The New AMD Building Thread

Oman7,
One of these days I have to learn what AM3 Ready means! LOL!! To me I would think it means that if the CPU doesn't have a DDR2 memory controller in it, then it won't work. I know that I saw one CPU that was AM3 only, but I didn't think to look at the time! One good thing about Gigabyte's website is that it's easy to find things, and when you're on newegg and go to the Manufacturers Product Page, you get what you are looking for. It's not always quite that easy with some of them! LOL!! Some are almost impossible!

Russ

 

Like Russ said, I have that board, it's been outstanding.

 

drop down a space

 

Hey Will,
Would you kindly remove the Intel stuff. It doesn't belong here, and no one wants to hear it! This is not the Intel thread and it is off topic! I should have said it when it was first posted, but I didn't think that it would open an Avalanche, and I thought it was a Photoshop job!

Thank You

Aside from that, how the hell are you? Long time no see! Hope everything is going all right for you. Drop me an email once in a while to let me know you're still on the planet! LOL!!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

sorry russ got of the subject of Amd...I saw Rob's post had to repond still waiting to build my AM3 rig...I got the the 3 main pcs..I want to buy but waiting for the price to drop alittle and to get some free shipping on all 3 parts...i'm sticking with Biostar cause I'm liking the brand for what...I do at home...I've been temped to try that MSI mb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130223
all because of the good platform 8 sata ports and many other features it has to offer and slapping a AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz AM3 and be done with it...still saving my pennies...lol


be safe & happy building


Ps..keep teaching them Russ old school style

 

Hey Will,
Haven't seen you much on any of the threads. How's things going? I know what you mean about saving your pennies. All I've had in my pocket for the last month is 22 cents and a Singapore Dime! I make money, but bills take priority! You have to eat and keep the roof over the old head! LOL!!

As far as MSI goes, that's great unless you need technical support or an RMA. I have a problem with my video card and I can't afford to be put on hold for 20 minutes at the moment. There's no email for it so I'll have to go through the bullshit of writing them. I'm getting little sparkly crap around text and icons, and while I have the onboard, I just bought the damn thing! They could make it a bit easier to get an RMA. They tell me that I need to upgrade the drivers, but I've already done that and the problem still is there. Besides, as nice as the software for the drivers was that came with the card, they refer you to nVidia and if you install the new drivers all the nice stuff that came with the card vanishes. They are the first I've seen that don't have their own upgrade software. What really irkes me about MSI is they have an 800 number for Laptops only! Like I said, I can't afford to be put on hold for 20 minutes while I wait. It's way too costly for me right now! Keep that in mind if you are thinking about buying one!

Warmest Regards,
Russ

 

Russ, please downsize that IMG, it is screwing some of us who do not have big sized monitors.

Many thanks in advance.

-----> NEVER MIND WE SWITCHED TO A NEW PAGE, I am not angry, XD.

 

It's double posting again!

 

Sytyguy,
LOL!! I switched it to a Thumbnail image anyway. The original was 960x660 and I didn't know that it would cause a problem. My apologies to anyone that had a problem with their screen! Sorry! Why would you think that you might be angry? You asked nicely, you said please and thanked me in advance. How could anyone be angry about that. That's the way it should be done, so Thank You!

Russ

 

I'm not really convinced AM2/AM2+/AM3 has much to do with power consumption. The highest drawers of them all were the original Phenoms... To me, it's just a complex compatibility issue with chipsets, and if I'm honest, it would certainly be offputting if I was going to go for an AMD build at the moment.
Omega: Chill man!
I quite like the look of the 790X board, AM3 support but with DDR2 memory.
As for the graphics card, sounds like memory artifacts. I wouldn't mind betting if you start playing a game it will crash altogether.

 

I think AMD boards are also down to the needs of the user. I personally needed a 790FX board with Phenom II support, full 16x Crossfire and DDR2. If you want DDR3 or single card then buy what suits you.

