Summer Upgrades

torzak said:
Yes, kinda, theres one about 45mins to an hour away. Does the I7 930 require triple channel or dual channel memory?
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I could be mistaken, I haven't read much on Tri-channel RAM since the i7 920 came out but the 920 didn't require Tri-channel so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the 930 supports tri-channel but it also supports dual-channel since LGA 1366 boards support both...at least they did at the beginning.

Looked it up and found that all boards that support Triple-channel will operate in Dual-channel when two modules are installed. So yes Torzak, it will work w/ dual-channel.
 
Orange_Kun!!! said:
I could be mistaken, I haven't read much on Tri-channel RAM since the i7 920 came out but the 920 didn't require Tri-channel so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the 930 supports tri-channel but it also supports dual-channel since LGA 1366 boards support both...at least they did at the beginning.

Looked it up and found that all boards that support Triple-channel will operate in Dual-channel when two modules are installed. So yes Torzak, it will work w/ dual-channel.
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Ok cool. I made an I7 930 build list and my final price with tri channel ram was over my budget but with dual channel it was right at my budget.
 
Just to be on the absolute side of caution, I would still check the manufacturer page of whatever board you are thinking of getting and making absolutely sure that it does support dual-channel. But from what I've seen and read, they do support it even if triple channel is the norm on most 1366 boards.

Update, so I don't double post:

Talked to a buddy of mine who's savvy on hardware and he suggested that w/ your current build (I.E. the current rig you already have provided you are using a AM2+ or AM3 board), the best upgrade you could do on your budget for the want of playing games like BFBC2 is to do a slight upgrade on the cpu, perhaps to a quad like a phenom II 925 or 940 or the athlon II x4 6xx series and then spend the bulk on a video card like the 5870, 5850, or the GTX470. He felt that your current build at the moment is plenty good except for the video card being kinda weak now.
 
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Orange_Kun!!! said:
Just to be on the absolute side of caution, I would still check the manufacturer page of whatever board you are thinking of getting and making absolutely sure that it does support dual-channel. But from what I've seen and read, they do support it even if triple channel is the norm on most 1366 boards.

Update, so I don't double post:

Talked to a buddy of mine who's savvy on hardware and he suggested that w/ your current build (I.E. the current rig you already have provided you are using a AM2+ or AM3 board), the best upgrade you could do on your budget for the want of playing games like BFBC2 is to do a slight upgrade on the cpu, perhaps to a quad like a phenom II 925 or 940 or the athlon II x4 6xx series and then spend the bulk on a video card like the 5870, 5850, or the GTX470. He felt that your current build at the moment is plenty good except for the video card being kinda weak now.
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OK, My motherboard supports AM2/AM2+ so I think i would have to get an Phenomm II x4 940 because thats the only one that supports AM2+. But Ive heard you can run AM3 CPU's on AM2+ sockets, is this true and if so how big is the performance drop from AM3 to AM2+?

Oh and I looked newegg. A Phenom II 940 OEM is $130, that leaves me around $470 to spend on a GPU. I could get 5870, but the minimum power supply for it is 500W. Would my 600W be able to support it if i got the 130W CPU? Second choice, I could get a GTX 470 around $350 and spend the rest of the money on either a new PSU or more/better RAM. This is my current PSU, so if i got the 470 i would probably have to upgrade it. 3rd option, is get a 5850 $330 and a better PSU. What do you guys think would be the best choice?
 
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torzak said:
OK, My motherboard supports AM2/AM2+ so I think i would have to get an Phenomm II x4 945 because thats the only one that supports AM2+. But Ive heard you can run AM3 CPU's on AM2+ sockets, is this true and if so how big is the performance drop from AM3 to AM2+?
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All AM3 cpus to my knowledge can be used on an AM2+ board, which was the entire reason for AM2+ in the first place. I don't have hard numbers but I'll say the performance drop will be negligable. Pair it w/ any one of those three GPUS and it will run any of those games you previously listed just fine since your GPU is your biggest performance liability.

Doing that will garner you the performance upgrade you seek and will allow you to watch the market and prepare to see if Bulldozer proves to be all its supposed and if it isn't, you can spring for a Core i7 that potentially will drop in price w/ a year removed.
 
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All AM3 cpus fit in AM2+ socket (except 1055T and 1090T which are the odd ball) The only difference is in the AM2+ socket, the DDR2 memory controller will be turned on instead of the DDR3 one.

You should definetly get an AM3 CPU, that way if you ever change your mind, and want a new mobo, you can get one.

I suggest either a Phenom II X3 720BE, a Athlon II X4 620, or if you feel like it a Phenom II X4 955
 
Do you guys think I would have to get a new PSU if I upgraded my graphic card?
 
Eh, It should be fine. HEC isn't a great brand, but for 2 low power (consumtion) 9800s it should be fine

75w+75w (GPUs)= 150
+95w (processor)
+140w (mobo)
+60w for hdds


by that rough estimation i got 445w
 
Nice board I have the same in my setup. and IMO don't bother with the AMD 6 core its not worth it.]
 
I use the Gigabyte UD3R with my i7 930 and it has 4 ram slots- when populating three of them, it is triple channel. If you add a fourth stick , you've got dual channel.
 
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