Thoughts on gaming rig

Icyseanfitz

hey guys what do ye think of this gaming rig is there anything that ye can see that is wrong or something i should change with it:

Ati HD 5970 - GPU
Asus Crosshair IV mobo - motherboard
HAF 932 - case
AMD Phenom II X4 955 - CPU
OCZ ddr3 ram - RAM
Corsair950 - PSU
HDD - Harddrive
DVD - DVD

comes in at 1387 euro excluding delivery

massy086

i would go intel i5 or i7 to be honest and i would of thought the psu is overkill

massy086

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Icyseanfitz

the reason i went with the 950 watt PSU was just in case i decide to crossfire two of these cards in a year or two (crazy i know ) any idea what the power required for doing that would be like as these cards seem pretty heavy duty, funny how i went from thinking of putting two gtx 460's in to the rig to putting 5970's god damn im gona be pennyless

massy086

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

the reason i went with the 950 watt PSU was just in case i decide to crossfire two of these cards in a year or two (crazy i know ) any idea what the power required for doing that would be like as these cards seem pretty heavy duty, funny how i went from thinking of putting two gtx 460's in to the rig to putting 5970's god damn im gona be pennyless

well funny enough i was thinking the same on the sli 460,s and i would still go that way the 5890 is gona be replaced soon with the 6000 series then ur card wont be worth money much but your 460,s will

Icyseanfitz

damn decisions to go for the crazy 550 euro card or not to that is the question anyone else got any ideas on wether to buy a ati 5970 or dual gtx 460's im looking to play modern games maxed out and im guessing both of these setups will do it, any idea how long it will be before the high end ati 6000 series come out and any idea what the price will be like?

Chaos Marine

I have a single 260GTX, a 24" BenQ monitor at 1920x1200, an older AOC 19" VGA flatscreen monitor going at 1280x1024 and it's only now that the card is starting to feel a little sluggish for the games I throw at it. Most of which the card eats for breakfast. The exceptions being GTAIV which was a craptacular port, Crysis, because it's Crysis, Supreme Commander because it's literally that big of a game.

I have also gotten myself recently a Corsair 950W for SLi 470s, should I get the capital up.

marco_polo

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

the reason i went with the 950 watt PSU was just in case i decide to crossfire two of these cards in a year or two (crazy i know ) any idea what the power required for doing that would be like as these cards seem pretty heavy duty, funny how i went from thinking of putting two gtx 460's in to the rig to putting 5970's god damn im gona be pennyless

Well they weigh in at a hefty 180W TDP each or there abouts leaving a theoretical peak draw @ about 15 amps each. While a quality 650W with a50 amp+ 12V rail would do, the sweet spot would probbaly be a 750W or there abouts.

Icyseanfitz

one last question regarding the 5970 how long will one of them last me for gaming? and at 550 do ye think its a good deal?

Icyseanfitz

as far as i can tell the 5970 is the best single gpu setup (besides it actually being two 5870's) out right now so do ye think it would last me for 3 years of gaming at medium to high settings, and if it was yer money would ye buy one of them for the best performence? is 550 euro a good deal for a 5970? questions question will they ever end

gamer_Niall

think i got my 2gb 5970's for same price

my rig:

THE FINAL BUILD

• _ ATX tower case: Cooler Master HAF 922
• _ Power Supply:750W
• _ CPU:i5-750
• _ ATX Motherboard: ASUS P7P55D - Socket 1156
• _ RAM:Corsair Dominator 4GB
• _ Graphics/video card:Radeon HD 5970 2GB
• _ Hard drive(s): samsung f2 1TB
  
• _ optical drive (DVD burner or Blu-ray): Sony Optiarc
• _ Operating System software:Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
• _ Cooling: Scythe Mugen 2

Overheal

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5389623/art/amd/phenom-ii-x6-1055t-2-8-gh.html

though thats why they slashed the price on the X4

Icyseanfitz

x6 is six core right that is one hell of a good price but im going to stick with the i5 750 i think

Overheal

6 cores indeed. Gets a 7.4 out of a possible 7.9 on the Vista/7 Scoring mathingy. Havent had a chance to properly benchmark it on anything yet.

Lu Tze

What resolution is the monitor you are going to be gaming on?

Icyseanfitz

havnt got one yet but i will be using my 1080p tv to play while i save up for a 1920 x 1200 22 inch

Lu Tze

That graphics card is massive overkill in that case.

Icyseanfitz

Overheal wrote: »

6 cores indeed. Gets a 7.4 out of a possible 7.9 on the Vista/7 Scoring mathingy. Havent had a chance to properly benchmark it on anything yet.

ive just thought of something, would i be better off going with an AMD phenom II x4 AM3 socket processor and motherboard seeing as that six core also uses the AM3 socket, so one could assume that future AMD 6 core processors will use it as well which would make the AM3 socket more future proof???

Lu Tze

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

ive just thought of something, would i be better off going with an AMD phenom II x4 AM3 socket processor and motherboard seeing as that six core also uses the AM3 socket, so one could assume that future AMD 6 core processors will use it as well which would make the AM3 socket more future proof???

