I won't be getting my computer back from the repair shop for many months due to very poor customer support and warranty issues from the retailer I bought it from. I was thinking of asking for my money back (about $1,300) and buying an AMD system for the same price. The computer I have currently, is a C2Q Q9400 2.66GHz @ 2.66GHz, 6GB of DDR3 RAM, G33 1333 MHz FSB motherboard, and a Radeon HD 4850 (512 MB)

I was considering building a new PC with a Phenom 2 X2 965, an AMD 790GX motherboard, 6GB of DDR3, and a Radeon HD 5850 graphics card. Is the Phenom 2 X4 965 any faster than my Core 2 Quad Q9400 at it's stock 2.66GHz? It turns out, based on my research, that I can build my AMD gaming desktop for about $1,000 and still have some money to spare.

I already have a Corsair TX750 PSU, and a Coolermaster HAF 932 full tower case. So I don't have to buy a new case and PSU. Saving about $300. I think I'm going to go with AMD from now on because they do not deceptively overprice their products like Intel does.

What is currently the best AMD motherboard (for gaming) money can currently buy? I don't know very much about AMD mobo's and processors. As long as I can get a full refund from the electronics store I bought my PC from, I can tell them to shove their warranty where the sun don't shine, and I'll build my custom PC.

One of the best : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131392

Cheaper also good one : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130223

They both doing dual x16, so if you want to add a second HD 5850 later, those will be perfect... If you plan to stay with only 1 GPU, you dont need all those PCIE slots go with like a normal 2 PCIE slots mainboard.

 

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°° VISTA HOME PREMIUM 64BIT °° MSI K9A2 CF °° 2x 2GB CORSAIR °° AMD PHENOM 9850 °° x2 POWERCOLOR HD4850 °° SAMSUNG SYNCHMASTER 24", 1920x1200 °° 2x HITACHI 500Gb SATA2 °° COOLERMASTER SLI-READY 650W °° YAMAHA HTR-6130 5.1CH °° THERMALTAKE ARMOR + MX °°

I think I'm going to stay with one graphics card, at least for now. But thanks for the links.

I think going with the AMD rig would be a wise decision.  The Phenom II will out perform the Q9400 (assuming stock vs. stock).  I'm not sure if overclocking is your thing, but the PII is a Black Edition CPU and and has an unlocked CPU multipier.  The Q9400 does not have this.  To get an unlocked multiplier from Intel, you need to fork out alot more money to get an 'Extreme Edition' CPU.  For your money, AMD has alot to offer.

I agree with HorridWilting...good motherboard choices.  Personally, I'm building a new AMD system right now and I am getting the Crosshair III Formula.  So, I have no personal experience with the board, but from what I've heard, it's one of the best AM3 boards.  The MSI GD70 is also another great choice.  For an AMD cpu, it's best to get a board that uses an AMD chipset, IMO (such as the Crosshair III or MSI GD70).

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~ AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition ~ Asus Crosshair III Formula ~ 2x 2GB Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600 ~ XFX Radeon HD5870 ~ Auzentech X-Fi Forte 7.1 ~ 2x WD Velociraptor 150GB (RAID0) ~ 1TB WD Caviar Black ~ LG 22x DVD+/- R/RW ~ Corsair HX620W ~ Thermaltake Armour ~

~ Samsung T240 24" LCD ~ Logitech G19 & G9 ~ Logitech z5500 5.1 ~ xBox 360 Wireless Controller ~ xBox Racing Wheel ~

Monkey_Business: Try this link to Tom's hardware site. It compares a 965be to a Q9450 (closests to your old chip and possibly faster). The 965be in most tests is slightly faster.
http://www.tomshardware.com/ch...od%5B2621%5D=on


I have the 965be with the MSI 790FX-GD70 and I'm EXTREMELY pleased. I have a HIS 4870 1 meg ICEQ4+ video card and it SCREAMS!!!!!!!!!!

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PhenomII 965be -Zalman9900; MSI790FX-GD70; 8gsGskillddr3; HIS4870IceQ4+AC Acellero twin Turbo;250g hd; SB X-Fi Titanium Fatality;Antec750TrPII psu;Windows 7 Pro

In games you should notice roughly the same performance. It won't be like one will allow you to play on a set of settings the other will not. I'd go with the AMD for the lower current and future cost of ownership, and since the Core 2 series is a dead line which was replaced with i5.

