A few upgrade questions

[Jdorty]

I was looking at upgrading my PC and had a few questions. First, these are the parts I was looking at getting:

Motherboard:
GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128392

Processor:
AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103675

Video Card:
ASUS EAH5850/G/2DIS/1GD5 Radeon HD 5850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121349

And 6 gb of G-Skill DDR3 1333 RAM


My questions are whether these parts look good together and whether my current 500W (Antec power supply) is enough or I need to upgrade. If I need to upgrade, I was looking at this power supply.

If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them. I did just build a computer about 6 or 7 months ago, but I ended up getting a better job and found I can sell the parts I'm replacing for close to the price I bought them for. I may actually make money on the DDR2 RAM. I'm also upgrading to Windows 7 from XP. Will be putting the parts in my Antec 300 case, already have everything else I need.

Oh, my only other question was whether it would make more sense to use two HD 5750 cards (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121351) in a crossfire setup. Its almost identical pricewise, but I wasn't sure if it would be beneficial or not.


Edit: Found this on the AMD/ATI website for the HD 5850: "500 Watt or greater power supply with two 75W 6-pin PCI Express® power connectors recommended (600 Watt and four 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode) ", but I still wanna make sure it will be enough for everything I have listed.

Edit 2: Was also thinking about getting some more hard drive space. I currently have a 500 GB WD black and was wondering if getting a slower drive would slow anything down at all, as long as the WD Black is the drive the OS is installed on? Western Digital are currently selling their 1.5 TB Green editions for very cheap (99.99, free shipping. that's 15 GB every dollar, compared to the next best of around 9-10).

[glc]

The Antec Basiq has enough power, but it does NOT have two PCI-E connectors, just one. The EA650 has two.

Always use one card if possible - keep it simple.

Storage is storage. It won't slow anything down. The Greens aren't exactly slow either.

[flanzig1]

Would look to up the PSU and get one that has the 2 power connectors for the video card. Something in the 650w range.
Adding a second drive for storage should not slow things down, at least enough to notice.

[Jdorty]

Doh! Thanks for the info on the power supply.

I was kind of thinking the same thing about one card over crossfire. Everything else look good? I was looking at the phenom 955 and 965s, but the benchmark differences looked marginal to me, at best.

[Masaki 7-11]

Originally Posted by Jdorty Doh! Thanks for the info on the power supply. I was kind of thinking the same thing about one card over crossfire. Everything else look good? I was looking at the phenom 955 and 965s, but the benchmark differences looked marginal to me, at best.

The Phenom II X4 945 is a very good processor for the money; there are two versions of it though; one is 125W and the other is 95W, if possible get the 95W version.

The 6GB kit of ram is most likely intended for the X58 Core i7 motherboards as it comes with 3 sticks of ram (for triple channel); it will still run on AMD builds but you will be limited to single channel. The difference in performance between single channel and dual channel isn't very much though (probably a few percent at best).

[Jdorty]

Hmmm, looking at the new i5-750 beating the more expensive AMD 965 at every bench mark, I'm tempted to go Intel and get an i5. Either way I have to wait until an Asus HD 5850 is available. I'm hoping soon AMD is forced to drop their prices on the Phenom II x4's to compete with the new i5s, then I'll get an even cheaper CPU. =]

[Masaki 7-11]

Originally Posted by Jdorty Hmmm, looking at the new i5-750 beating the more expensive AMD 965 at every bench mark, I'm tempted to go Intel and get an i5. Either way I have to wait until an Asus HD 5850 is available. I'm hoping soon AMD is forced to drop their prices on the Phenom II x4's to compete with the new i5s, then I'll get an even cheaper CPU. =]

The Phenom II X4 965BE is not a very good bang for the buck processor. If bang for the buck is important to you, I would take a look at either a Phenom II X4 945 (95W) with an Asus 770 based AM3 motherboard or for about $80 more, go for a Core i5 750 with a Asus P55 based motherboard. Both should handle gaming pretty well with a HD5850. If you think you will be doing a good bit of CPU intensive stuff like video editing, or video conversion the Core i5 will be a better choice, however if you will be mostly gaming/multitasking, the Phenom II X4 will handle it.

