System overhaul - need suggestions

[Lwerewolf]

I'll be changing my 4870 soon to a 5870 due to, I suppose, VDDC degradation (read this for more info). Looking for a custom cooling solution with 2 gigs of memory.
So far I've got my eyes on the sapphire 5870 toxic.
Now the rest of the system:
CPU - Q9400@stock(2.66), Scythe Shuriken FAN
MB - AsRock p45turbotwins2000
RAM - A-Data ViTesta 1066+ 2x2GB
PSU - FSP Everest 800w
Sound - Auzentech X-fi Prelude
I guess I'll have to change the PSU as well since I've read some non-so-good things about it lately while investigating my system's instability (random restarts). Also not sure if the CPU will be enough for this video. My budget is around 850$. Any suggestions are welcome - not sure about the motherboard as well (seems unstable with ddr2 1066).

 

[de.das.dude]

I think you should change the mobo as it might be the cause of your restarts(i cant suggest mobo as im not that familiar with intel stuff, but i guess you can select one according to ur needs). have you checked if your ram sticks are fine?? im sayin this cuz u said your system becomes unstable with 1066Mhz ddr2.

I dont think you will need to change the PSU though. First change the mobo and see if the restarts occur, if not then alls well. else you know what to do.

also with the money hopefully left over, you can get more ram.

 

[Lwerewolf]

The cause of the restarts is the VGA, read the link in my 1st post for more info The ram is running at 800mhz now (forgot to mention that) and it passes over 9 hours of memtest86 (maybe more, dunno for how long I slept that night) w/o errors. From what I've read this motherboard is completely fine with DDR3 (yeah it's a hybrid, I guess you're getting it already).

 

[avatar_raq]

If you have an issue in your system, then you must first diagnose the cause and you must be sure about it..Imagine if you spend your money on new stuff only to discover that the issue persists and it's because of something you kept from the current build..Therefore, I suggest testing each part of your system in another PC, if possible...You can also use memtest, prime 95 and furmark to stress test the ram, CPU and GPU respectively.
If you want to save yourself the headache, save more money and get a fully new system!!


Edit: Oops, I didn't see the new replies until I posted, sorry !

 

[de.das.dude]

then i guess you dont need to worry about a new mobo.

and for the mobo to be hybrid, it should have diff slots for ddr3 and ddr2(the notch position is diff), but i dont think you can use the two types together. so dump tour ddr2's and get a pair of 2GB ddr3's

 

[avatar_raq]

I believe the sapphire toxic is a good card, and your PSU is sufficient to run it..But why do you want the 2GB version? It has the same performance of the 1GB cards but with the price premium.

 

[Lwerewolf]

Wasn't the toxic 2gb only?
Besides I also do some 3d graphics stuff (like this ) and from what I've seen openCL renderers are damn fast.
As for the PSU, still in doubt.. Still I won't be getting all this at least 'till next monday in order to give it some thought during the weekend.

 

[avatar_raq]

I know it's 2GB, but I just wanted to tell you that you may pay the price premium of 2GB for no added performance, and if you want to OC the card, more memory usually reduces the OC headroom! Just my 2 cents !
About the PSU, see my system specs! I have the non-modular version of FSP 800w (epsilon), also see my CPU and GFX card.

 

[Lwerewolf]

Ouch... Since it's driving that kind of setup I guess it's stable
All right then one last question - should I OC the CPU or it still won't bottleneck the card? Since this PSU appears to be stable I guess I can get a better cooler if I have to in its place... Or maybe try to sell the mobo/ram/cpu and get an i7 setup but I dunno if that'll be possible.
The case is NZXT Nemesis btw, guess the airflow is good enough (tried to keep the interior clean of cables running all over the place).

 

[avatar_raq]

I'm not sure if the q9400 will bottleneck the 5870 or not..There's ,however ,a simple way to find out: monitor your GPU usage and FPS during games (by MSI afterburner OSD ) and if in any game you can't get good FPS (typically locked @ your screen refresh rate 60 FPS if V-sync is enabled ) and the gpu usage isn't 99%, then something is holding the gpu back, to make sure it's the CPU and not a driver issue, see the CPU usage while playing, if any core reaches its full load, then it's the CPU..Time to buy a new HSF and OC the little chip!!

 

[Fourstaff]

Get a 600w psu, get a 5870 (any flavour would do), OC your processor and voilà! New pc

 

[Lwerewolf]

http://www.geeks3d.com/20090925/ati...on-against-power-virus-like-furmark-and-occt/
All right... time to check whether the toxic has extra&better VRMs... otherwise MSI/nVIDIA.

 

[avatar_raq]

@ Lwerewolf:
I wouldn't be concerned about that. The 5870 is a good card. Personally I prefer the reference design, since it generally has better components and has voltage control circuit, which enables you to raise the GPU voltage to achieve higher overclocks. But nowadays it's hard to find it, as it costs more to manufacture.. Nevertheless, ASUS has some good 58xx cards of their design which have voltage control and solid reputation..Might ne worth taking a look at them, I mean if the card is designed to feed more voltage into the GPU, it probably has a good VRM.

 

[Lwerewolf]

About me being concerned about that - considering that my 4870 goes into protection mode at ~55 amps it's kinda impossible for me not to be Just want to make sure that the VRMs are good/plenty enough so that the card won't throttle at all. As for Asus - I've seen enough of my friends having trouble with Asus VGAs (I've had only one and it was rock solid, however between a 9550GE and a 5870...). Now off to lurking

 

[avatar_raq]

Where do you live bro? If in the states, go for an XFX card, they have the best support of all radeons! The only guarantee is to RMA if anything gets wrong.

 

[Lwerewolf]

Bulgaria. Here it's a bit more complicated
I was looking at the XFX 5870 black but I don't know when I'll be able to get one and I don't have a lot of time left for the warranty (2-3 weeks) so I'm kinda in a hurry

 

[CDdude55]

Get a 600w psu, get a 5870 (any flavour would do), OC your processor and voilà! New pc

Agreed.


Also, don't spend your time trying to fight bottlenecks, they will always exsist somewhere.