[zoze]

Hello fellow geeks!

I am in the planning stage to upgrade my rig.
Sadly on a strict budget!!!!!

And I'm choosing between extreme components as chosen below and keep on going with my current gpu evga gtx 275 1792mb. (I'M on a very tight budget so its either one or the other, or a well that true suggestions on components/combos.

ASUS Sabertooth 990FX, Socket-AM3+
Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz 16GB CL9
AMD FX-6200 6-Core Processor


or go with cheaper but still good components with more power than i have today and squice in a new gpu in the mix
Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3, Socket-AM3+
AMD FX-4100 4-Core Processor
Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz 8GB CL9
ASUS GeForce GTX 560Ti 1GB (and this puppy i have the possibility to get for a good deal)


I use my current rig for Media mainly xbmc BIG library almost only 1080p hi res movies and 720p series 5.1 surround sound so optical (spiff) is a must have, i dwl allot and often, converting flac and wav to mp3, extracting, Gaming some and when i do i like to be able to run my and new games at 1980 x 1080 with as much eye candy on as possible!
And my hole system is encrypted so cpu with Intel AES-NI instructions would be useful iv read that the fx 6100 have this i don't know about the others?

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated!!!

Kindly regards zoze

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A couple things to think about - especially since they both affect your budget.

1. I don't see any information on your current PSU. You MUST ensure it is capable of meeting the power (and connector) requirements of your new hardware, and if not, budget for a new, quality PSU from a reputable maker.

2. I don't see an operating system listed. A common mistake is some users assume they can use their old Windows license on a new computer. Understand only a "boxed" full Retail license can be transferred to a new computer (or upgraded motherboard). It is illegal to use an OEM license that came with or was purchased for one computer on another computer. A disk “branded” with a computer maker’s brand name, or is labeled with “OEM/System Builder”, “Upgrade”, “Academic Edition”, or "For Distribution with a new PC only", is not transferable to a new PC (or upgraded motherboard) under any circumstances. These OEM licenses are inextricably tied to the "original equipment". So if that is the case, I recommend 64-bit Windows 7 or one of the many free Linux alternatives. Just ensure it is 64-bit since you have selected 8Gb/16Gb of RAM.

[Digerati]

A couple things to think about - especially since they both affect your budget.

1. I don't see any information on your current PSU. You MUST ensure it is capable of meeting the power (and connector) requirements of your new hardware, and if not, budget for a new, quality PSU from a reputable maker.

2. I don't see an operating system listed. A common mistake is some users assume they can use their old Windows license on a new computer. Understand only a "boxed" full Retail license can be transferred to a new computer (or upgraded motherboard). It is illegal to use an OEM license that came with or was purchased for one computer on another computer. A disk “branded” with a computer maker’s brand name, or is labeled with “OEM/System Builder”, “Upgrade”, “Academic Edition”, or "For Distribution with a new PC only", is not transferable to a new PC (or upgraded motherboard) under any circumstances. These OEM licenses are inextricably tied to the "original equipment". So if that is the case, I recommend 64-bit Windows 7 or one of the many free Linux alternatives. Just ensure it is 64-bit since you have selected 8Gb/16Gb of RAM.

[zoze]

Thanks for replying!

I have a Corsair HX 1000W PSU so connectors and power isn`t a prob at all, regarding OS i am alredy prepaired to do a full reinstall and re-encryption of my (W7 64b) hole system and any media that i have is on external drives so that`s no prob either.

But i do would appreciate any advice to what to buy? cheaper components and a new gpu OR somewhat extreme components ang go on with my gtx 275 1972mb.

what would you do?

Kindly regards Zoze

[Digerati]

I am not sure what the best advice would be but I will say that today, in today's graphics oriented computing world, better graphics means better performance (assuming there's enough RAM and CPU horsepower to keep up).

[iammykyl]

Why do you want to upgrade?

Is your converting/rendering now to slow?
Are you having general hardware problems?
Is the quality/performance of video no longer good enough?
OR?

Mobo/extreme, Sabertooth. Do you need IEEE 1394? PCI-Express 2.0 x 16 (3 slots)? If you are not a hard core gamer, a less speced board and one mid/high end GPU would be a good solutions,

Edited by iammykyl, 14 March 2012 - 01:45 AM.

[NKGuy]

You could go with the second build drop the 560 TI and go with a 6870 or if you can find one a 6950. If your serious about gaming a 6950 would be a nice option. But you noted you could get a deal on the 560 TI. So it comes down to your budget in the end.

