new build

mods close please

I would recommend a 500w PSU
Also....on a monitor that is 22", I doubt the resolution is that high? The 4890 is a good card, but might be a bit overkill on a monitor that small. But then, overkill is what its all about.

4890 is right at home on my 23" 2048x1152 display. for 1680x1050, it would be overkill for the next year or so.

how about if i wanted to run the 22" and a second 19" at the same time for browsing would it still be overkill?

3x2 GB Ram? Is that 2 sticks of 3 GB or 3 sticks of 2 GB?

Phenom II uses Dual Channel, not Tri Channel (it is used by i7), so buy 2 sticks or 4 sticks of ram and not 3.

If you can pay the gap I would go for the 955 BE. Sooner or later you might get the OC bug and with the Black Edition processor it will be relatively easy to get a decent overclock.

If you have the money buy the 4890. Its pretty cheap anyway. If not, well the 4870 is even cheaper.

do you mean phenomII doent use DDR3 or that 3 sticks wont fit as I did mean that i was getting 3 sticks of 2gig ram .
and are you saying that if i wanted to OC the 945 i would have bad results? I havnt OC'd one of my systems yet so there is no guarantee i ever will I have heard that things seem to blow up faster once OC'd and thats not a situation I find attactive.

It does use DDR3. But dual channel. So it is better to have 2 sticks only. Or 4 sticks. If you use 3 sticks you wont have dual channel, meaning slower memory operations.

In this case, having 6GB Ram in 3 sticks would be worse than having 4GB in 2 sticks.

First, they don't blow up.

2nd the 955 has unlocked multiplier, so you go there, change multiplier and maybe drop the HT link speed and you are set.

The 945 doesn't have unlocked multiplier, so you will have to mess with bus speed and such, which is a lot messier.

If you really won't ever overclock, then you are ok. But if the price difference isn't big, it is really a shame. And it does overclock easy, but up to you.

Change the Ram though.

thanks Improvavel thats the sort of info i am after for the build so would you suggest having 8 gigs of ram would be overkill to the extreme? But something i have never really understood if Over Clocking isnt detrimental to the operation of the unit then why do they not do it in the factory to give maximum clock speeds? I mean you quite often see gpu's factory OC'd why arent they all if its not an issue?


Btw this is great info and i really appreciate it.

Well they do.

Take the 945 and the 955.

The differences are: the 955 is 200 MHz faster. The other difference is that it has an unlocked multiplier. The 945 has the multiplier locked.

So see, it is an OC. And they can charge you more money for that.

An even more extreme example is the i7 920 and the i7 965.

Most of the the i7 920 can OC to the i7 965 levels. The price difference is $700+.

Well it isn't guaranteed that a 945 will reach a 955 levels or that an i7 will reach the i7 965 levels.

A better way of looking at this is:

All i7 are 920.

After all they all come from the same silicon wafer, but because physics, manufacture processes and random events, some of the i7 920 can only reach the i7 920 speeds. Some can reach i7 965 levels. Others fall in between. Some can't even reach the i7 920 standards.

Some can reach the same speed but require more voltage, others lesser.

What you get from those $700+ premium you paid is certainty the your i7 will reach that speed at stock volts.

But sometimes, due to supply and demand, CPUs that should be i7 965 are sold as i7 920.

Soon Intel will stop selling i7 920 and it will be introducing the i5 to sell CPU at that price point.

I also believe, although I'm not certain the i7 965 (which is an extreme edition) have unlocked multiplier.


Going back to the Phenom II 945 vs 955 BE, the difference of 200 MHz is the same story with the i7 and the added bit of the unlocked multiplier.

The unlocked multipliers help overclocking, because if not you need to tweak bus speeds, voltages, ram dividers, etc, all of those related too motherboards (and its quality) as well, including loads of new factors you need to balance and can screw an overclock, as opposed to simply increase the CPU clock without messing with the rest of your system.

Soon Intel will launch the i7 975 and AMD is planning on the 965. Both of those are basically over clocked versions of the previous top dogs.

Why do they do this?

It can be because the manufacturer process is evolving and becoming more efficient, so you get more top dog chips, meaning the new chips not only are faster but can still clock about the same amount (for example, most 955BE can OC to 3.8-3.9 range. If the 965 comes out at 3.4 GHz, then expecting same OC room they would go to 4.0-4.2 GHz) and this would pressure the competition.

It can also be because they need to pressure the opposition, so they just reduce overclock room. Again for example, the 955 runs at 3.2 GHz default and goes to 3.8-3.9 and the 965 runs at 3.4 GHz and would go up to the same 3.8-3.9.

So loads of variables.

What you need to know about overclock is:

1st) have good cooling;

2nd) you wont see stuff exploding or burning just because you went to high for 5s;

3rd) it isn't guaranteed, so don't be unhappy if you got a chip that wont go as high as other people are able to achieve.

