New system specs ok?

Ok..my poor laptop, despite being moderately poised for supposed greatness in SL, has finally driven me back to a desktop for SL.

I'm still awaiting my new motherboard but I wanted to see if the combination of hardware/software I'm using is going to create headaches.

2 EVGA GeForce GTX 275 video cards with 1792MB DDR3 on each

1 MSI NF980-G65 AM3 Nvidia nForce 980a SLI HDMI ATX AMD motherboard

1 AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Processor

4 GB DDR3 1333 SDRAM

3 320 GB 7200 rpm SATA hard drives in a Raid 5 configuration

1200 W power supply

Microsoft 7 Premium 64 bit

Does anyone have experience with this setup and, if so, how did it perform in SL? Oh and I'm not very geeky so layman's terms please...my roommate is the one who spec'd all this out for me to buy.

Why are you getting only 4 gigs of ram if you are going to run windows 7x64. I have 8 gigs of ram and with Second Life, Firefox (1 window) Gimp, and Notepad open I am using 3,410 megs of ram, so 4 gigs would not do the job if you are doing much of anything else while in SL.

Also, isn't that AMD processor the end of its line and not even as fast as slower Intel Quad Cores?

In June i upgraded my machine to a quad and after doing all the research and checking all the CPU charts, the AMD Phenom I/II was not in the same category as the Intel Q95xx or the Intel i7 9xx CPUs.

I am not a super computer techie girl but i would not go with the AMD, especially if you are building this specifically for SL and speed. But there are a few people here who will swear by AMD because of the performance/price ratio.

Either way, you will have a fast machine more than adequate for SL.

Oh, you forgot to include your electrical power station to run that power supply.

Have fun!

It will run SL quite well.

The 4 gigs of ram seemed sufficient considering the graphics cards have 1762 megs of memory on each. I only run 4 gigs in my laptop and don't even use half that with SL, Firefox, Y! messenger and anything else I need at the same time. The laptop has Vista 64 bit. I dunno..will Windows 7 create an additional drag that Vista didn't have?

As for the AMD processor, I'm not really sure, I've always used Intel previous to this but the AMD had great reviews for it's speed. *shrug* I didn't put the full name of the processor..it's an "AMD Phenom II x 4 945 Deneb 3 gig socket AM3 95W quad core"..not sure if that makes any difference. I know that the intels are supposedly better than the AMD Phenom for overclocking but I'll never be that techie. I will probably always second guess that decision just because it's my first AMD.

Price was a factor during this...I had already gone over my self imposed spending limit so I did have to make some concessions.

Thanks for the reply

That's a pretty crazy setup. You can't utilize that with SL. But I agree with Briana, if you go for that high end you should plug in at least 8GB .

I don't have Windows 7 and haven't tried it, However, I have read quite a lot about the operating system (which is my normal behavior when a new OS comes out). The long and short of it, as I understand, is that Windows 7 is nothing more than "Vista Fixed". My experience with Vista has been good after I turned off all the Aero stuff that eats the resources like candy.........which I believe was (is) Vista's main "problem". Vista is pretty much a memory hog if you leave all those bells and whistles on. From what I have read Windows 7 does not have such a problem with memory........it's more efficient so it's faster than Vista right out of the box. That's a plus. It also has more and better security features.........another plus. It requires just about the same computer hardware as Vista which is good.....Vista required a healthy computer upgrade over XP to run well (but most of that was due to the Aero stuff). Driver support is generally interchangable as long as the OS platforms are the same (Vista 32 to Win 7 32, Vista 64 to Win 7 64). However, that doesn't seem to be the same case if someone is upgrading from XP directly to Windows 7............but that is probably the same people who would have a few problems going from XP to Vista. Basically, everything I've read says that if your machine can run Vista you can run Windows 7..........and your Windows 7 will run better on that machine. Windows 7 is here to stay.