-------------------------
ASUS Crosshair Formula III
Phenom II X3 720BE @ ~3.43ghz
HT Link & CPU/NB Frequency @ ~2500mhz
8GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600 @ 1664 7-7-7-16 1T 43.5ns avg latency
Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 OC 800/1150 (stock voltage)
SeaSonic M12 SS-700HM
Vista x64 SP2

This may be a little off-topic, but I don't understand why some motehrboards have Four PCIe x16 2.0 sockets. How could you possibly power four individual graphics cards? You are MUCH better off power and money-wise, going with Two, dual-core GPU's like the Radeon HD 4870 X2 and the GeForce GTX 295. The most powerful power supply that I have seen for a PC is 2,000 watts. I saw it a while back on newegg but now it's gone.

I can't even imagine the kind of heat Four graphics cards would produce inside any computer case.

Is there anything else you can put into a PCIe x16 2.0 socket other than a GPU?

Actually with the latest generation graphics cards one would only need a 1200w to power a 4 GPU setup, but since scaling past 2 GPUs is extremely horrid compared to the price you pay for them, there is no reason to have more than 2. Also having just x16 slots instead of x1 - x8 is that someone can use a graphics card in one or two of the slots and then use a x4 or x8 card in the other slots.

-------------------------
ASUS Crosshair Formula III
Phenom II X3 720BE @ ~3.43ghz
HT Link & CPU/NB Frequency @ ~2500mhz
8GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600 @ 1664 7-7-7-16 1T 43.5ns avg latency
Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 OC 800/1150 (stock voltage)
SeaSonic M12 SS-700HM
Vista x64 SP2

Hi Monkey_Business

 I have just installed a Phenom 11 x4 965 Black edition and so far other than update the bios on my mobo i have had no problems and everything is a lot smoother so i would definately say go for the Phenom11.

NZXT Lexa blackline red

Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P (rev 1.0) mobo

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black, Deneb Core, S AM3, 3.4GHz  ddr2 4gb 6400 800mhz ram

XFX HD 4870 X2, PCI-E 2.0, 3600MHz GDDR5, GPU

Seagate Baracuda 500gb,  32mb cache

Corsair 750 PSU

Zalman 9700

Cd Writer

DVD Writer

19”amu LCD Monitor

5.1 Surround speakers

Windows Vista Home Premium

 

Can the Phenom 2 use DDR3 memory? Will the Phenom 2 X4 965 BE bottleneck the Radeon HD 5000 series graphics cards?

Any Socket AM3 processor can use DDR3 memory. The 965 will not bottleneck any HD 5000 series GPU.

-------------------------
ASUS Crosshair Formula III
Phenom II X3 720BE @ ~3.43ghz
HT Link & CPU/NB Frequency @ ~2500mhz
8GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600 @ 1664 7-7-7-16 1T 43.5ns avg latency
Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 OC 800/1150 (stock voltage)
SeaSonic M12 SS-700HM
Vista x64 SP2

The 965 is more powerful than Q9400.

-------------------------

 AMD: The Future is Fusion.

AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE 3.4 Ghz, ECS A780GM-A, XFX Radeon HD 4770, 4GB Kingston DDR2-800, Western Digital 160GB 7200RPM.

SPAM

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°° VISTA HOME PREMIUM 64BIT °° MSI K9A2 CF °° 2x 2GB CORSAIR °° AMD PHENOM 9850 °° x2 POWERCOLOR HD4850 °° SAMSUNG SYNCHMASTER 24", 1920x1200 °° 2x HITACHI 500Gb SATA2 °° COOLERMASTER SLI-READY 650W °° YAMAHA HTR-6130 5.1CH °° THERMALTAKE ARMOR + MX °°

Any processor may, at some cpu intensive parts of the game (or throughout the entire game), bottleneck the gpu, and the same goes the other way.

Rest assured that, with the phII 965 and hd5850 beasts, you will hardly feel it - most cases the bottleneck will occur well above 60fps, unless you're trying to max crysis (which is still an almost impossible task).

Regarding the 4xgpus, toms has a nice sbm article which sums up the performance of a 2xhd4850, 4xhd4850 and 3x4870, and though cpus are changed from phII x2 on the cheaper build to phII x4 on the more expensive ones, you can get a clue regarding performance changes, temps and power consumption.

The hd4850x4 combination at this price point is a killer, especially if you have one / two of those already. Of course, performance won't be x2 if you add x2 gpu power to the system, so the more price you add, the less you get, but this goes for anything in computers - 500$ gpu usually isn't 5 times more powerful than a 100$ one. For the most recent example refer to the hd5870 and hd5850 performance / price.

