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Building new rig, compatibility question
dyermaker714
Member UncommonPosts: 192
And I want to make sure everthing is going to be compatible, especially the CPU/Motherboard as i'm not really sure how to tell if the two are compatible
Here are the specs:
GPU - Nvidia GTX 470 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130550
CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103727
Motherboard - ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131366
PSU - CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006
RAM - G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231225
HD -Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB
Case - Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Steel ATX Mid Tower http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129066
I'm thinking I should be ok but if anyone has any suggestions i'd appreciate em 
EDIT: What is the difference/benefit if any to going with a full tower case? Thanks
Comments
You've technically got a bit of a memory mis-match - that's a triple kit, meant primarily for boards which use triple-channel memory (aka Intel's socket 1366 boards). You could still use them, but since your board's uses dual-channel memory, one of the sticks would be the odd one out, which I suspect would keep the board from running dual-channel.
That video card extends past the length of the motherboard by an inch or so, and to look at the picture, the clearance between the motherboard holes and the hard drive cages looks tight - you might not be able to fit the card at all, or at least not without losing expansion slots.
Consider the 640GB or 1TB version of that hard drive - they have slightly better performance over the 500GB version.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
You almost hit it, but you could re-allocate money a little differently and walk away with something much more satisfying.
First, there's that triple channel memory; it's completely useless to you. Despite the dual, independent memory controllers on the Phenom II X4s, you're stuck with the same dual-channel memory we've come to know and love for years. Buy the 4GB version of that memory, and save yourself $50.
Then there's the video card. Given the power requirements of the 470 (it's two of any non-fermi GPU in power and heat), it's really hard to recommend spending $320 on it, when you can spend $300 on a pair of Radeon HD 5770s, $400 and get a pair of Radeon HD 5830s or Geforce GTX 460s (if you're willing to get an SLI certified motherboard), or get a Radeon HD 5870 for $379. Any of these options will essentially cost you nothing after the $50 you save getting a little less RAM (and on the 5870, you could even downgrade your PSU by 100W because it's so power-efficient, and save money that way), and all will perform faster than a single GTX 470. You'd even SAVE money getting a pair of 5770s (they'll perform right on par with a single 5870).
Changing the memory is a must. You should either spring for 4GB or 8GB, and right now, I've yet to see any concrete evidence of ANY advantage to having more than 4GB (and upgrading later by picking up two more sticks is cheap). Changing out the GPU isn't a must, but I'd highly recommend it. The only good Fermi GPU is the 460, and it's really VERY good, but the others are not.
You need to make sure about that card and the dimensions of the case to make sure it fits.
I have a antec 900 which has about 1.5 inches more room than the 300 and my 4870 barely fits.
I'd switch the case to a Storm Scout. I've used an Antec 900, and the scout blew it away feature/build quality. Aesthetically it's similar to the Antec 300/900.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119196&cm_re=storm_scout-_-11-119-196-_-Product
I'm not sure if using 6GB RAM will move you down to single channel, if I were you I'd also grab an 8GB kit.
I'd take aSamsung F3 over a WD Black. Cheaper, faster, and better rated. I have 2 of them and they're amazing drives for the price: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181&cm_re=samsung_f3-_-22-152-181-_-Product
If you need to save money, go for a GTX460 1GB for $100 less. It performs within 20% of a GTX470, and is extremely overclockable.
edit: You'll be able to fit the card just fine, the 4xx series is shorter than the 2xx series.
Money is not really an issue so i'm ok with the GTX 470 and I plan to have two eventually if that helps with you guys deciding on a motherboard. Here's where i'm at:
GPU - Nvidia GTX 470 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130550
CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103727
PSU - CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006
HD -Samsung F3 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181&cm_re=samsung_f3-_-22-152-181-_-Product
I'm a little confused about the tripple-channel memory/motherboard thing. I'm assuming tripple/dual channel just refers to how many actual sticks of ram I have regardless of the total GB? I'll be using Win 7 (upgrading from Win XP) so i'd like to have at least 6 gigs of ram.
Case - ??
RAM - ??
Motherboard - ??
I had a feeling there would be a problem with the motherboard I picked so whats a good one?
Don't sweat too much about the dual/triple channel issue. Basically, "dual-channel" just refers to the system's ability to maintain two streams of data to/from the RAM at once, for potentially double the data bandwidth. Doing so, however, requires equal-sized memory sticks in multiples of two. Pretty much every system out there these days supports dual-channel.
Intel's high-end i7/X58 systems are a recent anomaly and exception in that they can support triple-channel memory, and thus need memory sticks in sets of three, hence the triple kits you'll see out there. If you really don't want to stick with just 4GB, then go to 8GB. Although these days, 4GB is still plenty until you get into professional fields.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
If money is not an issue, I'd personally go with the 5870 as well (over the GTX 470). The 5870s will out perform the 470s. And it will also consume less power and produce less heat (especially if you're looking to go SLI/Crossfire down the road). You may be looking at unneeded power and cooling upgrades down the road if you do opt for the GTX 470.
I've been an Nvidia fan for years, but ATI is just where its at now. I have a 5870 and it runs beautiful. And I plan on grabbing another when I'll need it probably 3 years from now.
