1st time gaming PC build for Tera online, need suggestions plz!

I wouldnt go AMD for Tera its a cpu dependant game you would be better off with a 3570k or a 3550p if you dont wish to overclock.

yes... but you're not gonna get an i5 for $750 with a 22" hd monitor. i think op did a bang up job with the budget. not sure if i could do better.

Thats not true hes spending 100$ on the motherboard and 122$ on the cpu which is 222$
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157362 59$ lga 1155 motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116782 I5 for 180$ so for 20$ more he can have way higher frame rates at the game hes trying to play 20$ is not worth scrimping on imo

What are you talking about :S in everygame made intel gets higher frame rates especially in cpu dependant games. I run lots of computers AMD and Intel, let alone all the benchmarks in the world show this.

If your plan was for a none cpu dependant game then i would suggest amd for your cpu but becuase you are playing a cpu dependant game that dosnt use many cores intel is the better option.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($122.22 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.98 @ Outlet PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($51.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost 1GB Video Card ($146.09 @ NCIX US)
Case: Raidmax Seiran (White) ATX Mid Tower Case ($61.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Rosewill Green 530W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($14.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Asus VE248H 24.0" Monitor ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $737.21
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-05-22 00:34 EDT-0400)

got the op slightly more for his money with a slightly better gpu/cpu cooler and a bigger monitor (saved him $20 too).. that motherboard will overclock as well as the asrock as it's a 8+2 mb with heatsinks. Overall i don't think you'll find an intel system in this class for this money.

a 650 ti boost is not better then a 7850 :S

its about the same.

the big thing is, for about the same performance he's getting it for $40 less. frankly, since the op is stating 800 is his limit... i'm tempted to boost the GPU to a 7870... like this one. it comes with 4 games too.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($122.22 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.98 @ Outlet PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($51.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB Video Card ($194.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Raidmax Seiran (White) ATX Mid Tower Case ($61.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Rosewill Green 530W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($14.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Asus VE248H 24.0" Monitor ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $786.11
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-05-22 00:41 EDT-0400)

i love the 6300... particularly if you're overclocking. I have been building pcs for a long time, and since xmas have been really building a lot of cheap gaming systems sporting the 6300. when overclocked, its basically indistinguishable in single threaded aps from a stock i5 (yeah an overclocked i5 will bench much better in single threaded stuff, but in my experience it's almost impossible to tell the two cpus apart as long as you've got a good 4.5ghz overclock on the 6300)...

in multi-threaded apps the 6300 when overclocked (around 4.5ghz) will beat down the stock i5, and pace the overclocked i5 respectfully.

here is the best way to sum it up... it's MUCH better then an i3 which is in its price range, and with a good overclock is (from an end user perspective) nearly indistinguishable from an i5-3570k. Its a great bang for the buck chip.

Understand however, in games that are basically single threaded it won't even match the i3 all that well (even when overclocked) so keep that in mind. AMD still has a way to go, but for the $$ the 6300 is a hard chip to beat.

I've also seen these chips get up to 5ghz pretty easily. unlike steamroller (which saw almost no improvement in performance past 4.7ghz overclock) piledriver chips seem to continue to improve in benching performance linearly with the increased ghz. i've seen some great data on this effect, up to 5.6ghz... (it was nearly impossible to test past that point). So if you hit the motherload with a great 6300 chip, you could see some really impressive performance from your overclock.

(overclocking piledrivers does get tricky around 4.8ghz... most should reach atleast that high on average air coolers... but at that point the quality of your cooler, and the quality of your chip starts to come into play. Assuming you've got a solid cooler and good airflow you should be able to get to 5.0ghz... of course how stable you'll be will depend on your ram, psu and motherboard... and of course the chip. Generally 4.7-4.8 should be reachable reguardless... after that all sorts of things will come into play.)

Worthy of note, none of the RAM mentioned in this thread has been low profile, so it may conflict with that CPU cooler.

But hes planning on building this for Tera which is cpu dependant and results in higher frame rates from intel processors its not multi threaded. This was the point i was making earlier. http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/437/AMD_FX-Series_FX-6300_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-3570K.html

again... i'm not comparing them at stock. i'm not arguing "stock" the fx is comparible.

overclocked however... up around 4.5ghz it will be basically indistinguishable from a stock i5 in single threaded aps (it will still be a little slower, but you could only tell with a benchmark test or stopwatch, heck, stock both chips are nearly indistinguishable to the computer user in 95% of tasks).

You're overstating the importance of single threaded performance for tera. i've pulled respectable framerates from my PhII x4 in Tera, and i can assure you the fx6300 overclocked up around 4.5ghz is a much faster chip then my phii x4 965 overclocked to 3.74ghz.

he'll be able to game just fine with it.

firo40 is right and Tera is VERY CPU dependent. Before the recent changes with Nexus and at the peak of server activity(and before optimizations) with the Nexus event,, I had a solid 10 fps, while a guildie with a 3570K and GTX680 SLI had a solid 15 fps(which was pretty damn good for both of us since everyone else had 3fps or less or would disconnect between each event).

