaming.

So, if I can scrape together some money over the summer, I may switch my mobo and my cpu. My question is, how money would it cost me to trade in my cpu and mobo (bearing in mind they will be ~2 months old), and replace them with an sandybridge i5 or i7, and an appropriate mobo to accommodate this? Also, would this extra cash be worth the performance gain I would see in gaming?

Thanks in advance

[davsim]

I wouldn't, imo, I've got basically the same exact rig you've got and have no problem in any game except for shogun 2; fact is that the game is poorly optimized expecially towards nvidia users, just look at the bench page in the shogun thread, even guys with less powerful amd cards get better fps than I do (mine is 44.3, i'm talking about the highest dx 11 one).

[a tw player]

Well I only got 39

[davsim]

Try with overclocking, my CPU is overclocked to 3.9 Ghz (19x) and the NorthBridge to 2410.0 Mhz, also my GPU is overclocked to 825 Mhz (Core clock), 1650 (Shader Clock) and 2000 (Memory Clock), I could go higher than this but I'd rather keep my components cool.

The only difference with your rig is that I've got a 970, 4 gigs of ram and a asrock mobo.

For a sandybridge i7 you'd have to shell out some 200 ish euros (don't remember the exact price at the moment, they might have gone down with the price now, I don't remember) and 100 ish euros for the motherboard.