First big change to my rig since 2005!

[Celeron_Phreak]

So I was able to get a Phenom 955 and Biostar A870U3, from 96s10, here on the forums at good price. With this I had to get new memory as well, so I ordered a dual channel kit of 8GB DDR3 1600 (Hyper X Fury), and a new cooler as well (Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus). I am on an extremely tight budget this time around and spent all that I can with the addition of an IDE to SATA adapter for my DVD+/-RW drive listed in my sig.

I will be keeping the GTX 660 but will be removing the X-Fi Fatality card and putting the Auzentech X-Plosion back in, as the Fatality is giving me issues with sound not working.

I know that the performance of my system will increase dramatically due to it's age, even if the upgrade isn't anything top of the line. But it will sure be nice to have some new hardware for a change! It's been so long....

Is there anything I should be prepared for or aware of with this change? Obviously I will be reloading the OS after the upgrade, but is there anything specific I should be expecting considering the rest of my system will be the same?

 

[Itachiii]

I would not go Kingston with AMD,if you can change that order and get a G.skill kit would be even better. I don't think you'll be seeing anything... odd or something, I'm more troubled on the upgrade itself rather than what you might come up against. How much did u spend?

 

[Celeron_Phreak]

Maybe 140 for everything.

 

[Itachiii]

Well I believe that with an A6-7400k and a newer mobo, you might actually have gotten better performance for the same money... Not really sure though since I have't worked with one.

 

[Celeron_Phreak]

Saying I could have gotten a mobo, cpu, hsf, memory and sata adapters for the same price? The deals I got of the items were the main reason why I am doing the upgrade, otherwise it would pro ably be another year or two before any upgrade happened. I thought I was doin' pretty good on my $150 budget!

 

[trents]

The kingson RAM may cause you compatibility problems. Kingston and AMD just don't play well together and it's a well-known issue.

 

[Celeron_Phreak]

Well ugh, I guess I will keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. what types of signs will show if I am having compatibility issues? Crashing?

 

[Theocnoob]

Well I believe that with an A6-7400k and a newer mobo, you might actually have gotten better performance for the same money... Not really sure though since I have't worked with one.

A8 is not going to beat a 955 in raw compute power.

 

[trents]

Well ugh, I guess I will keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. what types of signs will show if I am having compatibility issues? Crashing?

Instability mainly. Some are finding the issue with this boils down to default memory timings not being appropriate for AMD IMC and that manually setting the timings fixes it. Either Mandrake or Johan45 has had success in working this out.

 

[Celeron_Phreak]

I was wondering if it might be due to too aggressive timings that the Fury series may have. sounds like adjusting my hand should take care of it, not as worried now.

 

[Theocnoob]

I was wondering if it might be due to too aggressive timings that the Fury series may have. sounds like adjusting my hand should take care of it, not as worried now.

Nope. It's Kingston and AMD in general. Even RAM with sloppy timings and low speed has issues. It's best to avoid Kingston RAM on AMD.

 

[bob4933]

When I ran my 1600mhz kingston kit, I had to drop to 1400mhz with 1.6v, CL11, cpu/nb voltage raise etc... it was annoying to say t he least. It "worked", but I guess thats dependent on your definition of 'work' too.

 

[Celeron_Phreak]

I wasn't planning on overclocking, stock would be fine for me until I do a true upgrade in the future.

While I have not found any real consistency with the problems going around with kingston memory and AMD, I did fine a couple threads where there were a few users having problems.

From what I have found, the 955 will operate the memory at 1600MHz with two modules installed, or 1333 with four modules installed. If i go through with the 1600MHz kingston hyperx fury memory, what exactly might cause problems? Is it timings, overclock settings, or just poor quality ICs used on kingston's memory modules? I'm looking for an solid answer to the questions raised and not having much luck finding anything.

 

[Theocnoob]

I don't know why some people need to know exactly how when why and where the wolves killed the moose.. suffice it to say that AMD+ Kingston RAM= Problem. The smart thing to do would be to return the Kingston RAM and pick from the myriad of other options on the market. Maybe a sure thing like AMD Radeon RAM.

When we give people advice and the people shout "Proove iiiit tooo meee!!!" it's kind of frustrating.

 

[Celeron_Phreak]

I don't want proof, I'm interested in the reasons behind it. I am a business person and it comes natural to me to the raise questions to anything that may not operate/function as intended. Even if there is no fix, I don't see why it's such a problem to explain the reasons as to why it won't work. I remember when asking a WHY question here was answered by someone with factual knowledge on the subject and the question(s) were not just brushed aside to the point of "it doesn't work, well buy something else" instead of "it doesn't work? Well let's figure out why and make it, if we can!"