For example, some time ago I bought 2 graphic cards of the same model. one would overclock 150 MHz. The other anything above the default clock would make it crash.

The same brand had a model that was OC from factory by 100 MHz.

It is all chance.
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About the Ram - 4 GB are enough for most stuff atm (and you need to use 64 bit OS to take advantage from it - 32bits are capped at 3.5 GB or so).

If you have the money for the 8 GB, well more is better.

Interestingly, it is easier to achieve higher overclocks when you don't occupy all the memory slots most of the time, ie, it is easier to get a stable overclock with 2 memory sticks for Phenom/Core2 Duo/Quad and 3 for i7 than with 4 sticks for Phenom/Core2 Duo/Quad and 6 for i7.

thanks for that improvavel u rock mate that makes heaps of sense and i honestly had no idea. I did just find an issue with the phenomII x4 it appears its a very thirsty chip and req's a lot more power than its counterparts and i do have my comp running at least 8 hours a day so this is going to add up over time. ( I assume the x4 means quad core? ) and its counterparts that offer similar performance are core 2 duo intel e9550 seems to be comparable and similarly priced ( am i right in thinking core2 duo is just dual core? ) this doent make a lot of sense to me that they are comparable for operation. Would i not therefore be better to go for a intel version say the 9550 and change mobos? from what i see they would be DDR2 though could you or anyone offer me guidance in that area please? I cant say enough how much i appreciate the feedback and i know i keep saying it but I do. also if the mobo has an nvidea chip is it better to get an nvidea card or is there simply no option you must get a card to match the chip? I am happy to spend the money in the same region for all parts if anyone has some better specs or complete builds that would rock.

thanks again

x4 is for 4 CPU yes.

The Intel QUAD E9550 or Q9550 is a quad core too.

Here is the link of a 955BE review, power consumption bit, http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...px?i=3551&p=15

Another review from a site that is more from a gamer perspective, http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-ph...r-review-test/

It seems the power difference isn't that big (and the bill difference in the end of the year shouldn't be significant). Better say it is negligible, could be 0 for what matters.

2 things about Phenom II vs Q9550 - The AM3 platform is new, so you should be able to upgrade in the next years if you need too. The platform the Q9550 is ending.

For gaming I would go with the Phenom II. If you do loads (ALL DAYS 8-24 hours per day and not once in a while) of encoding, Photoshop, the the intel CPU is better.

The Phenom II is also clocked higher, games still like high clocks, although to be honest, Intel processors used to be able to OC higher. I say used, because I've heard that new Q9550 batch of processors can't reach the same OC old ones could, but feel free to disabuse me.

About the chipset, should be no difference. Get the graphic card you want regardless of chipset. The only difference is Crossfire (ATI) and SLI (nVidia) which are the platform when you use 2 or more graphic cards. If you want to use Xfire or SLI you need to make sure the motherboard supports it (nVidia doesn't like to allow SLI on non-nVidia chipsets) and nVidia chipsets don't support Xfire.

Improvavel is spot on as far as I can say in regards to the processors..... basically if you just plan to game and do web surfing/ word docs you should save the money and go with an AMD3 platform. The gaming performance with an AMD Phenom II series is within a few percentile if not dead even and even at times ahead of the i7 setups and the overall cost for the system is much cheaper. Right not I would go for 4GB of RAM (2 DIMMs) and down the road pop another 4GB of the same thing in there - right now however there's not much benefit in going with more than 4GB.... there will be in the future, but save your cash and buy it 1-2 yrs from now when the price of DDR3 is slashed far far lower than it is now.
You ought to get a bigger, beefier PSU - 430 watts is puny by today's standards - while it should be plenty to boot your system, it gives you little room for upgrading. If it's a brand new system you are better of paying $20-25 extra for the 600watt PSU than cutting yourself short in the future. Look for a name brand PSU with multiple 12v+ rails with 18amps or more each - my personal preference for quality PSUs on a budget is OCZ, but Antec, Thermaltake, and Corsair are all good and not much more expensive in the long run. Good luck!

Yeah u need a new power supply. I didn't noticed. I like OCZ too.

ok so these are pretty much the specs i will be looking to get when i go shopping thanks to all for your help.

motherboard= gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P
cpu = x4 PhenomII 955 be
ram = 2x2gig gskil DDR3
HDD= western digital 640gig (will probably use a smalller HDD as well)
gpu= xfx Radeon HD 4890 1 gig
psu= 600w ocz ( is green power the way to go? )


should have me ahead of the curve a little while or at least up with it as my psu asks though is green power the way to go in a psu? oh and is vista better in 32bit or 64 bit atm? and does anyone know if there is a business version or something that can do multiple comps like say 2-3?

Get Vista 64bit so that you can utilize all 4GB of RAM (and more in the future too). Many online sites are offering a free upgrade to Win 7 if you buy Vista now - so be sure to check that out.