AFAIK intel have announced new sockets coming next year

Icyseanfitz

Lu Tze wrote: »

That graphics card is massive overkill in that case.

why it seems to be very rare that people game over 1920 x 1200, plus im looking for a card that will just run everything at max and that 5970 seems to be a good enough deal as i was going to sli two gtx 460's anyway which is only about 50 - 100 euro less than the 5970

Icyseanfitz

Lu Tze wrote: »

AFAIK intel have announced new sockets coming next year

Do AMD change sockets every time intel do?

Chaos Marine

Intel are also supposed to be slashing the prices of their current chips so you'll probably be seeing them going much cheaper and considering that those chips aren't anything to scoff at, when they do drop, they're going to be a bargain.

uberpixie

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

Do AMD change sockets every time intel do?

No. AMD do their own thing and generally are not so trigger happy about changing sockets every second year like intel seem to do at times :pac:

Icyseanfitz

i think im going to go with AMD they are pretty good value also i really like my mobo - Asus 890fx

Venom

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

as far as i can tell the 5970 is the best single gpu setup (besides it actually being two 5870's) out right now so do ye think it would last me for 3 years of gaming at medium to high settings, and if it was yer money would ye buy one of them for the best performence? is 550 euro a good deal for a 5970? questions question will they ever end

That 5970 will easily last 3 years because 99% of the games you will be playing are also going to be out on consoles or ports from the consoles so a jump in GPU power wont be needed till the PS4 or Xbox 720 hit the market. That Corsair 950w is going to be the most future proof item in your rig apart from the case

massy086 - your point is moot as every graphics card takes a nose dive when a newer one hits the market and unless the OP is chasing benchmarks it wont matter a damm when playing games on a 5970 or 6000.

Overheal

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

ive just thought of something, would i be better off going with an AMD phenom II x4 AM3 socket processor and motherboard seeing as that six core also uses the AM3 socket, so one could assume that future AMD 6 core processors will use it as well which would make the AM3 socket more future proof???

considering AM3 only launched in feb 09 i think it will be around a while.

the big reason for even changing from AM2 was to support DDR3 memory. Socket AM2 launched for the same reason back in 2006 to support DDR2.

DDR4 wont be out before 2012 and if its adopted in the same trend as DDR3 you wont see a lot of it around until about 2 or 3 years after that. A DDR4 system wouldnt be commonly affordable in 2012/13

So you can wait for Intel's new socket, use their old socket, or use AM3 and theres a very good chance it will not have a successor before 2012. The only thing that would bring a successor earlier that i can tell is triple-channel memory architecture, which right now only the i7s are running. imo triple channel isnt a big enough reason to upgrade a motherboard and cpu - especially one i just bought. 6 core dual channel ddr3 is still a beast.

Icyseanfitz

Venom wrote: »

That 5970 will easily last 3 years because 99% of the games you will be playing are also going to be out on consoles or ports from the consoles so a jump in GPU power wont be needed till the PS4 or Xbox 720 hit the market. That Corsair 950w is going to be the most future proof item in your rig apart from the case

massy086 - your point is moot as every graphics card takes a nose dive when a newer one hits the market and unless the OP is chasing benchmarks it wont matter a damm when playing games on a 5970 or 6000.

ya im not looking for benchmarks im just looking for the best card i can buy right now and for €550 it seems like a bit of a steal, also i dont mind playing games on medium (not low ) so i figure the card will last me a good long while especially considering i could just add an 5870 or another 5970 later on if things start to struggle by which time they will probably be dirt cheap, as for processor and mobo im going to go with AMD and the A3 socket as it seems some bit likely that i might be able to use the next gen of processors with this socket as opposed to intel.
And the main reason i am going for the 950W PSU is so it can be used in future builds which i figure will require less power anyway as everyone seems to be going power efficient rather than an excess amount of power consumption so i should be covered by the 950 PSU for a while

Overheal

hey wait a minute - wheres the OS on this build?

Icyseanfitz

yup havnt figured that yet i know im going for 64 bit windows 7 just dont know where to buy any ideas?

Venom

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

ya im not looking for benchmarks im just looking for the best card i can buy right now and for €550 it seems like a bit of a steal, also i dont mind playing games on medium (not low ) so i figure the card will last me a good long while especially considering i could just add an 5870 or another 5970 later on if things start to struggle by which time they will probably be dirt cheap, as for processor and mobo im going to go with AMD and the A3 socket as it seems some bit likely that i might be able to use the next gen of processors with this socket as opposed to intel.
And the main reason i am going for the 950W PSU is so it can be used in future builds which i figure will require less power anyway as everyone seems to be going power efficient rather than an excess amount of power consumption so i should be covered by the 950 PSU for a while

Unless a game is a really craptastic port (GTA4) or the next Crysis, you should have no problem running games with everything maxed out for a long time to come with a 5970.

Overheal

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

yup havnt figured that yet i know im going for 64 bit windows 7 just dont know where to buy any ideas?

Its going to be about the same everywhere. Microsoft sets the MSRP and the Minimum Advertised Price. Which in the states I think the OEM M.A.P. is $99

Still using XP as the example thats a bargain for the number of years it will be supported even if it was only supported for half the time XP was.