Time for a new PC.

Enter your questions, tips and tricks about software, hardware, electronics, etc. Help and be helped.
User avatar
Travis
Registered User
Registered User
Posts: 563
Joined: December 8th, 2012, 5:20 pm
Location: Commonwealth of Australia
Contact:

Time for a new PC.

Post by Travis »

Been looking around for a few months now, decided I'll build one myself as it'll save me a good few hundred dollars. As I don't game enough to warrant paying $1000AU+, I've found a build that should be able to run most games on quite high settings.

Image

Ideally, I'd prefer to buy from Centrecom as I can pick the parts up and not worry about shipping costs. If anyone can improve the build a bit or cheapen it up, I'd appreciate it. I've dropped the price down to a maximum of $650AU for parts alone as there will be a few other things I'd need to purchase (monitor, keyboard, etc).

Cheers,

Travis
User avatar
Apple
ASH Ally
ASH Ally
Posts: 3
Joined: June 6th, 2013, 3:15 am
Contact:

Re: Time for a new PC.

Post by Apple »

Any SSD's available? I would recommend them if there are. They are a bit pricey, totally worth it.
Image
Image
APPLEZ
User avatar
Travis
Registered User
Registered User
Posts: 563
Joined: December 8th, 2012, 5:20 pm
Location: Commonwealth of Australia
Contact:

Re: Time for a new PC.

Post by Travis »

Thanks to «CE»Fuyuri, he's shown me quite a decent Intel build that can easily surpass the AMD one above, bar you, it is significantly more expensive. Though, I think I'd regret not paying the few extra dollars for a build like this:

Image
«DG»Suika
Registered User
Registered User
Posts: 62
Joined: May 8th, 2013, 11:34 pm
Contact:

Re: Time for a new PC.

Post by «DG»Suika »

Apple wrote:Any SSD's available? I would recommend them if there are. They are a bit pricey, totally worth it.
Out of the question unless he decides to upgrade in the future or drop the hard drive. Personally, I'd rather have a 1TB hard drive than 120GB SSD.

------------------

I don't understand why you'd go with the 4430 if the FX-8350 is 20% more powerful and the same price. I really just think Fuyuri fanboys Intel. I mean no offense, but AMD's FX line is superior for gaming now with developers beginning to take use of the octa core processors in the new generation of consoles. The FX-8350 might have a higher TDP, but who cares? Your power bill might only rise $10 over the year with the 8350. If you game. Three hours a day. Every day for the entire year.

Essentially power usage is insignificant between the FX and i5 series, don't accept that argument when the FX is actually stronger.

My recommendation -

FX-8350 | 20% stronger
XFX Radeon HD | Same Card
Gigabyte GA-970A-D3| Cheaper Motherboard
Cooler Master Elite 334U | No fans, no PSU. Ultimately more expensive, but safer.
Fractal 120mm Fan (2x) | Buy two, good and quiet cooling.
Thermaltake 500w PSU | I don't know if it's even compatible. Fortunately the 7870 needs a low amperage.

Take the other parts Fuyuri recommended.

This website is so sketchy that it hurts. I don't know what PSU I'm looking at and no case comes with a fan (if it does, only one). You might as well buy a PC, shoot it with a 12 guage, and hope you miss.
Image
Get busy living.
User avatar
«CE»Fuyuri
ASH Ally
ASH Ally
Posts: 50
Joined: October 10th, 2012, 2:46 am
Contact:

Re: Time for a new PC.

Post by «CE»Fuyuri »

Suika! wrote:
Apple wrote:Any SSD's available? I would recommend them if there are. They are a bit pricey, totally worth it.
Out of the question unless he decides to upgrade in the future or drop the hard drive. Personally, I'd rather have a 1TB hard drive than 120GB SSD.

------------------

I don't understand why you'd go with the 4430 if the FX-8350 is 20% more powerful and the same price. I really just think Fuyuri fanboys Intel. I mean no offense, but AMD's FX line is superior for gaming now with developers beginning to take use of the octa core processors in the new generation of consoles. The FX-8350 might have a higher TDP, but who cares? Your power bill might only rise $10 over the year with the 8350. If you game. Three hours a day. Every day for the entire year.

Essentially power usage is insignificant between the FX and i5 series, don't accept that argument when the FX is actually stronger.

My recommendation -

FX-8350 | 20% stronger
XFX Radeon HD | Same Card
Gigabyte GA-970A-D3| Cheaper Motherboard
Cooler Master Elite 334U | No fans, no PSU. Ultimately more expensive, but safer.
Fractal 120mm Fan (2x) | Buy two, good and quiet cooling.
Thermaltake 500w PSU | I don't know if it's even compatible. Fortunately the 7870 needs a low amperage.

Take the other parts Fuyuri recommended.

This website is so sketchy that it hurts. I don't know what PSU I'm looking at and no case comes with a fan (if it does, only one). You might as well buy a PC, shoot it with a 12 guage, and hope you miss.
It's not fanboying, it's a fact. AMD may have the lead in graphics, sure. Intel has integrated GPUs, but it's not their focus. Intel is far superior when it comes to pure processing, gaming and otherwise. As I've said on multiple occasions, AMD promise a lot, but give so little. They've barely improved since Phenom. If you're wanting to skimp out of a couple of hundred sure, be my guest, but you'll feel the difference.
Image
«DG»Suika
Registered User
Registered User
Posts: 62
Joined: May 8th, 2013, 11:34 pm
Contact:

Re: Time for a new PC.

