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What I'm thinking about right now.

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March 26, 2013 7:51:56 PM

I'm planning on a new build this July. I have a budget of about $900, but less is better. I have the HDD (500GB WD Caviar Green), PSU (2 year old 600w modular SeaSonic), OS (Win7 Pro 64 bit) and case I need and/or want, so that helps. I do plan on gaming with this rig, but I'm trying to plan for a 3-4 year build with the next gen consoles in mind. If I OC, it won't be until down the road if and when it's needed.

Here's what I'm looking at right now:

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-970A-D3
CPU: AMD FX-8350
CPU Cooler: COOLER MASTER GeminII S524 120mm Long Life Sleeve CPU Cooler (case is too narrow to hold a bigger one)
GPU: SAPPHIRE 100351SR Radeon HD 7970
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB)

Current price tag at Newegg is $859.95. Comments? Anything I'm over looking?

More about : thinking

March 26, 2013 8:53:25 PM

You could easily cut back on memory - prices are rising, and 16GB is far more than necessary for gaming (which was your only stated purpose, as far as I can see). Switching to the FX-8320 could also reduce your cost without too much sacrifice; its performance is reasonable at the moment, and can overclock just as well as the 8350.

Consider getting a slightly better motherboard, especially with overclocking in the picture - something like a GA-990FXA-UD3, ASRock 990FX Extreme3, or similar (these also tend to float around as open-box deals, so look out for those).
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March 27, 2013 6:26:21 AM

mousseng said:
You could easily cut back on memory - prices are rising, and 16GB is far more than necessary for gaming (which was your only stated purpose, as far as I can see). Switching to the FX-8320 could also reduce your cost without too much sacrifice; its performance is reasonable at the moment, and can overclock just as well as the 8350.


I've always held "more memory is never a bad thing". 16gb may be overkill now, but probably not two to four years down the line.

I do other things with it, but none of them are really stressful to the system, even the Athlon II x3 I have now. I chose the 8350 over the 8320 because I wanted to get the best I could right now, thus delaying OC as long as possible. I lose some OC headroom, but I'd rather have better performance now.

mousseng said:
Consider getting a slightly better motherboard, especially with overclocking in the picture - something like a GA-990FXA-UD3, ASRock 990FX Extreme3, or similar (these also tend to float around as open-box deals, so look out for those).

You're right. I hadn't considered the 970's are not as good at OC as the 990s. I will consider that.

On another note, what would you say to downgrading the 7970 to a 7950? That would save about a $100 and kicking the MoBo to a GA-990FXA-UD3 would still leave a $50 savings. How much performance, from a long term standpoint, would I loose in the switch?
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March 27, 2013 12:24:35 PM

rad666 said:
I've always held "more memory is never a bad thing". 16gb may be overkill now, but probably not two to four years down the line. I do other things with it, but none of them are really stressful to the system, even the Athlon II x3 I have now. I chose the 8350 over the 8320 because I wanted to get the best I could right now, thus delaying OC as long as possible. I lose some OC headroom, but I'd rather have better performance now.

Maybe so, but I highly doubt your memory or processor would be a bottleneck in the coming years, especially factoring in what we know about next-generation consoles (AMD 8-core, 8GB RAM, GCN GPU). Besides, in 3 to 4 years you'd probably be better off upgrading to a DDR4 platform rather than simply adding more memory.

Quote:
You're right. I hadn't considered the 970's are not as good at OC as the 990s. I will consider that. On another note, what would you say to downgrading the 7970 to a 7950? That would save about a $100 and kicking the MoBo to a GA-990FXA-UD3 would still leave a $50 savings. How much performance, from a long term standpoint, would I loose in the switch?

You'd lose more than you'd gain - FX CPUs seem to respond really well to higher overclocks, but as I said before: I really doubt it will be what becomes the bottleneck in the future. You're more than likely going to have a better experience with a 4.5GHz 8350 + 7970 over a 5.0GHz 8350 + 7950 (though the OC difference isn't likely to be that great from your mobo alone).

I'll stand by my previous recommndation, for now - cutting back on the processor and memory. You do lose a little performance now (I doubt it'll be terribly noticeable), but in the long run you'll probably be in the same place. I can't see the future, but I'd suspect next-generation ports (from console to PC) will be much more CPU-efficient than current ones, mostly due to both platforms having the same CPU architecture (x86-64). Stress on the GPU is likely to ramp up, though, with developers having access to a helluva lot more power than they've had before.

So take it how you will - it's your money and PC, not mine. You know what you want better than I, and you've got plenty of time to do research before you commit to anything. Keep an eye on pricing, too, in case something you want goes on sale before then - I ended up getting a completely different computer than I had planned because of that.
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March 27, 2013 12:40:22 PM

mousseng said:
You'd lose more than you'd gain - FX CPUs seem to respond really well to higher overclocks, but as I said before: I really doubt it will be what becomes the bottleneck in the future. You're more than likely going to have a better experience with a 4.5GHz 8350 + 7970 over a 5.0GHz 8350 + 7950 (though the OC difference isn't likely to be that great from your mobo alone).


Point taken.

mousseng said:
I can't see the future, but I'd suspect next-generation ports (from console to PC) will be much more CPU-efficient than current ones, mostly due to both platforms having the same CPU architecture (x86-64). Stress on the GPU is likely to ramp up, though, with developers having access to a helluva lot more power than they've had before.


I agree with this. Even though the GPU stress will likely increase for your aforementioned reasons, the next-gen consoles (from the rumors I've heard) GPUs are only HD67xx/HD68xx equivalents.

mousseng said:
So take it how you will - it's your money and PC, not mine. You know what you want better than I, and you've got plenty of time to do research before you commit to anything. Keep an eye on pricing, too, in case something you want goes on sale before then - I ended up getting a completely different computer than I had planned because of that.

I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye on pricing, I do have three months before I commit to it, things can, and probably will, change.

Thanks for taking the time to answer in some detail.
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March 27, 2013 10:19:55 PM

rad666 said:
I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye on pricing, I do have three months before I commit to it, things can, and probably will, change. Thanks for taking the time to answer in some detail.

No problem. If you ever have any more questions or ideas to bounce around, don't be bashful - that's why we're here. But always take internet forum advice with a grain of salt (I'm sure you know this already). Cheers!

Edit: Forgot to mention, the PS4's GPU will be (from what I've read) close to a 7850 in raw power - how this translates to actual performance could vary pretty wildly, but I'd err on the positive side, myself (what with closed platforms having an edge with optimization).
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