# Linkin's AMD Rig - In Progress!



## linkin (Jul 31, 2010)

Hello ComputerForum! This is going to be my _first_ proper AMD build. The first AMD system I ever used was some old Socket A, Athlon XP prebuilt! And boy did it beat my Pentium 4 system into the ground!

How things have changed!

I snared an ASRock Extreme3 880G board on eBay for $65 AUD including postage yesterday!

And today, I have just ordered an Athlon II X4 630 and a kit of Corsair 2x2GB DDR3 1600mhz/CL9 stuff!

Also, I am sorry to dissapoint my potential sellers this time around. I could not resist new stuff!

Every other part will be the same as in my sig, I'm not _that_ rich :lol:

I'm expecting everything to arrive next week sometime. When anything arrives, pictures will obligatory, of course.
Right now I'm shaking with excitement, having just ordered everything. Oh, my poor wallet!

This post will be updated as soon as any parts arrive. Expect pictures!

EDIT:

3/08/2010 - First Item arrives.






5/08/2010 - Motherboard arrives. Cleaned out case of dust, reapplied thermal paste on GPU, ordered AM3 retention bracket.









































9/08/2010: CPU Arrives!


















EDIT: Later that day, I had another knock on the door... What could it be!?






You know what this means!!? Everything is here!!! Time to get building! CPU goes in first!






Followed by the RAM...






The soundcard was very lucky, it only just fit:






Last but not least, the 5770 goes in:






And we have lift off! After configuring some BIOS options of course...






EDIT: 16/8/10 - More stuff arrives! I awoke at 7:15AM today to find a courier knocking on the door! What goodies does he have for me this time?

EDIT 2: Hit picture limit! check my next post down.


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## Shane (Jul 31, 2010)

Awesome Linky dont forget to post pics!



linkin said:


> , having just ordered everything. Oh, my poor wallet!



Yeah everythings so expensive these days with new pc parts ,But at ;east you can still sell your old stuff and get some cash back!


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## linkin (Jul 31, 2010)

EDIT: 16/08/10: New cooler & Replacement 4850


























And my replacement 4850 from XFX:






And a quick temperature test. For fan speed I settled on Level 5 in the bios, which equates to ~1250 RPM.

This is a cold boot idle temp:






And after a few minutes of Prime95:






Should be overclocking a bit further now


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## ScottALot (Jul 31, 2010)

Hehe, your first proper build has the word proper spelled wrong.


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## linkin (Jul 31, 2010)

We don't use American english in Australia. Aluminum = Aluminium for us 

EDIT: brainfart. it's stil, spelled wrong either way. If it bothers you _that_ much I'll change it


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## 87dtna (Aug 1, 2010)

Nice score on that board!


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## linkin (Aug 1, 2010)

Yeah. I've also sold my current CPU, mobo, RAM and cpu cooler already! That makes me back like $150 of the $300 or so i spent.


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## joh06937 (Aug 2, 2010)

all you need to do now is crossfire that 5770 :good:


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## 87dtna (Aug 2, 2010)

Nah, sell it and buy a gtx460 1gb


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## linkin (Aug 2, 2010)

Actually my brother has a sapphire 5770 1gb and a crosffire cable...

Nothing in the mail today, but it's only 3:45pm, the courier comes by until 5. hoping for something today


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## joh06937 (Aug 2, 2010)

linkin said:


> Actually my brother has a sapphire 5770 1gb and a crosffire cable...
> 
> Nothing in the mail today, but it's only 3:45pm, the courier comes by until 5. hoping for something today



nothing worse than the waiting game when it comes to computers  except maybe a BSOD


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## linkin (Aug 2, 2010)

Speaking of bsods, the school computer i was using today bluescreened on me. My brother's computer shit the bed too because he used some dodgy program to "move windows files to the inner of the hard drive" (sounds good in principal) and it crashed... basically his registry is gone!


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## linkin (Aug 3, 2010)

Check first post, first item arrives


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## joh06937 (Aug 3, 2010)

linkin said:


> Check first post, first item arrives



you could try tasting it. might keep you busy until the other stuff arrives


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## linkin (Aug 3, 2010)

Might put me in hospital for all i know


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## joh06937 (Aug 3, 2010)

linkin said:


> Might put me in hospital for all i know



exactly. by the time you get out, all of your stuff will be there! and if your lucky, you'll pass out and wake up when it is time to leave the hospital


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## linkin (Aug 3, 2010)

But then i won't have any thermal paste


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## Shane (Aug 3, 2010)

linkin said:


> But then i won't have any thermal paste



Meh,dont bother putting any on


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## linkin (Aug 3, 2010)

Better yet, I'll just squeeze the entire tube onto it. more is better right?


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## linkin (Aug 4, 2010)

Nothing in the mail today. I am dissapoint.