I was running a 9600 GT + 3 ghz Core 2 Duo with several hard drives on a CPU with 228 watts on the 12V (though I since upgraded to a nice Antec Earthwatts). Point is that while your Thermaltake might be a bit iffy depending on specs, you don't necessarily need a 600 watt PSU.

4890 with a quad core will use under 300 watts (and that's at the source, so what the PSU is providing will be quite a bit lower). http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...0,2262-13.html

Multiply the amps the Thermaltake provides on the 12V rail (it'll probably be listed on the PSU somewhere) by 12. If it's higher than 350 or so you should be ok.

When a company designs a cpu, they design it to be stable and to not generate too much heat at a given clock frequency. The speed and temperature settings they aim for would be relatively conservative, because they want their cpus to run as reliably as possible. This means that they take into consideration things like what the stock cooling is and how much it degrades as dust accumulates, and many other factors.
So, they basically already design them for the "maximum" clock speed within certain parameters.

Overclocking simply means "running the clock speed beyond design specs". Because there can be a lot of variation in the physical properties of any individual chip, on a chip by chip basis, some units can easily surpass their design specs (and some can't). One of the least understood things about overclocking is the idea that not every chip can be overclocked by the same amout - results will vary.

Anywho, a while back it was easy to do actual physical damage to a cpu by overclocking it too much, but these days, the chips basically just shut down. However, a chip that is overclocked close to it's max is inherently unstable, and tends to get more unstable over time. On countless occasions I've had people complain about problems with their computer, only find the problems disappear when the clocks were set to default. "But, it worked fine for 6 months!"
These instabilities can affect other parts of the system and can result in hard drive or file corruption.
Basically, if you are going to overclock, you have to keep in mind that you need to maintain good cooling and keep an eye on things in general. Personally, I've never found the small gains you get by a basic overclock to be worth bothering with, and getting into serious overclocking, with water cooling, etc., is not worth the time and expense unless you happen to enjoy doing it.

Note though - sometimes, because yields are up and a manufacturer has all the high-end chips it can sell, they will simply mark a chip as the next bin or two down to sell it quickly. These chips are great candidates for OCing.

True to a point. Watercooling is just a means of reducing fan noise now due to the power of coolers like the Tuniq Tower. If you've got more time than money and love computers as a hobby, overclocking is GREAT. The whole Core 2 Duo line is highly overclockable. Gotta love 2 ghz chips capable of 4+ ghz...

the build i have atm is an amd 5200+ am2 i believe well i know its dual core, i will also be keeping this one and building a new one would it be worth over clocking this one? its about 2.5 years old and what yeild/benefit could be acheived by overclocking it? as in if its say 2.6ghz atm whats the max oc thats been acheived and whats the average if anyone knows?

It would depend on how much headroom is available from the motherboard, RAM, and CPU - whether the power supply has enough extra juice - and how decent the cooling is.

Even after all that, different CPUs with the exact same specs can have wildly different capabilities =)

The 5200 is not known to be a great overclocker - while you might see some gains, the amount that would (likely) be stable on stock cooling is not going to really be worth it... imo. The Phenom series from AMD, esp. the Black Edition series is much better for Overclocking. Feel free to try abit, but as Quaker has pointed out it's not always worth it.

ok so after some consultation from you very knowledgable people here I have build my new pc with the following stats.

x4 phenom II 955be ( with stock cooling)
gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P mobo
powercolor radeon 4890 HD 1 gig GDDR5 gpu
thermaltake v9 gaming case
600w seasonic M12
4 gig kingston 1333 DDR3 ram
1 terrabyte sata WD HDD
sata dvd burner
vista 64 bit premium

Its been running with a 19 inch monitor atm as i havnt had it hooked to the net yet.


I have a quick question for you knowledgable people as i tend to panic when i spend a fair bit of cash

There is a hot smell when its running (is this normal?)
I opened the side of the case and put my hand in and the only place generating any heat is the GPU on the side closest to the case back.
now its not hot so you cant touch it but it is fairly warm. I dont have anything on the comp using the gpu at the moment except vista.

Is this normal (am i pannicking for no reason?) and if it isnt any tips?

thanks in advance.

Results will vary and it depends a lot upon what you want to achieve.
In most cases these days, games are more limited by GPU power than CPU power. If you are mostly looking to play games, you may not notice any real performance increase. If the game you are playing now runs at 80 fps with overclock, as opposed to 78 fps without it, you won't "see" any difference - especially if you peg it at 60fps with vsync on.
If you are running some heavy duty CPU intensive apps like video/audio encoding or editing you could see a difference.
If you are just running benchmarks for the e-peen you will get better numbers.

Overall, if you mostly play games, surf the web, watch youtube, and the other stuff most people do - you won't see any real benefit to overclocking.