Post by «DG»Suika »

I'm curious to know if you're just dodging the 20% more powerful part or not.

Intel Core i7-3770K - 132.2%
AMD FX-8350 - 120.1%
Intel Core i5-4430 - 100.0%

Just noting, but this score is from a list of top scoring processors with multithreading enabled. The FX was below almost all i7 CPUs starting from the i7-2600 and up, but above every i5 available.

I'll be completely fair though and show single threaded performance scores.

Core i7-3770K - 115.2%
Intel Core i5-4430 - 100.0%
AMD FX-8350 - 77.4%

The FX-8350 obviously falls behind, but that's expected to be honest.

Realistically though,the FX-8350 is still likely to be the better gaming CPU, because as I mentioned on the DG forums, the PS4 and Xbox One will use an eight core x86 AMD CPU. Guess what? The FX-8350 is an eight core x86 AMD CPU, so games are almost guaranteed to favor the FX.

Intel is better otherwise, I'm not going to deny it, because I'd fucking love to have something like an i7-3930k, but the FX holds its fair advantage against Intel's line of processors, just not in the same places.

Desktop experience is also difference because Windows doesn't exactly like AMD. For example, it'll dump cache when it's not supposed to, and things like that. You can contact Microsoft and they'll send you a hotfix, but they aren't including it in their Windows patches for whatever reason. Hell if I know why to be honest.
Image
Get busy living.
User avatar
«CE»Fuyuri
ASH Ally
ASH Ally
Posts: 50
Joined: October 10th, 2012, 2:46 am
Contact:

Re: Time for a new PC.

Post by «CE»Fuyuri »

Suika! wrote:I'm curious to know if you're just dodging the 20% more powerful part or not.

Intel Core i7-3770K - 132.2%
AMD FX-8350 - 120.1%
Intel Core i5-4430 - 100.0%

Just noting, but this score is from a list of top scoring processors with multithreading enabled. The FX was below almost all i7 CPUs starting from the i7-2600 and up, but above every i5 available.

I'll be completely fair though and show single threaded performance scores.

Core i7-3770K - 115.2%
Intel Core i5-4430 - 100.0%
AMD FX-8350 - 77.4%

The FX-8350 obviously falls behind, but that's expected to be honest.

Realistically though,the FX-8350 is still likely to be the better gaming CPU, because as I mentioned on the DG forums, the PS4 and Xbox One will use an eight core x86 AMD CPU. Guess what? The FX-8350 is an eight core x86 AMD CPU, so games are almost guaranteed to favor the FX.

Intel is better otherwise, I'm not going to deny it, because I'd fucking love to have something like an i7-3930k, but the FX holds its fair advantage against Intel's line of processors, just not in the same places.

Desktop experience is also difference because Windows doesn't exactly like AMD. For example, it'll dump cache when it's not supposed to, and things like that. You can contact Microsoft and they'll send you a hotfix, but they aren't including it in their Windows patches for whatever reason. Hell if I know why to be honest.
I'm not dodging it, but you are comparing 8 cores to 4. 8 very bottlenecked cores, at that. Per core performance in the lower end i5s is better than the high end AMD CPUs, go figure. Combined, the fx 8350 barely does better than the 4430, at a huge power draw. Yes, the Xbox one and the PS4 will be using an AMD processor, but you also have to consider the entire machine and OS is designed from the bottom up to be a gaming system. PCs have a lot more going on than that, and a lot more variables.

The biggest issue though here I see is future proofing, and power consumption. The fx 8350 is going to eat that up, and it's very likely it will not be stable with the GPU he's wanting.

EDIT: just realized something that was bothering me. Where did you get your 20% value from? Your answer highly affects my view on whether to take you seriously or not.
Image
User avatar
Pr@3tor
Registered User
Registered User
Posts: 435
Joined: October 29th, 2012, 5:45 am
Location: Infront of my screen.
Contact:

Re: Time for a new PC.

Post by Pr@3tor »

Does anyone know anything about hybrid HDD's? Are they worth bothering with?
Image
Pr@3tør!an RETIRED from Halo
User avatar
Pr@3tor
Registered User
Registered User
Posts: 435
Joined: October 29th, 2012, 5:45 am
Location: Infront of my screen.
Contact:

Re: Time for a new PC.

Post by Pr@3tor »

Image
Pr@3tør!an RETIRED from Halo
User avatar
Travis
Registered User
Registered User
Posts: 563
Joined: December 8th, 2012, 5:20 pm
Location: Commonwealth of Australia
Contact:

Re: Time for a new PC.

Post by Travis »

@Pr@3tor: No, sorry.

Intel Core i5 4430 ($209)
Gigabyte GA-Z87M-D3H ($143)
DRW-24D3ST - ASUS DVD DRIVER BLACK RETAIL ($16)
Thermaltake Black Commander MS-I ($88)
Western Digital WD Green 1TB, WD10EZRX WD Green, SATA III, IntelliPower, 64MB ($72)
Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz CL9 Vengeance - Cerulean Blue (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B) ($77)
Gigabyte RADEON HD 7870 OC 2GB (R787OC-2GD) Ultra Durable VGA Series ($249)
TP-Link TL-WN781ND 150Mbps Wireless PCI Express Adapter ($13)
2x Fractal Silent Series 120mm ($24)

I really quite like the above build. Opinions?
Post Reply