Toms Hardware SBM Link

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#1: Phenom II x3 710 @ 3.445ghz (265x13) NB @ 2.385ghz | Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P | Sapphire hd4870 512mb | G.Skill NQ 2x2gb 1412mhz 8-8-8-20 1T | Antec 900 | Corsair TX750 | Samsung P2350 1920x1080

#2: Athlon II x2 240 @ 3.5ghz (250x14) | Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H | OCZ Platinum 2x1gb 1333mhz 7-6-6-24 1T | Coolermaster Elite 335 | SeaSonic S12II-500 | Samsung T220 1680x1050

When the 5870x2 comes out it will be priced at $499 according to AMD which would push the 5870 down to $299, but even then, due to the still horrid scaling after 2 it would still be advisable to go with just 1 5870x2...thereby leaving your second PCIe slot open for a GTS 250 to use as a PhysX card (in Win7 with the patch )

-------------------------
ASUS Crosshair Formula III
Phenom II X3 720BE @ ~3.43ghz
HT Link & CPU/NB Frequency @ ~2500mhz
8GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600 @ 1664 7-7-7-16 1T 43.5ns avg latency
Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 OC 800/1150 (stock voltage)
SeaSonic M12 SS-700HM
Vista x64 SP2

I found this video of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky at the maximum graphics settings with usually about 50-60+ FPS using a single HD 5870. VERY nice! FRAPS was used while this video was recorded, so the FPS would likely have been much higher had it not been running.

With my current C2Q Q9400 @2.66 GHz, 6GB RAM, and HD 4850, I would probably get between 5-15 fps at those same setitngs, and then my GPU would crash after about an hour or so, due to extreme heat. 100+ *C.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqmnaYj_pJU

That's a great frame-rate, indeed!  Nice to see the AMD rig do a great job with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky.

Just to note...Fraps has a negligible impact on frame rates - so, FPS should remain pretty much the same whether it's running or not.

-------------------------

~ AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition ~ Asus Crosshair III Formula ~ 2x 2GB Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600 ~ XFX Radeon HD5870 ~ Auzentech X-Fi Forte 7.1 ~ 2x WD Velociraptor 150GB (RAID0) ~ 1TB WD Caviar Black ~ LG 22x DVD+/- R/RW ~ Corsair HX620W ~ Thermaltake Armour ~

~ Samsung T240 24" LCD ~ Logitech G19 & G9 ~ Logitech z5500 5.1 ~ xBox 360 Wireless Controller ~ xBox Racing Wheel ~

All I gotta say is the Phenom II will eat the q9400 alive. A 965BE with proper air cooling is perfectly stable of 4ghz+ OC. The only thing that would come close is an i7. Core2Quad..... OMG man your in the AMD forums lol. If you said compair to i7 w/e I'd say have at it.

You want the system with the biggest video card you can get.

A home built system with Athlon II x4 would be awesome @ 99$ US and spend the money on larger video cards. Go 5 series ATI with Athlon II x4, and you'll have a real nice gaming machine


-------------------------
------\\.:Phenom II x4 940:.//------
Freq. 4125.10 MHz (183 x 22.5)
Quad tested and Cooling Approved-

Asus M3A / M3A32-MVP Deluxe
Muskin DDR2 1066 5-7-7-24
Gpu's - 4850 x2 + 4850 Tri-Fired

I haven't seen any Radeon HD 5000 series graphics cards for sale on the shelves of any electronics store yet. I know that the 5850 and 5870 have already been released. When will the 5870 X2 hit retail stores?

If I build another PC, which could possibly be sometime in 2010, I'm definitely going with the Phenom II 965 BE or future, 2010 versions of the PII. I also have my eyes set on a Radeon HD 5850 or 5870.

Aren't there Phenom II 975, and 985 models set to be released in the future? With 3.6 and 3.8 GHz stock?

OK I bought an upscale AMD Dragon PC last month and love it! In it I have the Phenom II x4 965 BE cooled by an Asetek water cooling system. My Graphics cards are 2 XFX ATI Radeon 4890 in crossfire, and 8 Gigs of DDR3 RAM. The best mother board out there in my opinion is the 790FX chipset board by Gigabyte. (Gigabyte.com search AM3 socket motherboards and then the 790FX chipset) It can easily overclock the 965BE to 4.2 GHz!!! Which gives me about a 22,000 and change CPU score on 3D Mark Vantage!

I also had a C2Q 9450 2.6Ghz PC that I replaced with my Dragon PC. I do a lot of video converting from my Panasonic HD video camera. Converting HD video to windows media files for family. The C2Q system had 2 NVIDIA GTX 260 video cards in it, and it would take about 2 hours to convert a 20 minute HD video. The Phenom II x4 965BE does it about 40 minutes!!

In gaming, my Dragon rig beats every intel chip except the Core i7 965 and 975!! What I've found is that the Gigabyte mobo allows the processor to run full throttle, and even allows you to up the voltage on the processor to 1.55V! In my opinoion the 965BE is the best processor out there for the money, hands down