 

LOL! I think im over the initial anger. In fact, im excited about the prospect of a semi-new build! Sorta like a kid in a candy store. The question is, do I bite the bullet and totally s!!t can the MSI and buy a new board, or do I attempt to work with their techies, in the hopes of a replacement better board, or spend a little more for MUCH better board. I guess it depends on the guy on the other end LOL! One things for sure, im not settling for an identical replacement!!! Yes, my luck is that bad.

 

Sam,
You have me confused. I'm the one with the Artifacts with my 9500GT. I've taken care of that by lowering the HT link frequency from 2200 to 2000 (1800 stock) I did the same thing with the CPU Northbridge frequency from 2200 to 2000 also, and the problem vanished. I reasoned that since the problem didn't start until I raised both to 2200, let me back it down to 2000 and see what happens. It runs fine now. The difference in 3DMark is only about 100-150. I've since learned that the amount you can raise both adjustments, depends on the CPU. I've also read on the AMD Forum that with the 7750-BE, 2000MHz works the best.

As far as the AM2+ and AM3 compatibility goes they are both backwards compatible pin wise. You could run a Phenom II any AM2+, but only if the bios supports it. No AM2 motherboards meets the power requirements for the Phenom or Phenom II, it wouldn't last very long even if you could. Obviously, the motherboard manufacturers aren't going to supply a bios that handles it if the MB can't. It has nothing to do with the chipset itself, or AMD! The bios is from the MB manufacturer, not AMD! Obviously if you put an AM3 chip in a suitable AM2+ motherboard, only the AM2+ features will work, as certain pins on the CPU tell the chip which mode to run in via the direct connect feature, which is far superior to the way it was done with socket 775. That, and my overclock was what killed my original Asus P5P800-SE. The box said it was Pentium D compatible, when it really wasn't. The Asus couldn't handle the 130+w (more than the original Phenom), of the Pentium D when overclocked! Remember I mentioned about the replacement motherboard from Asus having much heavier duty VRMs? That's the reason why! That's why there are no AM2 and even some AM2+ motherboards that cannot support the power requirements of the Phenom or the Phenom II. All of us here should be smart enough to check CPU compatibility before they buy any motherboard. Don't trust any place like Newegg, Tigerdirect, Etc for specs either! Even then, there's no guarantee, as I found out with the P5P800-SE. It's the old "look before you leap" thing. LOL!!

The much touted "Energy savers" all go out the window when you overclock anyway, because overclocking turns those features off. Sure, they look good at stock speeds, but are totally worthless for people like us! Fred is the only one I can think of that can actually benefit from Energy savers, as his 7750-BE isn't overclocked.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Estuansis: Heh, I "needed" a Gigabyte board with full 16x support. When I realised that most of them fail with crossfire installed I bought Shaff's 8/8x Asus. To his credit, it's a much better working board. However, it too has problems of its own, which are extremely irritating. Unfortunately I'm not rich enough at the moment to justify replacing it for something else. They're still worth a lot of money, and X48-DS4s are mega cheap at ebuyer. If I had any confidence it would work, I would leap at the opportunity. Unfortunately I don't. Both my X38-DS4 and X48-DS5 exhibit exactly the same fault with two cards installed.
Russ: No confusion, I just forgot to put your name before the sentence. Looks like it's a PCI express bus problem then. Doesn't surprise me, to this day I don't know someone that's been able to raise the HT speed very much on AMD without experiencing problems. 2000 was always the best.

Realistically, even though it's up to the board manufacturers to support the new chips, I actually think the whole 'new socket' or 'new chipset' is the better way of doing it. It stops unnecessarily fried boards and makes it a lot simpler for the consumer.