I already have a friend who is willing to sell me an 8GB g.skill kit of DDR3 1600 from his old build for the price I paid for the kingston fury. That is not a problem, and the peace of mind knowing this build will work from the get go will be nice. Half of the fun of building a new system a decade ago was tweaking and modifying the system to work perfectly regardless of the components.

If the kingston wouldn't be compatible at all, that would be one thing, but telling me "AMD and kingston don't play nice" tells me absolutely nothing (except that there is a problem that might have a work around), and is not a beneficial response or answer to any questions that were or may be raised.

 

[Theocnoob]

I already have a friend who is willing to sell me an 8GB g.skill kit of DDR3 1600 from his old build for the price I paid for the kingston fury.

Take it

I don't know enough about the situation to tell you all the reasons for the incompatibility. THe important thing is that you know as well as we do know that the incompatibility exists.

Why would you want to introduce a problem to your system from day 1 when you can easily swap 1 part and avoid the problem? Don't you want everything to "Just work" when you first fire the system up? That's my preference.

 

[Mandrake4565]

I don't want proof, I'm interested in the reasons behind it. I am a business person and it comes natural to me to the raise questions to anything that may not operate/function as intended. Even if there is no fix, I don't see why it's such a problem to explain the reasons as to why it won't work. I remember when asking a WHY question here was answered by someone with factual knowledge on the subject and the question(s) were not just brushed aside to the point of "it doesn't work, well buy something else" instead of "it doesn't work? Well let's figure out why and make it, if we can!"

I already have a friend who is willing to sell me an 8GB g.skill kit of DDR3 1600 from his old build for the price I paid for the kingston fury. That is not a problem, and the peace of mind knowing this build will work from the get go will be nice. Half of the fun of building a new system a decade ago was tweaking and modifying the system to work perfectly regardless of the components.

If the kingston wouldn't be compatible at all, that would be one thing, but telling me "AMD and kingston don't play nice" tells me absolutely nothing (except that there is a problem that might have a work around), and is not a beneficial response or answer to any questions that were or may be raised.

Celeron_Phreak, it's likely the secondary and tertiary timings that can cause and issue. I've only heard of it being an issue with the Phenoms due to my lack of time on this forum, most people were moving on to the Fx chips when I first started posting here. With the Fx series chips I have seen at least a handful of people come through the forum with issues running Kingston ram. It is usually when trying to get them to run at or above 1866, with a little tweaking they can usually be stabilized to run at or above 1866 but it may take some tweaking. Same goes for the Phenoms, you most likely will be able to get then Kingstons to run at 1600 Mhz though it may take some tweaking to get them stable. I rarely see any issues with G. Skill and AMD chips. They will usually play nice right from the get go.

As far as overclocking, turn the knobs on that 955, they're so much fun to Oc it would be a shame to let it stay stock

 

[Celeron_Phreak]

Theocnoob, I am going to buy it from him, for that reason of it working right from the beginning and eliminate problems and troubleshooting. Once I have the os loaded again I can tweak it, now that I know I won't really have to worry about incompatibility issues.

Mandrake, I might play with it and oc it as long as the temps don't go through the roof. I just don't have much time to play with the computer anymore, been so wrapped up with work and another promotion, supporting the family comes first.

I do plan to take a week of my vacation time in February, though, and will most deffinitely be messing around with it then!

 

[Mandrake4565]

Mandrake, I might play with it and oc it as long as the temps don't go through the roof. I just don't have much time to play with the computer anymore, been so wrapped up with work and another promotion, supporting the family comes first.

I do plan to take a week of my vacation time in February, though, and will most deffinitely be messing around with it then!

Some 955's will get a bit wonky around 55c on the cores stay around there and you're good. Most will do around 3.9 on Air with really good cooling I had mine to 4.1 for 24/7 and had it up to 4.4 2 hour's prime stable. Though the voltage needed to run it there was silly so I stayed at 4.1 Ghz. Anyhow, out of all the chips I have my 955 is my favorite to turn the knobs on. Family is first though.

 

[caddi daddi]

good choice of cpu's, one of my top faves.
kingston has issues with amd, good choice to change.
as long as the phenom has been out, much is known about them.
3.6-3.8 seems to be the sweet spot for them 24/7.
ram choice is to run 1600 and the imc of the cpu will limit that to around 1700-1750 much of the time.
strive to keep the core temp below 55c MAX, they tend to get unstable above this and we like to see as little vcore voltage use as we can.
these things will work like trojans, and will hammer forever if not cooked with heat and vcore is kept in check.
sitting and benching them, clock for clock much better than any fx cpu.