I honestly thought I would not upgrade my current rig (See my sig below). Last year I sold my CH stuff and was not going to get anymore flight sims. Well, that didn't work. I had pre-purchased DCS A10-C last year so when it was released I downloaded it and hooked up my old Saitek X52. Then I decided to buy the TM HOTAS Warthog and Saitek rudder pedals. Well apparently that wasn't enough so I decided to upgrade my PC. So my new rig will be:

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Thuban 3.3GHz
ASUS Crosshair IV Formula AM3 AMD 890FX mobo
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
XFX HD-697A-CNFC Radeon HD 6970 2GB
Thermaltake Black Widow W0319RU 850W PSU
Have to buy a new PSU becuse the HD 6970 requires a 6 pin and 8 pin plug. My current PSU only has 6 pin plugs.

Will probably upgrade to Win 7 64 bit soon also.

I will use my existing HDD's, sound card and case. I measured the case and it looks like the video card will fit. Order it later this week and I'll have everything next week when I have 3 days off to put it together.

I’d Swap out the G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (4 x 2GB), for G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB),
Mainboards all have quirks with running 4 dimms. 2 Dimms vs 4 Dimms, 2 Dimms wins, less power, more memory per address.

I’d also drop the SB-X-Fi as WindowsVista/7 there isn’t a large enough difference between onboard and discrete audio.
I merely keep my X-Fi because I utilize all the ports on the 5.25 expansion drive, if I didn’t need all those for studio work I’d drop it and use on board sound.

Note the similarity of my system. No doubt, I think your making a wise choice

Agree with Skate Zilla. I have 4x4GB that I paid about $175 for on sale (8GB for $99 followed by 8GB more for $75) pays to watch the sales. Only need 8GB these days -- put the money into the GPU. And, I did have a couple hiccups with the extra 8GB -- though it works smooth now (didn't do anything but shut down and restart a couple times).

Don't need an FX890 motherboard to OC or do anything else of worth. Can save some money there with an ASUS like mine or the Gigabyte equivalent at about $135 (again, these go on sale -- got my $150 ASUS for $125 at Newegg).

Tried two aftermarket coolers. Both worked the same within 1C. The one in my signature is great but cost nearly $90 with the extra fans. The COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 was the cheap one at about $23 delivered when I bought it on sale. Now its $41 delivered which is higher than the regular price used to be. I guess they figured out they were selling it too cheaply. I recommend it. I tried both just as an experiment -- I figured the extra cost would not result in extra performance, and it didn't -- similar size/shape/design/fans gave nearly equal performance regardless of cost (just tested those two). BTW, the stock cooler is a good one. But, if one is trying to OC to 4GHz it might be iffy (can try and see before changing out).

Note all the stuff in my system and note the PSU. 650W is enough for OC CPU and Crossfire OC -- as my experience shows. 750W is plenty if one is concerned. I try for a PSU significantly under $100. Good ones can be had for $50 to $60 on special sale sale (I watch the sales closely -- over a period of 3 or 4 weeks one can "pick off" some good deals).

FWIW

P.S. 1333 speed memory is all one needs for the hex-core AMD CPU -- its what it supports. I got higher speed because it was cheap -- I run it at 1333. BTW, according to my experiments there was no real difference in FPS between 800 and 1333 speed with AMD. Long ago, the test reports were saying that AMD went with DDR3 simply because that's where the world was headed. DDR3 and 1066 or 1333 would not be more than a percent or so different from 800 speed -- i.e. never notice it in your game FPS. With AMD its the CAS timing that is more important -- but not worth losing sleep over.

Same here DDR31600 was cheap, but I run it at DDR1333 in my brother's system.

Thank you both for your advice. I will certainly consider those options. I've always been one for overkill though so who knows.



I wasn't sure about on-board audio. I still remember back in the day when it wasn't reliable. I have it on my current motherboard but never used it but I'll give it a shot with the new one though.

Another misconception of mine was I thought it was better to populate all 4 DIMM slots so I'll save some money there.

I think overkill is fun and perfectly justified when done knowingly. I certainly went overboard during the last 12 months

Now, I'm "cooling it" until the next group of products are released (HD7xxx GPU and Bulldozer CPU). Thing is, my current system will probably last a couple years without being stressed. So, in upgrading before its really needed, I'll be in overkill mode yet again

right behind you, I'll be building me another $2500 Box this Summer/Fall

To make a point about watching sales:

16GB 4x4GB of the same GSKILL memory I have is currently on "shell shocker" sale for $150 (I paid $175 which was already a steep discount).

The sale only lasts a few hours. So, this link will not show a low price later today.



16GB fast GSKILL $150 for a Short Time

Normally, one gets 8GB of fast memory for this price.

They also have a 600W continuous at 40C PSU for under $50.

The egg has some pretty good promos out right now.