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Hi guys

So i want to know what you gus think and advise for the following

Asus M5A97 pro

AMD FX 8320

SAPPHIRE HD 7790

CORSAIR CX 500

Kingston hyper-x plug in play 2x4GB

Thanks....

First question to ask is what is your budget? Second question to ask is, do you prefer AMD over Intel? Third question to ask is what will the primary role of said PC be? Gaming or multimedia playback?

Oh and welcome to the forums. Just a FYI but on a weekend besides some lurkers the hardware nuts only really visit during the week so you might have a bit of a wait on your hands .

Lies! I lurk around the forum on a daily basis. But yes, budget please. Secondly, AMD? Umad?

Thanks for the welcome

Ok first my budget was said on R5000 hahaha but then i got hooked so lets say R7000 MAX MAX MAX......

Second ive always used intel but its been 5years that i had anything to do with a pc so im a total noob from the start....

I want a gaming pc....

Ive got HDD and Writer and so

I need to know on the following

Cpu gpu psu ram motherboard and case

I was told that AMD is better bang for buck

Let's be very clear with this. The exchange rate means the rand is ****ed so parts that were R400 are easily going for R800 now. R7000 is not much. R1000 gets you your OS, but only Windows 7 basic 64-bit. R1400 gets your Windows 7 home premium 64 bit.

I'm going to use rebeltech pricing like most cases, wootware is the cape town pricing and in most cases it is more expensive here in the cape.

Common parts: R3800:
Corsair VS650 650W PSU: http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ts_id=9120
CM Elite case: http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ts_id=1667
Corsaire vengence ram 2x4gb 1600mhz: http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ro67g191n4
Sapphire Radeon 7790: http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ts_id=9953

AMD parts: R2300
FX 4300 quad core: http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ts_id=8834
AMD AM3 board: http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... cts_id=722

Intel parts: R1900
i3 3220: http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ts_id=7590
H61 board: http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ts_id=9042

None of these 2 are really "gaming" systems. However given the budget thats what can be done. Note! No screen, no mouse and keyboard, no harddrive or dvd-rw and NO OS! If you really want to make a difference you should look for an i5 and Z87 motherboard.

and i5 haswell with a board costs about R4000 ( http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... s_id=10550 / http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... s_id=10112 ).

Neither of these systems are really recommended by me. The price for a semi decent system is now around R12000. But there is your options.

Thanks for your advise

I have all the other stuff like mouse keyboard hdd writer os ect.........

Yeah know we are geting *@*@*@* with the dollar....

I know that R7000 for a good rig is not much but thats all that i can do at this time...

Ill see what i can do but thanks for the help.

Like i said this is what i am looking at:

Motherboard-Asus M5A97 Pro-R1490
Cpu-AMD Fx8320-R2048
Gpu-Sapphire HD7790-R1633
Ram-Kingston hyper-x plug and play 2X4GB 1866mhz-R571
Psu-maybe thermaltake litepower 650w....i dont know
Case-zalman z11 plus-R808

Total-R6550 without psu

I'm worried that the lite power might not push enough power over its 12V rails. PSUs over the past years have become a retarded mess. When your paying for a 600W and its an 80 PLUS it should have 480W guarenteed. But more often than not it isnt the case. So just make sure your PSU is sufficient.

Your setup looks solid, go for it. I myself would go intel though.

StarBound wrote:I'm worried that the lite power might not push enough power over its 12V rails. PSUs over the past years have become a retarded mess. When your paying for a 600W and its an 80 PLUS it should have 480W guarenteed. But more often than not it isnt the case. So just make sure your PSU is sufficient.

Your setup looks solid, go for it. I myself would go intel though.

With what intel counterpars will you go with?

So a bud of mine said i my switch out the http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ts_id=4406 with the http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ts_id=8955 is this a good idea and why?

And what psu would you say with that build in mind?

hunter007 wrote:So a bud of mine said i my switch out the http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ts_id=4406 with the http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ts_id=8955 is this a good idea and why?

No! The first one is a socket AM3, the second is a socket FM2. Those are not compatible.

I would say go corsair VS650W. But if memory serves the VS stands for value series which means that 600W effective can't be right. I'm using a cooler master GX750.

