I am building a computer soon, by mid June that will have the following specs.

Processor : AMD AM3 Phenom II 965 Quad Core 3.4GHz 8MB
Motherboard :Asus M4A79XTD-EVO AM3 790X DDR3)
Memory: (2x) Kingston 2GB PC10600 DDR3-1333MHz
Hard Disk :WD SATA2 1TB 32MB Cache 7200RPM
DVDRW: LG 22x +/- Dual Layer DVD Burner Black SATA
Video Card :ATI Radeon HD5850 1GB GDDR5
Case: Antec Nine Hundred Gaming Case
Power Supply :Coolermaster Silent Pro M 700w

I can get this built for around 1250 CDN + taxes from a local spot in Nova Scotia where I live, which by comparing to many sites is a pretty good price.

and I digress

Anyways I plan on crossfiring two 5850's in the future, maybe 2, 3 years down the road when they are alot cheaper. Which leads me to my question...

So the mobo that is mentioned above states that the PCI-E slots supports 1 card @ x16 or 2 cards @ x8.

I know that means x16 is better than x8, but could someone explain if I would be better off to spend an extra 60 more dollars for a board that offers dual x16 support when two cards are crossfired or should I just stick this route since the performance increase (if any) is ever so slight its not worth the money.

Anyways thanks in advance.

PS. if you would like to recommend anything on my current setup for my new rig by recommending different products that are equal/better performance while saving me money go right ahead.

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Last edited by Strand on Sun Apr 11, 2010 2:25 pm; edited 1 time in total

it looks like i nice setup the only bottle neck i see is the hard drive, i`d get 2 SSD`s there why down in price 130.00 for a 60 gig 2 of them in raid is unbelievably  fast  i`ve read.so that will be  my next upgrade than i`m going to use my velociraptor`s  for storeage, than the 5870.on the board you said it 16 is owes better but with a good card u dont need to crossfire

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bUMP

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That should give you a nice solid build, similar to my new system I just build recently on an upgrade, you def won't be disappointed! As far as SSD drives are concerned, they do give a slight increase to OS load times but in real world applications like gaming the gain (i.e. like load times) is minimal and hardly any different than standard 7200rpm drives. In fact some of the newer faster 2platter 1tb+ 7200rpm drives from WD and Samsung run just as fast or faster than most ssd drives when it comes to gaming and are much much cheaper. Unless your running servers that are streaming media to thousands of users or something you really shouldn't be too concerned with paying the $$ for ssd as long as you buy one of the newer 2 platter drives from WD or Samsung =)

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Last edited by b1oodsh0t on Wed Apr 07, 2010 6:41 pm; edited 1 time in total

Thanks for the info on the Hard drives but im looking for some more info on PCIe slots and the difference in performance between 16x and 8x modes

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Ah right well the difference between 8X and 16X is in regards to the speed the 2nd pcie bus will run when you run cards in sli. If you plan to go sli in the future your def going to want one of 790FX motherboards and nothing less as those are the only amd motherboards that will run both the videocards in sli mode at full speed. The performance is basically cut in half of the 2nd videocard in sli, if your not planning on running sli then I would suggest a single pci slot motherboard.

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You want to run the new cards in x16 so it sounds like to me you need to spend a couple extra bucks into the rig ^_^ ( or go intel the i5/some i7 builds are pretty cheap )

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New Siggy; What do you think?

The Asus M4A77TD is a superb single slot motherboard that is really inexpensive. If you want to go for sli in the future I would recommend an Asus Crosshair, these of course are for amd platform. Hope this helps and let us know if you have any other questions or if we can help  =)

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Like i said dont just sell yourself short with AMD; You can build a pretty awesome rig with the i5's for the same price. If you plan to upgrade make sure you buy a mobo that can support a better processor.

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New Siggy; What do you think?

I never really looked in intel to much maybe I could ask you what my best bet is price vs. performance wise.

Keep in mind that I want a board that will can run crossfire (dual cards @ 16x)

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if your wanting to do sli then you might want to step up to the i7; but then again why not just buy one  card for the price of 2 of those cards? Basically the main reason youd wanna buy a i7 is to sli; ( i haven't had the money to buy a second card lol )

If your going for a cheaper or better performance for the money, id get the i5 with a really good videocard; With the i5 you can continue to upgrade your cpu later on down the road.

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New Siggy; What do you think?

well I don't plan on doing SLI/Crossfire right away, I would do that 2,3 years down the road when the one card just isn't enough

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Ok so I think I decided I will make an Intel based system since it does offer better upgrade ability down the road. Here is what I'm planning to get now.

Processor :Intel Core i5-750 2.66GHz Quad-Core
Motherboard :ASUS Maximus III Formula P55
Memory: OCZ Gold 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3
Hard Disk :Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB
DVDRW: LG 22x +/- Dual Layer DVD Burner Black SATA
Video Card :ATI Radeon HD5850 1GB GDDR5
Case: Corsair Obsidian 800D Full Tower
Power Supply :CORSAIR 650W ATX12V
Cooling: CORSAIR Cooling Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler

As you can see I upped my limit, but for good reason, I dont want to have to get something where I'll have to gut it out in 2 or 3 years.

Keep in mind when I upgrade in 2 or 3 years, I'll add more ram, buy a larger hard drive, maybe configure Raid 0, possibly get a stronger CPU, get a second video card...etc

Any recommendations after what I have said?

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Lookin good.....the only thing i would concider....is a little better power supply.
But thats me  

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CPU: Intel Core i7 960  @ 3.20Gz
Motherboard: ASUS Rampage Gene lll
GPU: Asus 6950 2Gb
RAM: 6Gb
HD: Corsair F-120Gb SSD+ WD 1Tb Black.
OS: Windows 7 64 bits
Case: HAF-X Big tower.

def a bigger power supply lol unless you plan to buy a bigger one down the road?

Look good which corsair cooler? Ive got the H50 in my case now and it rocks just ask me b4 you put it on... the instructions were written by a 3 year old lol.

If you wanna save money buy some Gskill ram; Ive used it on the past 3 computers ive built and haven't had a problem once. ( save some money for a bigger psu ^_^ )

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New Siggy; What do you think?