The AMD vs Intel. I'm an Intel person. But that's really just a preferrence based on personal experience, how I view the company, even how the word is spelled. Like the Ford vs Chevy thing here in the US.........just what I prefer (without regard to any hard "facts" to base my preferrence on). I'm sure your AMD will be fine for SL (and any program you might happen to run). The speed is more than enough for any commercially available software program on the market today. It will also handle several programs at the same time if you are one to multitask. Those claims of running a web browser, word processor, email, instant messenger, Yoville, twitter, and SL at the same time are misleading.........almost any modern computer that can run SL can do the same thing. Now, if you want to run Photoshop, GIMP, Maya, Blender, some CAD program, and do a system backup at the same time as you run SL you'll need some real horsepower in that chip.........but doing simple web browsing, IMing on YaHoo, and checking your email with SL running that CPU will do it with power to spare. My main reason for Intel over AMD is the heat issue that I've heard is no longer an issue at all........AMD fixed it. I also believe AMD to be a little optimistic on their advertised speed (those speeds are the overclocked speeds not the out of the box speed....but I hear Intel might be doing the same thing too). All things considered and price being a factor your choice of CPU is excellent.

Memory. Memory is cheap and likely to remain so for quite some time so 4 gigs should do you fine.......you can upgrade that anytime if you find you need more. But, you can never have too much memory.......even if your system doesn/t use it all. It's there and available anytime it's needed. That being said, I need to say that if you want the option of more memory you MUST know how much memory your motherboard supports.......if 4 gigs is max (which it could very well be) then I'd hesitate getting that computer. You really need a computer motherboard that will support at least 8 gigs. Any less it's likely that computer has a built in obsolescence of about 2 years............I wouldn't lock myself in like that personally.

Those are my thoughts.

Ok..yeah I left all the specs up to someone who knows a lot more about building systems and performance than I do. To ease my own paranoia I went back and checked and the motherboard supports up to 16 gigs of RAM so I'm good for awhile. Thanks for bringing that up, I hadn't even asked her about that. Fortunately she seems to have already taken it into consideration.

Right now, I would go for a core i7 system with 6 GB RAM and a single Nvidia card if Second life is your highest demand.

A single GTX 275 will max out SL, and will have no problems with Blue Mars or any other 3D environment available. You can always add a second later, but right now SL is not optimized for dual GPUs, and a 260 will easily run with all effects. A 275 will give enough overhead that you won't run into a GPU bottleneck until after the next generation Nvidia cards are available.

The i7 is a better investment than a second video card. It will deliver 4 physical cores+hyperthreading (total of 8 virtual cores) for unmatched multitasking, and they are easy to overclock, although neither the Phenom II or the i7 will have any trouble running SL. Memory on i7 systems is triple channel, so 3x6GB is a good value, and will provide plenty of memory for SL and multitasking.

RAID 5 will not give much performance boost, but it will provide seemless operation in case of a single drive failure. I would not consider it as secure as doing regular back-ups, as a virus will still be able to bring down your OS, and then you have the task of trying to rebuild a RAID array in order to recover your data. I have only used RAID 5 in a server environment that must be running 24/7 (and only for data, not for the OS). RAID 0 will give a better performance boost, while regular backups are a better safety than running a redundant array as your OS drive. 2x320 GB in RAID 0 will give you the same usable space as 3x320 GB in RAID 5. For speed, I would recommend getting an SSD for the OS (I have Windows 7 on a 64 GB along with Office and a number of other apps with plenty of room to spare) and a larger HDD for media storage.

Just to be confusing, the new Core i7-860 and 870 use dual channel memory.

And just be real super confusing what does an i7 (or any other Intel or even AMD) series CPU have to do with the topic of this thread? We are not building a dream system for the OP........he/she has a friend who put together a pretty damned good system for him/her at a budget he/she can handle. The OP asked if that system would run SL. It will.........in spades, in fact.

It's not a system I would put together but I wasn't asked to do that. Neither was anyone else here. It's a strong computer and should serve the OP well for a few years. Appears to be very upgradeable and powerful enough to handle most anything even an above average gamer could toss at it.

To the OP: are you in any way offended by the responses in this thread?

The machine would be more upgradeable if they purchased an intel equivalently priced CPU because from what i read on the Phenom II - that is the end of the road and there will be no upgrading for the CPU.

So this system is only expandable in RAM and whatever video card innovations the motherboard can handle.

If i were a building a system, i would build the most affordable, expandable system that i could which would for sure allow for future CPU and RAM upgrades. Not the best performing for my dollar which leaves me no future path to upgrading the CPU short of replacing everything.