AMD Mid-Range Revised

[mattrock]

Hello again everyone, thanks to everyone who gave advice on the previous rig!! its greatly appreciated.

 

Ok sooo i'm trying to figure out now what my best option is...do i:

 

1) spend some more money on a mobo that allows x16 x16 instead of x16 x4 (im not sure if i have a mobo that is x16 x4 and i buy another 6870 card in the future if its going to hinder the preformance like crazy of the second card and it not be worth it rather than if i had a x16 x16; i'm still new to this aspect)

2) or if i should get a gigabyte 6950; keep the current mobo and cut back the PSU to the 650 watt edition to save a lil money (money's a big issue im a broke college kid) and just not buy another card in the future all together until i buy a whole new rig in like 3-5 years

 

I'm basically looking to get out of my rig;

 

1)Gaming on the highest settings

2) Playing movies on a 46 lcd tv in 1080p as well as video games sometimes without it looking like crap

3) stream football on sundays!! 8)

 

After some consideration i've updated my future rig to this...

 

Fx-4100/Corsair 4GB Combo

 

ASUS MOBO

 

Video Card AMD 6870

 

Case

 

PSU Corsair 750watt

 

HDD

 

Extra Fans

 

DVD Burner

 

artic 5 thermal paste

 

Thanks again for any input its greatly appreciated!!

[ET3D]

See this regarding 16x/4x scaling. Doesn't look too bad. In any case if this is all new I'd suggest waiting for the 7000 series to come out, which should be pretty soon.

 

I haven't seen your other thread so don't know exactly what you're after and won't comment too much. CPU choice looks a little suspect, but I haven't seen enough of that particular CPU to judge.

[Alexandre]

Hi mate. Just a few comments.

 

RAM:

You will want to get at least 2 sticks of RAM rather than going for a single stick so that you can double your memory bandwidth by running it in Dual Channel mode. So if you still want 4 gigs get 2x2Gb sticks instead - there is a notable difference between single channel and dual channel memory (Read this to find out more).

 

PSU:

Max wattage you will be using is about 500 W if you run two 6870's in crossfire at full bore. If you get a single 6950 you'll need only about 400W maximum so I don't see a problem with going down to a 650W PSU (as long as its a good brand) which ever way you go.

 

GPU:

Remember you will only get a scaling benefit for games which support crossfire if you get another 6870. If you get a 6950 you will get a performance boost across the whole board (regardless of crossfire support) so following that logic it might be a better idea to go for the single 6950. Some people might disagree though and that's fine. I don't really haven too much experience with dual/triple card set ups so feel free to wait for a second opinion on this.

 

Hope that helps!

[ET3D]

Regarding the GPU, I agree that the 6950 is a better choice, though I think that waiting for the 7000 family is the thing to do right now. Adding a second GPU in the future only works well if it's the near future. Two-three years from now you will need to count on eBay for the second GPU, and Crossfire driver support might not be that great because it will be an old card. And if you're planning to get Crossfire in the near future, might as well go with the faster card to begin with. That will still leave you with the option of Crossfire in the future if you really want it.

[Alexandre]

... I think that waiting for the 7000 family is the thing to do right now...

Good point! Might be worth waiting for them if they are coming out soon.

[VaporX]

Was going to suggest getting the Phenom II 970 for a little better performance but that combo deal is SWEET! The cost savings is easily worth the performance difference.