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## Shane (Aug 4, 2010)

linkin said:


> Nothing in the mail today. I am dissapoint.



I hate waiting on delivery when i buy things,I usually try to get the within 2 days shipping depending on how much the thing is im buying.


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## linkin (Aug 4, 2010)

Yeah I try for that too but it wasn't available


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## Pager (Aug 4, 2010)

nice one !


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## linkin (Aug 5, 2010)

5/08/2010: Motherboard arrived today. no AM3 retention bracket  and i can't find my camera charger!!!!!! 

Found camera, ordered a retention bracket.


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## 87dtna (Aug 5, 2010)

Where did you get the board from?

No accessories whatsoever not even an I/O shield huh?


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## linkin (Aug 5, 2010)

Ebay. the guy forgot to put both in the box. he took the cpu bracket off because he was watercooling. He's sending me the bracket.


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## Shane (Aug 5, 2010)

You got that board for a great price,is he also sending you the I/Q shield?...id hate not to have one on mine


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## linkin (Aug 6, 2010)

I think he is. If i get neither i could also make some ghetto stuff


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## joh06937 (Aug 6, 2010)

looking good so far :good: what are the ratings on the pci-e slots (16x/8x/8x, etc.)?


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## 87dtna (Aug 6, 2010)

880g is probably 16x/8x/4x but 8x/8x in Xfire.


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## linkin (Aug 6, 2010)

Well I'll "borrow" my brothers 5770 at one stage and find out


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## 87dtna (Aug 6, 2010)

I know it's x8/x8 in Xfire, only the 790FX and 890FX boards can do x16/x16

x8 doesn't cut into the performance of a 5770 though.  I only lost 300 points in vantage score with x8 with my super overclocked gtx460 1gb.


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## joh06937 (Aug 6, 2010)

87dtna said:


> I know it's x8/x8 in Xfire, only the 790FX and 890FX boards can do x16/x16
> 
> x8 doesn't cut into the performance of a 5770 though.  I only lost 300 points in vantage score with x8 with my super overclocked gtx460 1gb.



absolutely. there wasn't really even any performance lost when i was running 16x/4x.


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## linkin (Aug 7, 2010)

I just got an email from the ebay seller i bought the 630 from - they had none left in stock so they sent me a 635!


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## linkin (Aug 8, 2010)

I'm expecting the rest of my stuff to arrive tomorrow.


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## 87dtna (Aug 8, 2010)

linkin said:


> I just got an email from the ebay seller i bought the 630 from - they had none left in stock so they sent me a 635!



Lucky bastard!


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## Shane (Aug 8, 2010)

linkin said:


> I just got an email from the ebay seller i bought the 630 from - they had none left in stock so they sent me a 635!



Awesome! 

Its a shame the 630 and 635 only have 2mb L2 cache and no L3 cache ,But for the price i dont think its a bad deal...its still a Quad core


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## linkin (Aug 9, 2010)

Bump! check first post! Here's a teaser:


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## Shane (Aug 9, 2010)

Nice Linky,Whats the diffrences you have noticed already going from your Dual Pentium?

i remember going from my C2D E6300 to the Q6600 it was a huge improvement.


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## linkin (Aug 9, 2010)

Windows boost up faster, especially after a reformat. I'm just going about installing software. that will probably occupy my entire night


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## ScOuT (Aug 9, 2010)

Nice man...looks like you built a great machine. Keep the pics coming


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## Buzz1927 (Aug 9, 2010)

So the mobo works fine? Should have bought it myself!


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## linkin (Aug 9, 2010)

Yeah it works fine. Don't know what the seller was on about, but he is 14 and his name is cody, that may have something to do with it 

That reminds I need to leave feedback.

I HATE how vista/7 by default deny you ownership of every single damn folder and file in windows. I'm fixing that right now, and then there's updates...

Maybe I'll get benchmarks tomorrow


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## bomberboysk (Aug 9, 2010)

linkin said:


> Yeah it works fine. Don't know what the seller was on about, but he is 14 and his name is cody, that may have something to do with it
> 
> That reminds I need to leave feedback.
> 
> ...


You mean UAC? I have that disabled on all my personal machines


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## linkin (Aug 9, 2010)

Not UAC, but by default the admin account you create during install doesn't "own" any folders and you have to go and take ownership of them to be able to edit them and have full control etc.

UAC can go DIAF as well.

Just going through my second lot of windows updates, also installing my steam games again (used a network drive, no need for DVD's or downloading )

I think I'll just run SuperPi and Vantage tonight.


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## Shifty_Pete (Aug 9, 2010)

Oh isn't this great...Linkin is my brother and i will never hear the end of how much better his system is than mine...

At least i have a 22" widescreen!

