Pret-a-3D opened this issue on May 14, 2012 · 8453 posts
AbiJ posted Sun, 30 September 2012 at 6:48 AM
Hey all, having computer troubles this last week so been busy beating it up...
Shark, I have the M5A97 and FX8120 with 16Gb Corsair Vengance, it's a good system (most the time), a couple of things...
As others have said, PSU! the FX is a power hungry beast.
Mobo, I do like the M5a97 but if your planning on oc'ing at some stage, I'd perhaps look elsewhere, it's nice that a failed oc will reboot to stock so you don't have to crack the case all the time, but the voltage adjustments in the bios are a bit awkward to work with.
Since buying my Bulldozer (FX), I've read some mixed reviews on it, such as there is actually little gain over the previous chips other than a bigger electric bill - I'm not sure on that myself so I've stuck with the FX. The FX does oc well, my 8120 is stock at 3.1Ghz, on air you can run it to around 3.8-40 with good airflow (my ambient in this room is 28°c so water is pretty much a must), on water I've got mine churning away at 4.6Ghz - the 8150 will hit 5Ghz on water (so I've seen in oc'ing forums).
Memory, I've never used crucial so can't comment on quality, I do like my Corsair stuff, main thing is... you can never have enough memory!
Case, I also have a coolermaster, trying to recall the model, it's a nice looking case to be sure but the airflow is not especially fantastic, if i'd researched some more I'd have bought differently, especially true if planning on a water system, without some heavy mods I'm limited to a 120x2 rad on the top (even then only 2 mounting holes lined up) but that's a non-issue for me as I have a 120x4 rad mounted in the window (the house, not the case) to draw cool air from outside.
GPU, I'm baised towards AMD, i'm running a pair of old 6570's which are due for upgrade later this year, I'll be sticking with AMD, I've not used Nvidia in decades so can't comment on their quality.
Hope this helps,
Abi.
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