 

Sam,
Well AMD has had several new chipsets but have maintained the 940 pin socket. Besides, why should everyone else have to pay for a new motherboard because the people doing the building are too lazy to find out if it's compatible. We used to see that here all the time. People who were too lazy to do something as simple as looking something up, or looking through the thread a bit first. They didn't mind asking you to do it for them though! Newbies used to PM me all the time and ask me to look up things for them until I finally got tired of it and started telling them that I don't have the time to look things up for them. I think the final nail was driven when someone asked me to look something up on Newegg and get back to them ASAP! That person was insulted when I asked him to make me a list of what he was interested in and I would look it over and make a recomendation. I don't mind giving information, or help, but do your own searching. Some even got annoyed, poor babies! LOL!! As my Mom used to say, "God helps them that helps themselves"! They all know how to google! That's how most of them that visit AD, got here to begin with! I'm sure you have gone through the same thing yourself. I know there's several hundred PMs I've gotten that are just that situation!

Then there's the manufacturers of the motherboards themselves, like with my P5P800-SE. I looked it up to be sure that the MB was compatible with the Pentium D, and it was on the list. At that time, Asus would void any warranty if you overclocked! They also would ask questions like "what speed was the CPU running at when the problem occured"? If you said 3.4GHz, and your CPU was a 3.2GHz, they voided your warranty on the spot! In the P5P800-SE, they had a motherboard that was marginally capable of running a D-940, so why even allow overclocking capability in the setup at all. They used that to their own ends, and I'll tell you why! To sell more motherboards! They just wash their hands of any responsibility if you overclock, yet they provide you with the means to do it! It's like telling a small child to watch the candy Store, and then telling them not to eat any of the candy! LOL!!

Russ

 

Too lazy? There's a difference between a 30 second google and spending weeks asking different people about it, because that's how long it's taken me to find out what works and what doesn't, and not through lack of trying either. Seriously, it's really confusing, and it's simply denial to call it otherwise. I agree, I hate the kind of people that get us to do their googling for them when they're plainly too lazy to do it for themselves, but there's a difference between laziness and sheer confusion, which AMD aren't helping their cause by creating.

 

Sam,
I'm only complaining about the ones that don't want to put any effort into it for themselves and want you to do all the legwork for them, or don't want to go back a couple of pages because we recently discussed the very same subject a week or so ago. Don't forget that your generation seem to be to last one that actually reads things, or even can! Maybe it's just the US, but most Jr. High age kids here today hate to read. Many of them can't!

Let's face it AMD is not alone when it comes to being confusing, especially when it comes to the different chipsets and all the different variations. Look at the confusion when it comes to models of video cards and their numbering.

I only wish you could find any meaningful information on google in 30 seconds. LMAO!! It's getting worse too as the number of dead and hijacked links increases. I looked up that Via chipset MSI motherboard for routergod last night to see what it had in it, and it took me about 15 minutes to finally come up with a quick install guide, all because MSI has one of the more confusing websites I've ever seen. What I did find was so poor that you wouldn't even know that it had OBG, because it's not on the list of rear panel connections. I finally found a picture of the rear panel, that showed the VGA port. There was also no proper manual to download. Fortunately there were pictures of the setup screens. I didn't mind doing it because it was obvious that he had done a good deal of looking on the net, before he asked his questions, and was clearly frustrated by it!

Russ

 

Agreed, but AMD's CPUs are one of the most confusing things about. As it happens, I would place the blame for confusion about graphics cards almost solely with nvidia, as they deliberately rebrand their old graphics cards to trick people into thinking they're new models, the 8800 and 9800 series being the worst example.

 

Ive wondered that about Cpu's for quite sometime. Your basically paying more for an OC'd(internally) Cpu. Would not surprise me in the least.

 

Strictly Video [NO GAMING]
What is the best type of Video card to accommodate a Motherboard W/Nvidia, not too expensive. ATI Raiden X600 & X1900 Vid Cards seem to give me problems trying to get video on my TV Using DVI OR S-Video
set at 1024x768 refresh rate 60Hz
If I uninstall Drivers everything works fine except. Every time I restart Windows it comes up found new hardware, go through the whole rig ma roll & tells me unable to load drivers
Is their a simple solution ? I've looked for Generic Drivers to no Avail