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My new system build

CleffyCleffy Member RarePosts: 6,414
in Hardware

Hey check out the system I finished building with my tax refund.  I decided to build it early because my other system crapped out for an overclock the budget board could not handle.

  • MSI K9A2 Platinum AM2+ Board
  • 8 GB DDR2 ram
  • AMD Phenom II 940
  • AMD Diamond HD3870
  • 1x 500GB HDD
  • 2x 250GB HDD in RAID 0
  • 1x DVD-RW multi-layer writer

I only have a few future upgrades in mind for this particular machine.  I am going to replace the RAID 0 drives with 2 SAS 15000RPM 147GB Drives, add 1 Blu-Ray Drive, add a Cell PCI-e card, and replace my Video card with HD5xxx series cards later this year.

I mainly use my machine for 3D modeling applications, which this particularly excells in.  nVidia really is not an option for this unless I wanted to spend $2000 on a graphics card, and even then its still not an option compared to 2-4870x2.  Also I did not want to overspend on a Core i7, since that upgrade cost $700 and a Core i7 upgrade would be over $1000.

Comments

  • pyrofreakpyrofreak Member UncommonPosts: 1,481

    www.custompc.co.uk/reviews/605368/amd-phenom-ii-x4-940-black-edition.html

     

    I mean, unless you already had an AM2 mobo at home, you might have been better off with intel.

     

    Also, what's with the 3870? Was it in your existing rig and you just migrated it over?

    Now with 57.3% more flames!

  • CleffyCleffy Member RarePosts: 6,414

    I thought I explained that.  The HD3870 is from my old build, and I usually skip a generation for Video Card upgrades.  So I decided not to switch.  ATI is also the only real option I had on video cards because they garner a 300% performance increase in 3D applications compared to nVidia desktop cards for what video cards are used for because of the structure of their stream processor.

    Also I did not want to spend twice as much building an Intel Machine.  I don't want to bother with an Intel 775 socket because most repectable sites put the Phenom II a better performer except on $500+ core2 processors.  Also Phenoms do Floating Point calculations faster.  Something relatively important in 3D rendering.  Also I wanted to use this particular motherboard because it has a built in RAID controller that supports SAS drives.

  • Suo_Eno_1357Suo_Eno_1357 Member UncommonPosts: 168

    I'm curious about your HDDs setup in that manner, you're splitting OS to apps' efficiencies that way? Do SAS hdds runs cooler than normal ones?

  • CleffyCleffy Member RarePosts: 6,414

    SAS Drives run hot.  The benefit of SAS Drives is that they run at 15000RPM instead of 7200 or 10000RPM.

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