Phenom II 940 Build

[Si7entSam]

JUST ORDERED IT!

CD Drive - LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH22NS30 - OEM

Case - RAIDMAX SMILODON ATX-612WB Black 1.0mm SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Foldout MB Computer Case - Retail

HDD - SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Power Supply - CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply - Retail

Ram - G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-8500CL6D-4GBNQ - Retail
Should i go with 8 gigs?

CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 940 Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition Processor Model HDZ940XCGIBOX - Retail

Motherboard - Foxconn A79A-S AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

GPU - MSI R4870-T2D1G Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

 

[jibberishballr]

What are you using the computer for? Gaming? Editing?

Whats your price range?

32 bit or 64 bit?

Are you going to be overclocking?

As for your build, Id go with an LG or pioneer burner, $20-25 at newegg (assuming you are in the US),
get a better case, maybe the antec 300 (the one I got), great choice on power supply, 4 gigs is enough ram if you are running xp, and you might not even need more, up to you. I don't like your choice of motherboard. I debated a long time on which one to get and went with the Biostar TA790GX 128M. I'm not a big fan of MSI but like the radeon hd 4870 after reading about it.


I just got the phenom II 940 but do mostly HD editing. I'll let you know how the CPU is, but I don't think I'll be disappointed.

 

[Spoelie]

I got the foxconn A79A-S as well, not so pleased about the bios (available options + up-to-dateness, they still have an older base-bios version compared to other mfg) but everything else is good. It was the cheapest 790FX+SB750 available where I live. In retrospect a solid 790GX+SB750 with good bios (a la DFI, Asus, Gigabyte) for the same price or a step up (more expensive) to the FX version of aforementioned companies might have suited me better.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/f...ighlight=A79A-S&page=8
see last 10 or so messages

The tweaking required to get the ram to run at 1066mhz on phenom is beyond most users and boards though, look on the ocz forums for a sampling, they recommend 5-6-6 timings. 8GB will make this even harder, and you will not be able to run it at advertised settings (555) at all. You will need a board with a bios that gives enough control, and the A79A-S doesn't sadly (no northbridge voltage control for one, although windows utils exist for that). I gave up on trying to get my 2x2GB OCZ2P10664GK to run at 1066, as it kept giving me errors in memtest86+ whatever I tried. However, I read that phenom relaxes internal timings to run in 1066 mode, and that you get better results by running the ram in 800mhz mode, upping the htt clock so the ram runs somewhere between 900 and 1066mhz and jacking up the northbridge clock as high as possible - this is much faster than normal 1066 mode.

 

[DSF]

Not sure I see the point of the 850W PSU for a single video card rig.

 

[Si7entSam]

Headroom my friend... and yeah, i'm not really overclocking so the motherboard should be fine. Unless it's really hard to setup... 64 bit, already have that. Price range is 1200$ max, but i choose the Phenom II because it was cheaper than an i7 and for my uses, it should be fine.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: DSF
Not sure I see the point of the 850W PSU for a single video card rig.

Maybe a future Crossfire?

Not sure if OCZ Fatal1ty is the best choice - may want to try Corsair, GeiL or Kingston

 

[Denithor]

G.Skill 2x2GB DDR2-1066 $43 shipped

Corsair 650TX provides enough juice to run any two singleGPU cards on the market today (up to & including dual GTX 285 in SLI). So unless you just like spending extra cash...

 

[somethingsketchy]

Originally posted by: Si7entSam
Ram - OCZ Fatal1ty Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2F10664GK - Retail
Should i go with 8 gigs?

Depends on a few things.

1) How long do you intend to keep this build in its latest form? If the answer is a few years and you don't feel like tearing your build apart to upgrade every once in a while, then I would recommend 8GB of RAM.

2) If you have a lot of programs opened at once (up to 8+ applications like I do) then 8GB would be recommended.

3) You use an application that eats up RAM like PS or Video Editing, then 8GB would be recommended.

Given the rate at which people can do more with their hardware (as far as performance per # of applications opened, number of threads running at once) the more RAM you have the better off you'll be. 4GB should be bare-minimum if you do a lot of applications on your build, with 8GB being a good spot to be for a while.


EDIT: My response got added to quote by mistake

 

[Si7entSam]

None of you noticed my ram was intel only....
so i have to rma that but i order some nice ocz gold... =P

 

[Si7entSam]

I just got the case and graphics card... im itching to build this thing soooo bad! the rest of the parts should be here tomarrow!

 

[jibberishballr]

Mines all built. That ram says intel but I used it in my build and it works amazing btw. The biostar motherboard is amazing and way better than I could have hoped for. The whole setup is running flawlessly and ridiculously fast.

 

[Si7entSam]

What RAM? because mine was GSkill and it said Intel only chipsets

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Si7entSam
What RAM? because mine was GSkill and it said Intel only chipsets

if you had DDR3, it may have said it was for intel chipsets, because until recently only intel had a chipset that could use DDR3. AMD supports DDR3 with AM3 CPUs, like the 720 or 810 for example. The phenom 2 940 is AM2+ and is not compatible with AM3/DDR3.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Originally posted by: Si7entSam
Headroom my friend... and yeah, i'm not really overclocking so the motherboard should be fine. Unless it's really hard to setup... 64 bit, already have that. Price range is 1200$ max, but i choose the Phenom II because it was cheaper than an i7 and for my uses, it should be fine.

You could easily build a Core i7 system for way under $1200.