Even pushing my overclock higher, my performance can't match the I7 core for core. My single GTX670 vs his SLI GTX680 was not a factor. Running max settings or all lowest settings didn't change the fps by more than 1-2 frames for each of us.

You will still get some pretty good frame rates regardless. For me, I had an existing AMD system and was upgrading it on a tight budget and was upgrading it piece, by piece (upgraded mobo from a biostar 970 to sabertooth, then 8800GTX to GTX670, AMD II X2 240 to FX-8350). I'm also a heavy multi-tasker. I'm quite happy with the AMD chip I'm using. Yes Intel is better core for core, but it also isn't necessarily a deal breaker imo.

I completley forgot about your hardware/budget and was focused on the cpu debate. You need to refocus your priorities on your budget. Not sure about Rosewill, but you DONT want to go cheap on your PSU. Cheap PSU means fried equipment later.

You can shave off $30 by using the stock cooler and upgrading it later. You can shave $40 off by going with a less exotic pc case and go with a cheap $20 case (do NOT go for the cases with an included PSU!)
That $70 can go toward a better PSU or CPU or Mobo. The stock cooleri s included, why not use it until you have it in your budget to upgrade the cooler.

The $20 case? If you dislike it, it is easier to dispose, give away or sell compared to if you have buyers remorse and want to sell at a loss a CPU/Mobo to upgrade that instead later.

With me, I desperately needed a pc upgrade but I couldn't just drop $1k to upgrade my system. I had a $500 budget to overhaul my pc. I thought to myself, do I want to do a $500 budget pc? No, I wouldn't be satisfied with a marginal upgrade. I've been scrimping to get $500 as is and didn't want to wait another 6 months to have a larger budget, my pc needed an overhaul badly.

So, I compromised and went best of both worlds. Plunked $500 into a video card. The video card was bottle necked and I saw little performance gains, when I had a small budget surplus, I bought a new mobo that was compatible with my current CPU. Then later when I could afford a new CPU, I bought an FX-8350. In some ways i regret not going intel, but I had an existing system with an AMD cpu. If I wanted high end intel, mobo AND video card, that was to much all at once. But piece by piece was feasible and overall I'm happy with what I have.

So think about that aspect, what do you NEED to buy NOW vs what can you buy LATER. Do you have a friend with an old pc they are disposing? Take their pc case and worry about buying a better one later. Frankly I have 3 spare old cases I dislike, don't use, but if a friend needed help with a budget pc, id throw in a spare case to them for free.

The major bottle point is either CPU, or Video Card. To a lesser extent ram.

SSD is NOT essential for gaming. Having an SSD is a luxury that allows faster boot times and faster program launches. With gaming, what an SSD helps with is loading. So if your loading a level from an FPS to loading a zone from a teleport or whatever, it will be faster. More than likely, shaving off 5-30 seconds from a load screen you wouldn't care about. Once its loaded and in memory though, its on your ram and you are no longer bound by the limits of your mechanical HDD.

For an MMO, there is some benefit for an SSD as MMO's tend to be dynamic with the world loading around you as you go. Terrain, other player and character models may load faster if they were not already loaded into memory. So if there are a lot of people around you in Tera, say Nexus, and you are in a GvG, you probably wil lsee them on your minimap as a blip, but you wont see them. First person to see the other person gets the drop on them. It could mean 1-3 seconds in load time which would mean the world for serious pvp. But no, I don't feel even that much is necessary. It's a luxury to have, and not a requirement. You can add an SSD later if budget permits. With this pc, do you have an older pc you can take down and use for spare parts?

The big 4 thinks I feel you NEED to spend money on NOW, and spend it right, is CPU, Motherboard, PSU, and Ram. These are the more frequent causes of bottlenecks.

Pick the CPU you KNOW you want. Make sure the chip is unlocked so you can explore later overclocking.

Motherboard, like the CPU, it's to expensive to replace on a whim, so pick a good mobo. I would recomend a motherboard with the 990 chipset so you have SLI/Cross fire as an option in the future. Lower models may only allow Crossfire(and no SLI) or may not have the PCI-E slots needed to do a 2nd card if you choose in the future.

Memory, a moderate investment. Ideally think of how much ram you would need at most for your system. Try to get it on two sticks. Myself, I figured I would not likely use more than 16gb. So I picked a 2x8 Stick. That leaves 2 slots free which allows in some cases better overclocking stability with the IMC. Worst case scenario, if I do need more ram in the future, I still have two slots. Still, if budget is to tight to go with larger sticks, go with smaller capacity sticks.

PSU - Your PSU goes bad, your motherboard and hard drive are the most likely to die first. Second, you want to be sure it has the capacity you might need in the future if you do plan to overclock or add more hardware.

CPU Bottle Neck? You can overclock BUT
Overclocking you would want to wait until
1) You can afford better than stock cooling
2) have spare cash in case you royally screw up any overclocking attempts.

With your concerns with an HDD will be a bottle neck, yes an no. Yes it is a bottle neck, but not a necessity. You can buy an SSD later if it is an issue. SSD isn't cost effective as storage, so you would be need a mechanical HDD anyway. Get one good enough to use for your OS/Programs/Media. Later when you can afford an SSD, reinstall the OS and programs to the SSD.