AMD Opteron 175 system needs upgrade - comments please!

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as530
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Posts: 175
Joined: Wed Aug 11, 2004 12:32 pm
Location: London, UK

AMD Opteron 175 system needs upgrade - comments please!

Post by as530 » Tue Nov 17, 2009 3:03 pm

Dear friends

My current system is:
Opteron 175 with Ninja plus Rev B, Asus A8N-Sli Deluxe with NB47J, 1.5gb ram, 6600GT w/ Aerocool VM101, Samsung spinpoints on sorbothane

-all in Antec SLK-3000B

My system is very quiet, but increasingly slow (especially with 20 firefox tabs open). I'm starting to need to video edit, and am managing increasingly large files in photoshop. I'd like to do a new build, but without spending too much (ideally less than GBP500). I think this rules out Core i7. Responsiveness (i.e. how many seconds it takes to load Word, or Outlook) is very important to me. I don't play games.

My current mobo refused to recognise more than 1.5gb of ram, unfortunately. I haven't tried OC-ing my Opteron, but i don't imagine that alone would help hugely. I'd have liked to wait for USB 3.0, but I can't wait that long.

My plan is for something like this:

Keep case (3000B)
buy AM3 mobo
buy Phenom II X4 965 125W (newest, lower TDP version)
buy 8GB DDR-1333 RAM
buy a cheap 32 or 64GB SSD like Kingston V series - for boot disc
buy Windows 7 Pro 64 bit
keep 6600 GT (or buy cheap VGA card eg fanless mid-range Radeon, if one exists)

Any comments on the above plan? Any obvious incompatibilities? (eg with old case, or old CPU heatsink?

Finally, my Ninja is currently fanless, as the Ninja is cooled by exhaust fan flow. Presumably this will also be possible with Phenom X4 965 with same heatsink?

Many thanks for any helpful comments / suggestions.

ThaArtist
Posts: 145
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2006 12:12 am
Location: Wisconsin

Post by ThaArtist » Thu Nov 19, 2009 2:10 pm

Check out what I built for $460 + shipping. I am thouroughly pleased too! I am doing audio, video, and image editing also. Then I placed an order for probably about $46 + SH for some quieting down stuff. Still have more to do but the biggest thing that helped was the $9 thermaltake sound dampening foam since my case is cheap and has thin steel.

viewtopic.php?t=56076

There are ways to get Windows 7 Pro x64 bit for cheap or free. I got it for free since I'm in school and my school is a part of the MSDN alliance. This would work if someone you know is in school and their school is part of the alliance also, and their not going to use their install. Obviously the serial can only be used once so if yo both use it Win7 wont allow it.

If not, until Jan 1st MS is offering $30 version of Win 7. Theres a phone number people with .edu addresses can call and place an order. They want you to download it but you can ask to have a DVD mailed and it will be the full version (from multiple sources) even though everything online says "upgrade". And as far as Ive heard the .edu email address just has to be valid because if their mailing you a DVD you dont have to verify anything in the email. If you download you need to have access to the .edu address to verify bla bla... Or atleast thats what a few people reported. You know what that means....

BTW, I love windows 7 pro x64. I got 4 gigs of ddr3 ram and 512mb of ddr3 on my video card and Im gonna order another 4 gigs soon. Everything I ordered had good reviews. I would go with a better PSU though, although the one I ordered is good and very quiet its kinda lacking with connections. But it works, and for the price it is a good deal. I also left reviews at newegg for the stuff I bought so if you see Joey the Jerk, thats me.

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