New System

[Night Fox]

Well, I'm putting together a new configuration. Mainly for gaming. Cod4, etc. And I have some questions.

1) On this motherboard, with the PCIe 2.0 x16 card slots, if I run crossfire with the x8 speed, will this lower the performance of the 2 cards? Or should I go with this motherboard that has x16 speed on both PCIe slots?

2) If I'm just going to be gaming and perhaps a little bit of video editing, should I go with a dual-core cpu , or a quad-core?

3) Do SSD's make a huge difference? (Using this for boot-up)

4) Compatibility?

Case: Newegg.com - Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

PSU: Newegg.com - CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply

MB: Newegg.com - ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
or
Newegg.com - ASUS Crosshair III Formula AM3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard

CPU: Newegg.com - AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor
or
AMD Phenom II X2 550 Callisto 3.1GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 80W Dual-Core Desktop Processor

GPU: Newegg.com - XFX HD-577A-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Memory: Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL7D-4GBRH

DVD Burner: Newegg.com - Sony Optiarc Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD/CD Rewritable Drive - CD / DVD Burners

Hard Drive: Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

SSD: Newegg.com - OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX30GXXX 2.5" 30GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium (already have)

 

[Muffin Man]

xfire at x8/x8 would lower performance, but by a very small amount, considering that you'd be xfiring 5770s.

you could also consider a board like this one
Newegg.com - ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AM3 AMD 890GX HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
it supports this "core unlocker" thing that's supposed to take the hassle out of trying to unlock the locked cores on dual and tri core cpus by automatically doing it for you.

along with the black edition callisto for a few bucks more
Newegg.com - AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition Callisto 3.2GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 80W Dual-Core Desktop Processor - C3 Revision
you could get a heck of a rig for less money than you planned on spending.

 

[Night Fox]

Would this unlocking cores thing highly increase my power consumption? reduce cpu life? increased heat?

 

[Muffin Man]

highly increase? no. if you unlock the cores, power consumption and heat would likely be very similar or the same as a full fledged quad cores since the dual and tri cores are just disabled quad core cpus to begin with.

 

[Night Fox]

Actually, I think I might just upgrade the system I have now...will the following parts be compatible?

Currently I have the Asus P5Q motherboard and the Ulra LS500 500w psu.

I want to add Radeon HD 5770 to replace GeForce 9500 GT. Will my power supply be able to handle this card?

I also want to add this SSD. Is there any compatibility issues? Or anything I would need to know before I went and bought and SSD ( haven't had any yet)

 

[Muffin Man]

yea that psu will handle a 5770.

no, you shouldn't have any issues with the ssd. you'll want to get a drive bay adapter though, to secure it in place inside your case. something like this,
OCZ SSD 2.5" / 3.5" Adapter Bracket - (OCZACSSDBRKT2) - FrozenCPU.com

 

[dirkpitt45]

Newegg.com - Intel X25-V SSDSA2MP040G2R5 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

That SSD is cheaper and comes with a bracket for your drive bay. Slightly slower, but you wouldn't be able to notice it Plus the extra 10gb would be nice.

 

[Night Fox]

I saw that one...but I don't know if I'd want it or not. The read/write speeds are significantly lower and I'm going to be using this to put my OS on and any startup programs...

Now, I've been searching for 2.5" to 3.5" drive converters. So far, I've got 2:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994064
and the one muffin man gave me: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817995010&Tpk=OCZACSSDBRKT2

Now, I've seen several videos and read reviews about the ICY DOCK one (the first one), but that is more expensive. I'm thinking that $10 for a better product would be better than buying a cheap one that may not last very long. The OCZ converter seems very...unstable. I don't see how it works and I don't know if I want the cheaper product. Any thoughts/opinions?

 

[dirkpitt45]

The second one. Why would you want to put your ssd in a box? Waste of money.

 

[Muffin Man]

The OCZ converter seems very...unstable. I don't see how it works and I don't know if I want the cheaper product. Any thoughts/opinions?

lol, what do you mean "unstable"?

you're really thinking about this too much. it's just a piece of metal to secure it in place, otherwise it will just be hanging there. nothing complicated about it.