I would recommend this one to: http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ts_id=1794

You can try this motherboard as a replacement:
http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ts_id=5688

StarBound wrote:

hunter007 wrote:So a bud of mine said i my switch out the http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ts_id=4406 with the http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ts_id=8955 is this a good idea and why?

No! The first one is a socket AM3, the second is a socket FM2. Those are not compatible.

I would say go corsair VS650W. But if memory serves the VS stands for value series which means that 600W effective can't be right. I'm using a cooler master GX750.

I would recommend this one to: http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... ts_id=1794

What a dumb @*@*@........

Thanks alot will look into it.

Thanks again on saving me that heartbreak!

And the case i said i want to go with the zalman z11 plus,whats your opinion on this case?think now and future....

I don't really have opinions on cases except that I usually want a good airflow and front usb3. That a more personal touch.

Thanks alot for the advise!!!

When i have more cash you will be the first that i come to.......

Now i must decide on finale build

If i have any ideas or changes ill come and ask thanks

Would you swap out the gpu with anything else?

That is the best gpu you will get at its price. If you have twice the funds for the gpu though I would say go for a geforce 660. The MSI 660 OC twinfrozer was last priced at R2.5k when I was looking for things but with the exchange rate expect anything from R3-3.5k.

*edit*
http://www.wootware.co.za/msi-n660-tf-2 ... -card.html

i wish i had the funds!!!

so i see on the HD7790

its a 1GB but at 128bit

isn't that slow??

hunter007 wrote:i wish i had the funds!!!

so i see on the HD7790

its a 1GB but at 128bit

isn't that slow??

It provides for less bandwidth, but the test is in real world benchmarks and it doesn't score too badly for the price.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6837/amd- ... -islands/4

As an example, the 4850 I had at one point was at 256 bit, but the 4770 that came out later with an improved design was at 128 bit and one tier down, yet only performed a bit slower than my 4850.

I've found that 128-bit memory bus sometimes performs better than the 192-bit memory bus gpus. No idea for the reason behind them but it might be something to do with how the gpu access that memory.

I also don't know why but the lower tier radeons seems to be better than their geforce counter parts. I suspect its due to the propping of physx that kills the geforce cards leaving the radeons to perform decently without putting even more strain on the system.

would you say swapping it with this is a bad or good idea http://www.wootware.co.za/powercolor-ax ... -card.html

Sorry but your on your own with that one. From the stats I've seen they are close performance wise however the 6950 wins out in a few benchmarks. The 7790 on the other hand is much more power efficient with a small amount of performance sacrifice.

hunter007 wrote:would you say swapping it with this is a bad or good idea http://www.wootware.co.za/powercolor-ax ... -card.html

If you can afford either, I'd be inclined towards the 6950 to be honest.

For one, if you are willing to take a chance, it will probably be possible to flash it to 6970 spec. You'll need to make VERY sure you are doing a proper job though, i.e. getting the proper BIOS for your card and following proper procedures. Also make sure your card has dual BIOS and make sure to make a copy of the stock BIOS, just in case.

For two, it has more onboard memory, which might make it more future proof, as 1GB is starting to be found wanting on some of the newer titles coming out.

Will this be hard to do???

What will the risk be.

Will it cause any damage now or in the long run?

Yeah the 1GB wont do the in the future,is there any other cards in the price range?

I haven't done it before, but from what I have read, the chance of there being problems aren't that high. Most of the 2GB 6950's came out with dual BIOS, so if you screwed the flash up, you can recover from the second BIOS, which makes it much safer. But like I said, make sure you use the correct BIOS image and use a tried and tested method.

The 6950's are basically identical to the 6970's apart from the BIOS and perhaps some binning, which means it should run fine, even in the long run. If not, you can just clock back a bit or add volts to get it stable, but from what I have read, that is usually not needed. Besides, if it misbehaves with the new BIOS, you can simply revert to the stock one.

I am not sure, but I think it might void the warranty though.

I had a Gigabyte 1GB 6950 without the dual BIOS and in the end I just thought it wasn't worth the risk. The stock 6950 performed pretty well though and I could still get more than 30 FPS even in Crysis 3 at medium settings with V-Sync disabled, which isn't bad for a R1.6k card!

I don't think you'd be able to do better to be honest, but it's still a nice card. You'll still be gobsmacked by the graphics quality.