[Jdorty]

The i5 750 is only 35 more than the phenom II x4 945. Yes, I was looking for the most bang for my buck, which is why I got interested in the 750. I chose the 945 over the 955/965 because the benchmarks were not very different compared to the price, however the i5 750 is between the phenom 955 and 965 in price, but quite a bit better bench marks than both.

What I would really like would be for AMD to drop their prices to compete with Intel, then I'd get a 945 for even cheaper.

[glc]

If your budget is not tight, also look at the i7-860 to get the hyperthreading.

[Jdorty]

I was just curious about some Intel CPU stuff. I was wondering what you guys thought about the future of the LGA 1156 sockets for future upgrades? Also, I'm not really too sure about what hyper threading does, or how important it is?

[Masaki 7-11]

Originally Posted by Jdorty The i5 750 is only 35 more than the phenom II x4 945. Yes, I was looking for the most bang for my buck, which is why I got interested in the 750. I chose the 945 over the 955/965 because the benchmarks were not very different compared to the price, however the i5 750 is between the phenom 955 and 965 in price, but quite a bit better bench marks than both. What I would really like would be for AMD to drop their prices to compete with Intel, then I'd get a 945 for even cheaper.

The i5 750 is only $35 more than the phenom ii x4 945, however a good motherboard for the AMD processor (Asus AM3 770) will be $45 less than the least expensive Asus LGA1156 motherboard (P55 based). I would imagine AMD will drop their prices more to compete with Intel, however right now they are pretty competitive in terms of pricing, especially when you take into account the motherboard.

From my experience future upgradability with Intel processors isn't that good, there were many chipsets for the LGA775 socket, and almost each time they came out with a new processor there was need for a new chipset as the old chipsets weren't compatible (examples of this is the 915P chipset which wasn't compatible with the Pentium D processors, the 945P chipset was compatible with the Pentium D but was not compatible with Core 2 Duo, which the P965 chipset was compatible with (but some versions were not compatible with Core 2 Quad) and didn't have support for 45nm Core 2s.

With the AM2 socket motherboards there was some forward compatibility (mostly depending on BIOS updates) with AM2+ and AM3, while AM2+ motherboards are fully compatible with AM2/AM2+/AM3 processors. The AM3 motherboards though are only compatible with AM3 and up processors due to Ram limitations (prior to AM3, AMD processors only had support for DDR2 ram).

[Jdorty]

Yeah, I noticed that when looking at the boards (about the DDR3 only on AM3 boards).

I think I'm going to stick with AMD on this. Have to wait a little while for 5850s. If the prices drop on the 965, I'll get that, but I'll probably just stick with the 945. I just don't see enough differences looking at the benchmarks for programs, games, multi-tasking, etc.

Thanks for the advice guys. =]

[Masaki 7-11]

Originally Posted by Jdorty Yeah, I noticed that when looking at the boards (about the DDR3 only on AM3 boards). I think I'm going to stick with AMD on this. Have to wait a little while for 5850s. If the prices drop on the 965, I'll get that, but I'll probably just stick with the 945. I just don't see enough differences looking at the benchmarks for programs, games, multi-tasking, etc. Thanks for the advice guys. =]

I wouldn't get the Phenom II X4 965 even if there is a price drop (unless AMD comes out with a new version that is lower wattage) as it's barely faster than the Phenom II X4 945 and produces a lot more heat and uses up more wattage (140W for the 965 v. 95W (or 125W) for the 945).

[Khalil]

Masaki what are you basing your statement that 965 is barely faster than the 945, more reviews you read somewhere? I upgraded my gaming rig from 945 to 955 to 965 and the difference was very noticeable.

[Masaki 7-11]

Originally Posted by Khalil Masaki what are you basing your statement that 965 is barely faster than the 945, more reviews you read somewhere? I upgraded my gaming rig from 945 to 955 to 965 and the difference was very noticeable.

I very much doubt that you have a very noticeable difference between the 945 and the 965 unless you overclocked; the only difference between them is the clock speed; the 965 has a 400MHz (or 13%) faster clock speed advantage over the 945, the unlocked multipliers don't help performance any unless used for overclocking. I've used both the 945 and 965 and didn't see much of a difference between them, especially in gaming.