BEAT THAT BIATCH

Oh, and this so called "network drive" is actually my computer..he put 10gb of crap on my games drive


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## linkin (Aug 9, 2010)

I never even once told you how much better mine is than yours, not yet anyway


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## Shifty_Pete (Aug 9, 2010)

linkin said:


> i never even once told you how much better mine is than yours, not yet anyway :d



pffft


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## linkin (Aug 9, 2010)

Get out of my thread


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## bomberboysk (Aug 9, 2010)

linkin said:


> Not UAC, but by default the admin account you create during install doesn't "own" any folders and you have to go and take ownership of them to be able to edit them and have full control etc.
> 
> UAC can go DIAF as well.
> 
> ...



Oh yeah, that is a pain as well. I don't have that issue on my machine though, probably because im running enterprise from technet.


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## 87dtna (Aug 9, 2010)

Shifty_Pete said:


> Oh isn't this great...Linkin is my brother and i will never hear the end of how much better his system is than mine...
> 
> At least i have a 22" widescreen!
> 
> ...



LOL.  Whats your setup?


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## linkin (Aug 9, 2010)

His setup is:

C2D E4500 2.2Ghz
2.5Gb generic DDR2 667mhz RAM
some random Acer motherboard
Sapphire 5770 1gb
Mix of sata/ide hard drives
SHAW "860w" psu

Yeah. Maybe my computer IS that much better than his


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## 87dtna (Aug 9, 2010)

Your E6300 setup was way better than that too


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## bomberboysk (Aug 9, 2010)

Your power supply is also a hell of alot better as well.


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## linkin (Aug 9, 2010)

Yeah i should know, I was running that ungodly inefficient SHAW at one stage. Even though my current one is a HEC rebrand


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## linkin (Aug 9, 2010)

okay i decided to run geekbench:

http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/276689

Next up is SuperPi followed by vantage


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## bomberboysk (Aug 9, 2010)

linkin said:


> Yeah i should know, I was running that ungodly inefficient SHAW at one stage. Even though my current one is a HEC rebrand


Was my sarcasm not well noted? Thermaltake doesnt even market the 600W litepower these days, here in the states anyhow.


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## linkin (Aug 9, 2010)

Anywaay, vantage & superpi, bone stock clocks:

http://service.futuremark.com/resultAnalyzer.action?resultId=2404044&resultType=19


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## Shane (Aug 9, 2010)

What was your old scores mate?

Get than Cpu overclocked!!!!


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## Shifty_Pete (Aug 9, 2010)

87dtna said:


> LOL.  Whats your setup?



Me..?
Power supply: Some crappy SHAW that linkin screwed up
Mobo: Acer f671cr
Cpu: Intel core 2 duo CPU E4500 2.20ghz 2.20ghz
Ram: 2.5gb ddr2
gfx: ATi Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 PCI-E
Hdd: SATA 80gb and IDE 150gb
Monitor: ASUS VW222U 22" Widescreen
Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit
Multi card reader
Logitech DVD burner

New to comp forums... i think thats it

Better put this crap in my sig lol


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## fastdude (Aug 9, 2010)

Shifty_Pete said:


> Better put this crap in my sig lol



Nah, I think "k thx bai" will suffice when your system is inferior to your bro's


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## Mez (Aug 9, 2010)

You guys should be lucky you have a good computer  I have yet to order mine!


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## 87dtna (Aug 9, 2010)

Shifty_Pete said:


> Me..?
> Power supply: Some crappy SHAW that linkin screwed up
> Mobo: Acer f671cr
> Cpu: Intel core 2 duo CPU E4500 2.20ghz 2.20ghz
> ...



Welcome to CF.

2.5gb ram?  Is that a 2gb stick and a 512mb?  Interesting...


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## linkin (Aug 15, 2010)

Hey guys! More stuff! check my second post on the first page.


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## joh06937 (Aug 15, 2010)

looking good thus far :good: what are you doing with your 4850?


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## linkin (Aug 15, 2010)

Well i might test that it works, but I'm planning on selling it. Can't use it for crossfire either, unless I had another one.


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## lubo4444 (Aug 16, 2010)

Nice build!!!


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## linkin (Aug 16, 2010)

It is  I'm really happy with it.


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## linkin (Aug 22, 2010)

87dtna said:


> Nah, sell it and buy a gtx460 1gb



I did


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## 87dtna (Aug 22, 2010)

Good choice :thumb:

Now overclock that Athlon II to the max and get some good 3dmark06 scores to post up :good:


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## linkin (Aug 22, 2010)

But, i like my overclock how it is, i don't have to fiddle with the memory settings, it's at 1600mhz where i like it


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## 87dtna (Aug 23, 2010)

What ram kit do you have?  What timings at 1600?

What bus speed and multi are you running now on the CPU for 3.5ghz?  250x14?


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