First Gaming Build: Need Final Advice On Parts

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Jon Crofts

Honorable
Aug 10, 2013
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10,510
Hey guys, i'm doing my first build. I got some advice on here a few days ago and came out with a pretty decent build for my budget, since then i've decided to increase my budget a little though and need some advice.

Budget: £600

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Motherboard: Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£101.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Corsair XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£52.98 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card (£168.96 @ Dabs)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£49.74 @ Amazon UK)
Other: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz Socket AM3+ 16MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor (£124.46)
Total: £498.13

Custom part is the CPU, for some reason it wasn't listed on PC part picker :/

If you don't mind I have a few questions about this build.

1. Case - I'm not quite sure what I need here, this one seemed ok: http://www.ebuyer.com/390898-casecom-cs-13-case-cs-13

It has cable management etc, but i'm not sure if it has a USB 3.0 Header for the motherboard. Will this case fit my needs or can anyone recommend another case?

2. Upgrades - I have enough room in my budget to spend a little extra, i'm thinking either upgrade the motherboard to a Asus SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 or upgrade the video card to a GTX 760, which would you guys say is the better choice?

3. Cooling I think I may need some kind of cooling, especially if I switch to the GTX 760. Will a heatsink suit my needs and if so can you guys recommend any? I'm pretty clueless about these kind of components and what i'd actually need, if anything.

Thanks for all the help, Jon.




 
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geofelt

geofelt

Titan
Oct 9, 2006
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To answer your questions:
1. The case looks ok to me. It says it has usb3.0 front ports. Unless you need to plug in a usb3.0 external hard drive to the front, it is a moot point. keyboards and mice do better on usb2.0 anyway.
2. Sabretooth is generally overpriced. The performance of a motherboard is dependent almost entirely on the cpu.
For gaming, GTX760 would be a much better use of budget.
3. The case has adequate cooling with a mount for two 120mm fans or a 140mm fan.
I might pick this evga GTX760 http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-video-card-02gp42762kr
It has a direct exhaust cooler which gets heat directly out the back of your case. That keeps your cpu cooler.
and... speaking of gaming cpu's, the FX-8320 is not a great pick. Few games use more than 2-3 cores, so most of the 8 cores will not be used.
Intel cores do more work per clock.
I might suggest a 3350P http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80637i53350p
And a B75 motherboard http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/asrock-motherboard-b75pro3m
Both will actually cost you less.
 
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J

Jon Crofts

Honorable
Aug 10, 2013
7
0
10,510
I forgot to mention that I intend to quite a bit of video capture and editing on the new rig, the build I have right now isn't quite up to it but I intend to get a PCIe Card that caps at 60fps at some point.

I was pretty set on the FX-8320, there were two choices though.

FX-8320 4.0ghz 8mb cache or
FX-8320 3.5ghz 16mb cache

Both were pretty much the same price point so I wasn't quite sure what to go with. If anyone can explain the differences that'd be great. The i5 geofelt linked will also be considered as it's around the same price point, I was looking at i5's originally but they seemed quite pricey.

I'm going to go ahead and grab the GTX 760 you recommended, this was the idea I was leaning towards in the first place but as it's my first build I wasn't quite sure :)

Would grabbing a few cheap 120mm fans be an ok (but temporary) solution to keeping this rig cooled?
 
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J

Jon Crofts

Honorable
Aug 10, 2013
7
0
10,510
Bump on this, I can see you guys are busy here but i'd like to get a few opinions before I order my parts.

Motherboard: Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£101.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Corsair XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£53.00 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (£204.91 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£49.86 @ Scan.co.uk)
Other: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz Socket AM3+ 16MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor (£124.46)
Total: £534.22

In this case: http://www.ebuyer.com/390898-casecom-cs-13-case-cs-13

Trying to choose between these two CPU's: http://www.ebuyer.com/409184-amd-fx-8350-4ghz-socket-am3-16mb-cache-retail-boxed-processor-fd8350frhkbox

http://www.ebuyer.com/409186-amd-fx-8320-3-5ghz-socket-am3-16mb-cache-retail-boxed-processor-fd8320frhkbox

Second one has slightly lower clockspeed but higher cache and is about £20 cheaper. I'm a bit out of the loop with components so i'm not sure what's most important, the clockspeed or cache.

Secondly, i'll have about £30 - £40 left in my budget, can you guys recommend anything I could spend that on? Whether it's new parts or upgrades to ones already listed.

Thanks, Jon.
 
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