[zoze]

Thank`S everybody for advice in the matter, iv have just taking all your advice in to count and bout me the cheper mb aka
gigabyte GA-970A-UD3, Socket-AM3+ and -
AMD FX-4100 4-Core Processor witch seems very oc friendly ^^
Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz 8GB CL9
And lookd in to the 6950 card and found it to be a good pice of card! (i just hope it handls dual sceen as good as the nvidia cards do) i found a sapphire hd 6950 2gb for a very reasonable price! and i have read and see that its very easy to flash it to a 6970 card spec to unlock extra shaders and then just adjusting vc value gpu clock and memory frekvency witch should make this card kick 560 ti [bleep] literally! i have the power and i have the cooling and knowledge so wy the [bleep] not!

And "iammykyl" input get me thinking that, NO! i do not use IEEE 1394, i am a gamer but not a hardcore gamer in that sence no, and i allways have prefered one good card to more lesser in cf or sli.
So i beleve i am making the right choice here and as outputs go the 6950 soon to be 6970 have the two dvi outputs i need for sceen and tv and hdmi for future extra screen when money will allow it.

I thought of the sabertooth first because of its quality components and in windows mode nice bios settings access.

The upgrade is because with my hole system encrypted, and without hw aes ni instructions my rigg doesnt stack up to good games anymore, its playable but allways with some tweking of the eye candy i love so much! and newer games is always a gamble nowdays, and i miss usb 3.0 support witch would help allot transfering big chunks of files to family and friends (im gonna force them to buy portable usb 3.0 drives efterwards! .

Anyway thanks for inputs and making my decision allot easier. Hopefully i can return the favor in the near future. Kindly regards Zoze

Edited by zoze, 14 March 2012 - 10:41 PM.

[iammykyl]

(i just hope it handls dual sceen as good as the nvidia cards do)

http://www.tomshardw...man,2818-4.html

Thanks for the reply.

It is very tempting sometimes to go for the best, mind you I would always do so if I could afford it.

Glad to have been of help. Any problems, "Just whistle"

Please let us know how the upgrade turns out.

[zoze]

Hello my parts have come and here how it went and runs short test,

I had some problems when building, first i noticed that the newer boards use 9 screws insted of my old 6 srew bord so down to the basement and look for monting screws, efter sorting that prob out i thought okey now all will go smoth and strigt forward from here, Yeah right! *sigh i started updating to latest bios i had prepaired before, then went on and went true every page and made changes accordingly to my preferences. Now the ahci setting from [bleep] showd me life shoudn`t be easy all the time, windows didnt find the drivers that i prepaired or that was in w7 x64 folder on disk i mean come on! it find drivers when i pointed to x86 folder in vista or xp folder, but that sulotion didnt feal good in my book so...

Efter many atemts and different drivers i did it the long way installed as ide, regestry hacked on ahci went back to bios and changed settings again, now it worked with ms std drivers and then efter reboot installd amd ahci drivers. There done.

Next problem My keybord Dinovo media desktop laser (bluetooth) constantly shut of and some times mice to, old usb mice to the rescue! (the problem was that the board needed a amd usb driver directly for my bt reciver to work as intended.

After strating that hole mess up it runs pretty smooth! untill i stumble on to the next litle quirc of an problem the gpu extended sceen setting and this in my head have allways nvidia handle better and sutch where the case here to. first it hade to fix the layout of my screens easy sead and done true w7 setting instaed ( )
then my gpu woudnt let me use my hole hd tv sceen size black bars around the hole picture efter ALLOT of searching in ccc i found the setting to fix it but to use this setting i nedded to install hydravision driver, the setting where grey`d out before then just drag the overscan setting from 15% standard setting to 0% and Bingo was his name!

NOw to how it runs efter spending a day decrypting my system disc again it bearly noticable that my system is decrypted. i think the aes ni instructions play a role here plus 2 cores more ofcorse , it monts my external drives on startup as its nothing and the hole rigg just feals very very fast, i where a little worried about all the bad reviws this cpu had but i can say it beat the [bleep] out of my old c2 duo e8400 3.00ghz.

xbmc and full hd vid runs smoth as a kitten, i will post again later to let you know how it handles games, first out batman arkham city, and dirt 3, then i going to test how well it handles extreme setting on crysis two in 1920x1080 res.

Regards zoze

Edited by zoze, 17 March 2012 - 08:36 AM.

[NKGuy]

Glad to hear everything is running great. The FX 4100 is a great CPU and the 6950 tops it off perfectly.

Edited by NKGuy, 17 March 2012 - 06:14 PM.

[iammykyl]

Great news, and thanks for the update.

If you feel you have a stable system now? I advice creating an image of the boot drive (stored separately) + a recovery disc/USB/flash. Should something go wrong when you tweak the system it would save you all the hassle you just went through.