Pre-Build questions

[The_Otter]

So its finally time for my first build. I'm hoping to maximize bang for the buck and build a smokin' computer. There are several issues I'm still working on and need some guidance with. As some background info I will be using this computer for multitasking, music and video editing, as a dvr, light to moderate gaming, etc. I will run a dual monitor setup and I already have both monitors.

I've been quite tempted to do a phenom 9850 or 9950 build. I've been an AMD fan for a while and on newegg I was browsing the AMD mobos and lots of them display this message * DDR2 1066 is supported by AM2+ CPU for one DIMM per channel only.* This confuses me. Secondly I've seen several replies to other posts saying 1066 vs 800 ram is only a negligible difference.

Video card - My budget here is semi flexible at ballpark of 100 to 150ish. As I said I'll be doing light to moderate gaming. Any suggestions on solid cards in this range? Will a couple more bucks give me what I need for more serious gaming?

So any help everyone can provide on these questions will greatly assist me in planning this first build.

[Masaki 7-11]

If you are doing an AMD build, take a look at the Phenom IIs; they are a lot faster than the original Phenoms. You can use DDR2 1066 with only 2 sticks if the motherboard supports DDR2 1066 for one DIMM per channel only (there are two channels). The performance increase by going with DDR2 1066 isn't that much overall; but it is a good increase in terms of memory bandwidth.

For $140 your best choice is the HD4850, the 9800GTX+ is about as fast and costs around $160; for $170 you can get the HD4870 which is a good bit faster than either the HD4850 or 9800GTX+. The next step up is the GTX260 with 216 Cores for around $220 (the performance increase over the HD4870 isn't really noticeable unless you are using really high resolutions such as 1920x1200 or higher).

[The_Otter]

So using this mobo as an examle Asus M3N78-EM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131354

It says 8gigs of memory max. If I use 1066, I can only use 1 dimm per channel? That would mean a maximum of 4 gigs if I used 2 2 gig dimms correct? Or am I misunderstanding you? If I'm correct this seems like a waste, I should look and see if intel mobos have this same issue, or if higher end amd mobos share the issue.

[Masaki 7-11]

Originally Posted by The_Otter So using this mobo as an examle Asus M3N78-EM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131354 It says 8gigs of memory max. If I use 1066, I can only use 1 dimm per channel? That would mean a maximum of 4 gigs if I used 2 2 gig dimms correct? Or am I misunderstanding you? If I'm correct this seems like a waste, I should look and see if intel mobos have this same issue, or if higher end amd mobos share the issue.

I'm pretty sure that if you use 4 sticks of DDR2-1066, it would drop down to DDR2-800 for stability. You should be able to use 2 sticks of DDR2-1066 at their normal settings. I'm not sure why you would need more than 4GB of ram though; right now even 2GB is quite a lot of ram for a general/gaming computer. Unless you are doing workstation stuff such as video editing, image editing, 3d modelling, etc. you won't need more than 4GB of ram. Not all AMD motherboards have this limitation though; here is a motherboard which supports 4 sticks of DDR2-1066: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131331