carnage666

I'm kinda a fan of AMD. Right now I'm building my new system base from AMD and Nvidia. I'm thinking of going with Asus Crosshair Formula 2 and using the AMD Phenom 9950. What do u guys out there think? I'm not so sure which is best, Intel or AMD?.. If i go with intel, Asus Striker 2 Extreme look like a very tough motherboard. But it doesnt support DDR2. DDr3 price is a killer here.. So what should i do?

Should i stick with AMD or find another mainbord for intel?

Here's my wishlist:

Mainboard: Asus Crosshair Formula 2
Processor: AMD Phenom 9950
RAM: Cossair Dominator 2X2G DDR2
Grafic Card: XFX 280 1G memory
PSU: Cooler Master Real Power M 1000watt

I'm thinking of going 3 way sli if i have the chance in the future. so does my PSU support this?
One more thing, would you all kind enough tell me what optical drive is best for burning and reading. i would like a dvd ram optical drive

OldBuzzard

I'll stay away from the mb/cpu/gpu recommendation, but for the PSU...

Zardon did a test/review of a SKULLTRAIL system with tri-sli, and if you scroll down in this thread: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/dh-revie...870x2-cfx.html

you will see where he says:

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When looking for a reason as to why things go wrong, never rule out sheer STUPIDITY

LukeK

ok firstly, do NOT touch an AMD processor, those phenoms are absolutely rubbish. get yourself something like a Q9550. You really don't want to be CPU limiting a 280 GTX./SLIx3
You are going to need to spend large amounts of money on a PSU for SLIx3 - corsair 1000W is getting great reviews especially as its so cheap compared to others in the same range.

Veridian3

if you have to go for an nvidia card and want to go 3-way at a later date... and use DDR2 then the only board you can really go for is the Nforce 780i.

Various manufacturers do them and the majority are reference designs... XFX, BFG, EVGA etc all sell boards which are basically identical. Asus do the Striker II Formula (ASUSTeK Computer Inc. ) which is something a little better.

With that plus a 9550 Intel chip your 280 will be great.

kris23

hello there, and welcome to DH!

as a base to start with, AMD is currently inferior to intel

intel is releasing a new line of CPUs called Core i7 in november just so you know

AMD/ATi are the best CPU/GPU combos you can get

currently Intel/AMD is also the best for the intel side of things

Nvidia is only worth it in 3-way SLi or on Skulltrail

can you post a budget and your favorite online store so we can start searching around?

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blibbax

I would agree that Intel is a much better option than AMD in the price bracket you should be looking at at the moment. However, I wouldn't go as far as saying that currentley AMD is inferior to Intel full stop.

Furthermore, there are other reasons to go Nvidia other than tri sli and skulltrail. This is a matter of personal preference, so you really need to look at ATI and Nvidias websites to see what features they're offering, and read some reviews before making your decision.

Personally, I would always buy Nvidia, but I wouldn't try to force this preference onto you.

kris23

there really isnt anything else to go to...

looking at the components hes picking out and the price, AMD isnt the best choice.....

while AMD has good price/performance ratio, they have HUGE shortcomings depending on how you want to use them.... limiting them to the mainstream and lower classes

only thing that is worth switching to Nvidia is PhysX and that is VERY resource consuming

he has alot of money for a decent system but not enough to splurge on DDR3, there may be a price drop in november for Core i7

nvidia boards have been declining as well...

thats why Nvidia has finally decided to license Intel to be able to use SLi in the upcoming X58 chipsets.......

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Zardon

I dont agree with Kris at all - to say "Nvidia is only worth it in 3-way SLi or on Skulltrail" is a ridiculous statement. the 280 GTXs are still great boards and you are always guaranteed 100% performance, with the 4870 X2 you are relying on the driver to support crossfire for the particular game you are playing. I am certainly not saying NOT to get a 4870 X2 but you can't dismiss the Nvidia boards. SLI is a superior dual or tri card system and many would argue the drivers are better also. You also get benefits such as PHYSX from nvidia which is not currently supported on ATI hardware. You can read about Physx here http://www.hardwareheaven.com/articles.php?articleid=122

Future games such as Farcry 2 and many others are supporting this. With such high framerates from all the class leading hardware the focus should definitely be on the image quality and immersion factor.

blibbax

We're in agreement there then.


CUDA's a neat trick as well.

kris23

yes i did mention PhysX but you cannot really deny that the software is rather stressful on the GPU, with the single GTX280, it may reduce frames by about 33% or more.... since the GPU is doing both PhysX calculations and rendering them at the same time its pretty bad....

immersion of PhysX is nice though.... just when you have a dedicated GPU for PhysX

we also dont know what carnage prioritizes his system on until he actually responds....

pricepoint is also important so we actually know what we can get him and what doesnt fit

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Zardon

Who is denying it ? we did an article on it. In some cases people dont need 100 fps. Example? you have a setup running GRAW2 at 80fps. you can either run at 80fps or turn on PhsyX and double the IQ and lose 30fps. Which would you rather have 80fps with standard IQ or 50fps with trees moving, particle effects around you and a bunch of other IQ enhancements? If you are a person intent on getting 300fps and don't care about IQ then sure your methodology is sound.

Do you speak from experience here or just regurgitating stuff you have seen other people posting? a 280 GTX is capable of good frame rates and physx, adding another card certainly helps.

Yes pricepoint is very important, and if I had £500 and was offered a 4870X2 at £350 or two 280 GTXs at £500 id go for the GTX's. I have a plethora of video cards here so im speaking with quite a lot of first hand experience on the matter.

Veridian3

Getting a little off topic but I have to say you are completely missing the point of Physx... especially on the GTX280, or a system which has 2-3 of them...

If you are playing a game at 1920x1200 or 1680x1050 depending on your monitor the likelihood is that the 280(s) will be giving you very high framerates and we all know that anything above 25/30 is fine. So why not allocate some of the spare performance to PhysX, having used it extensively I can say it is well worth any change in performance to get the extra features. Some of the stuff in UT3 and GRAW2 is awesome and those are just early examples of what can be done.

kris23

hmm.... probably i did underestimate the performance of the GTX 280 under PhysX

so when using PhysX with a GTX280, the frames dont drop below 30 FPS even under heavy action in-game at 1920x1200 in say.... UT3?

i already know how PhysX looks from the DH review and i do like what it does but will things that are "fine" now be fine later?

like you guys have said, these games are just early examples of what can be done but when PhysX is more developed and there are more Physics calculations in games, will current hardware be able to handle future loads?

with me personally, once i built my system, that was it, i cant really afford future upgrades...

you guys are the experts on this, since you have first hand experience with both the 280 and PhysX..... i just read about this stuff

in terms of FPS, things may be above 100FPS now but how about in a few months? this is something that hit me rather quickly....

so in the long run, will the GTX 280 keep up on its own if someone wants to keep using PhysX or will it need to be used with another GPU?

and we are going a bit off topic arent we? but we may just answer some of carnage's questions without him even asking!

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