[Sneech]

Okay i am building a monster gaming rig and i want to stick with all AMD i just am not to familiar with their Video Cards. I was a firm believer in the 9800 but its time for change with this build. here is my parts list and plans let me know what you think i am definatly wanting to run two cards for sure with this one.

Cpu:AMD HDE00ZFBGRBOX Phenom II 1100T Black Edition Six Core Processor
Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair IV Formula Motherboard
RAM: Corsair CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9 Vengeance 16GB PC12800 DDR3 RAM
HDD:
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-850AX AX850 Power Supply
Case: Mountain Mods-Ascension Crystal Ship CYO
GPU:ASUS EAH6970DCII/2DI4S/2G Radeon HD 6970 DirectCU II Video Card

the build will be w/c i am planning on a performance/bling build. at this point i know dual loops, possibly three loops if there are dual video cards involved. just have no clue on AMD cards any suggestions???

[Black C5 Z06]

Dual Sapphire 6950s flashed to 6970 bios.

[Sneech]

thats what i was looking at initially im planning on running them on my 55 inch tv. do you know if they are making full coverage waterblocks for these cards yet?

[Black C5 Z06]

No clue. I don't water cool.

[EarthDog]

Over the top? Heh... ok...

1. Dont go Crossfire with 1920x1080 res. That may be 'over the top' but its also a giant waste of money. A single 6970 will do or if you want to go over the top grab a 6990.
2. Even with 2 cards OR a 6990. I would get a Corsair 850HX PSU. Again, a 1KW PSU is over the top and a giant waste of money.
3. Here is a 6950/6970 Reference card full coverage block. You can manage this in a single loop in that case also. Just make sure you have enough rad to keep things cool (2 3x120mm rads at minimum).
4. I dont call a WD Caviar Green over the top, I call that slow and trying to save money vs the rest of the build that is bleeding it. Step up to a small SSD and a storage drive, or a caviar black for better performance.

[tool_462]

Originally Posted by Sneech

thats what i was looking at initially im planning on running them on my 55 inch tv. do you know if they are making full coverage waterblocks for these cards yet?

Many companies make blocks for them, I've had my EK Full Cover blocks on my 6950's since shortly after release. The FC 6970 blocks that are made to fit reference cards will fit reference 2GB 6950's as well.

If you are only gaming at 1080p you can get away with a cheaper card setup unless you plan on upgrading to a bigger (resolution) display at some point.



Edit: EarthDog beat me to it, I open too many tabs and take forever to read the threads

[Sneech]

will update the parts list on HDD and storage drive.

[Sneech]

Heres a question i know there are huge speed differences with the SSD's but from what i can see the storage size is so low that they almost seem pointless. the largest i could find was 320 gigs and its over a grand. whats the norm a small ssd for the system and them a normal storage HDD

[fall]

if your talking about sizes 120gb for SSD and 1TB for HDD

if your going SSD then how i have mine setup is I have the OS and storage on my 1TB WD Black and all my games Dedicated to my SSD.

Or you could do the wasteful 30GB Win7 OS on the 120GB SSD and then put your games on it and use it all up and just have storage...

I have never liked that idea because because aside from boot time i have never seen any real speed difference between a HDD and SSD in windows tasks... So i put the OS and storage on the HDD and programs on the SSD.

[tool_462]

If you just want OS + programs and a game or three on the SSD, I'm fine with 60GB Vertex. I don't use the original bloated Win 7 install though, I use RT7Lite to cut down a Windows 7 Ultimate x64 install with my basic Firefox, CPU-Z, Prime 95 etc to about 6GB.

[Sneech]

So would an 80G SSD and a 2TB HDD do the job

[fall]

Originally Posted by tool_462

If you just want OS + programs and a game or three on the SSD, I'm fine with 60GB Vertex. I don't use the original bloated Win 7 install though, I use RT7Lite to cut down a Windows 7 Ultimate x64 install with my basic Firefox, CPU-Z, Prime 95 etc to about 6GB.

Is there a way you could possibly show me where thats at

EDIT: JK got it google ftw!

Originally Posted by Sneech

So would an 80G SSD and a 2TB HDD do the job

If you do what tool does then yes that should be perfect

[vixro]

over the top.. with phenom? :x

[Sneech]

Sorry Vixro never been a fan of intel. performance to price just never did it for me!

[manu2b]

Originally Posted by vixro

over the top.. with phenom? :x

+1

Grab a 990 chipset mobo, you'll be able to upgrade to BD when it is (finally!) launched.

[Sneech]

ive read over the stats of that board and im more enthused with the crosshair formula as well i know its purley an opinion choice but i will never run an intel processor

[Sneech]

thinking the crosshair 4 extreme is going to be a good choice as well

[Crysco]

Originally Posted by Sneech

thinking the crosshair 4 extreme is going to be a good choice as well

No no no no and no. That is ten steps beyond "over the top". ESPECIALLY if you are only buying one or even two video cards. Please don't buy this motherboard unless you are filthy rich and crap $100 bills. On top of that, you don't even need six cores for gaming. Top games barely take advantage of 3. If you are sticking with AMD just get an AM3+ board and wait for bulldozer.

[Sneech]

ive read some of the stuff on the bulldozer and whats the huge benifit of it?

[Crysco]

I am just now starting to read into BD but I do know that it is SUPPOSED to be 25-50% better than the Sandy Bridge craze. As far as I as I know it is a completely new architecture also. I am sure that others will be able to shed some light on the topic better than I can.