And as far as the memory issues. Listen to what they say. They are spot on.
I've done some research, DEFINITELY going with the 5870 but I've heard a lot of bad things about ATI drivers, is there any truth to this? Also I have no knowledge on motherboards, how does one determine if a Mobo is quality or not?
It basically is just the number of sticks you have. A dual channel config can access 2 sticks simultaneously splitting the traffic between the 2 effectively doubling the bandwidth. Triple channel can access 3 sticks simultaneously.
On AMD platforms which only support dual channel you want to buy in pairs - 2 2GB or 4 2GB. On i7 triple channel you want to buy in triplets - 3 1GB or 3 2GB. Since 3GB is pretty slim for Windows you're recommended to get 6GB on an i7. But 4GB is actually plenty so 4GB is fine for a dual channel system. If you *really* need more you would want 2x2GB 2x1GB (6GB) or 4x2GB (8GB) but you shouldn't need that much and can always add more later.
Remember no game can use more than 2GB of memory and OS at *most* will use 1GB, which is why 3GB is not quite enough. 4GB is plenty because it's pretty hard to fill up another 1GB in background apps even if you have a ton of stuff running.
Ati's drivers in the early Catalyst days were just completely abysmal.
That said, they've improved vastly over the years. In fact, when I bought my 4870 a couple years ago, not only did I never have a driver-related problem in any games, but it actually FIXED a problem I was having with my Nvidia drivers (which didn't and probably still dont' work with Battlefield 2142 and anti-aliasing).
A few people right now are having some problems with 10.6, (even if I haven't personally), but it's easy enough to just use the 10.5 drivers right now if it becomes an issue. Bad driver releases, and game incompatibilities are simply something you deal with regardless of which company you go with; I haven't personally had any more problem with one than the other, save the BF2142 issue.
Thanks so much for all the help everyone. Now if I could just pick a motherboard..
what was wrong with the one you picked initially? If its the triple-channel confusion, you're only going to get triple channel if you build an intel i7 1366 chipset.
I built an AM3 setup a short while back, this is the motherboard I used in the build. Its as good as it gets for the AM3 chipset:
ASUS Crosshair IV Formula AM3 AMD 890FX
This is the ram I used for it. I used 2 pairs (8 gig)
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB)
Good man. I own that same memory, and bought an Asus Crosshair III with my computer that I build in January. It's been a stellar motherboard.
ya I got turned on to G. Skill a couple years ago and used them ever since on numerous motherboards of varying manufacturers. They seem to know what theyre doing and never had a compatability issue with them, and its cheap.. go figure
I first discovered how good G.Skill's RAM was back on my Athlon 64 system, when I wanted a cheap upgrade from my 1GB of OCZ Gold Edition to 2GB of cheap, good performing RAM about a year after the system was first built. This OCZ RAM was the best DDR-400 on the market when I bought it; it used the Winbond BH5 chips that everybody drooled over. Imagine my surprise then when I found that these cheap G.Skill sticks I picked up for price (just to try them) matched the OCZ RAM is pretty much every respect. They were ridiculously fast, stable and cheap.
Later, I had bought 2GB of Crucial Ballistix RAM a few years ago for my new Core 2 Duo E8400 system, and got slapped with a bad batch of sticks (like a lot people who bought Crucial Ballistix DDR2-1066 at the time). I even RMA'd them with Newegg and got a second bad pair! Finally, I decided to give it one more go and RMAd them again, but I bought a cheap pair of 1GB G.Skill DDR2-800 sticks while I waited, and I found them to be these stellar sticks of RAM. They didn't overclock much in terms of clock speed, but I was able to squeeze good timings out of them (4-4-4-12 at relatively low voltage), so when my third pair of Crucial Ballistix RAM came in and actually worked, I just decided to run all 4 sticks together at DDR2-800@4-4-4-12 instead of 2GB of Crucial RAM at DDR2-1066@5-5-5-15, and honestly, it proved a good decision (especially because the computer was overclocked to a 400mhz FSB, so the RAM and the FSB were synchronous).
Now I don't buy RAM from any company other than G.Skill. I keep waiting to figure out what the catch to these guys' RAM is, but I never do
I just built a comp from NewEgg and for some reason I think its cool when people buy there (not that I am affiliated with them in any way), kind of a geek brotherhood. Anyway (ranting aside), If you can, I would recommend a full case. Depending on what your expansion plans are some cases limit airflow with adding additional cards. I went with a CoolerMaster which is more than the one you listed but after getting it I'm glad I did, it will be the last case (knock on wood) I ll buy. So you may want to check on that but make sure its good good airflow.
If you are going 480 GTX SLI, here is a good case for this...which has everything being expelled upward as Exhaust, with good air flow...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163154
This is called the Raven-2. As far as Physics goes, this case is a godsend if you are going Multi-GPU and you are functioning on Air.
Newegg is running a sale on a very good Antec case and power supply. It is a very good price.
http://www.techbargains.com/news_displayItem.cfm/217406
"Those who dislike things based only on the fact that they are popular are just as shallow and superficial as those who only like them for the same reason."