1st build in five years...

[waturi]

Ive been in Mac land for a few years now but I recently go the itch to build a gaming PC and would like some advice on my build. And I know a lot of you are going to say I should go for Intel but I get a deal with AMD through my sister in law. Other than that there's no budget issues. Here's the build:

Case: Antec Performance One P190

CPU: AMD Phenom 9600

Mobo: ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe

GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 X2

Mem: 2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800

Storage1: Western Digital Raptor WD 150GB 10,000RPM HD

Storage2: Samsung Spinpoint T series 500GB 7200RPM HD



What do you think? Any potential conflicts? What sort of future proofing would this build have?

Also, the case comes with 2 PSUs, 1 650W(for the mobo and cards) & 1 550W(for everything else). When Crossfire X is released I plan on adding another 3870 X2 but I don't think the 650W would handle both cards...which means I would have to put one card on each PSU. Has anyone had experience with a setup like that? any potential problems I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

[Katreat]

Looks like an interesting build although reading through Newegg reviews on the MB I would want to find a good professional review on it before I bought, maybe you have already done this. You raise an interesting question regarding that case and I dont know the answer. The P190 came about before the impact of 4 video cards on one board was really looked at. Not sure if it has been looked at yet. I would think the the best work around would just be to trade out the PSU for something larger when you put in card 3 and 4.

The one think I would recomend changing is the HD. I would recomend going for either Seagate or WD for the 7200 drive just because they have the best track record and from posters on these boards Samsong has been having some problems lately with their HDs.

You also dont list an optical and most here recomend Lite - On retail SATA. if you buy retail you get free Nero burning software.

What OS are you planning on?

Kat

[waturi]

Thanks Kat,

I did check some reviews of the mobo and the consensus among the sites I respect seemed to be along the lines of "you should get an intel system, but if you're not going to then this is a great motherboard" (I find that reviews on newegg tend to be full of useless hyperbole, either it's "OMG these speakers are better than anything humans have ever experienced before on this planet!!!" or "This piece of junk processor would not let me overclock it to 3 times the factory speed! the company that produced it are worse than Nazis!")

My decision to go Samsung on the HD was because I've had good experiences with their customer service in the past, But I'll check out the Seagate, thanks.

Originally Posted by Katreat You also dont list an optical and most here recomend Lite - On retail SATA. if you buy retail you get free Nero burning software. Kat

Hehe...I knew I was forgetting something... I guess I'm still used to cannibalizing my old system when I build a new one

also, I plan on running Vista Home Premium