Advice and opinions needed on these components for my build

Grover Baxley · Dec 4, 2013

Hi everyone! New to forums here, probably will be frequenting a lot more coming up soon as I am going to build my first system around Christmas. Basically my parents already got me a few of the parts i'll need (case and processor), I'm buying everything else I'll need with my two paychecks this month. I just want everyone's opinions on the parts I have selected, especially any incompatibility or performance issues.

What I already have:
-AMD FX-4300 Vishera 3.8GHz (4.0GHz) Socket AM3+ 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
-AeroCool PGS B Series ATX Mid Tower Devil Red Gaming Case

What I have selected on newegg:
-GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
-Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
-Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL 600W ATX12V v2.01 SLI Ready Power Supply
-G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C9D-16GXM
-XFX Core Edition FX-787A-CNFC Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support

Total: 544$
Budget: 600$-650$

Also would like to know the type of performance I can expect from this build. If anyone could give me a good reference (like Skyrim on highest graphical settings) that would be great. Much thanks in advance!

Sangeet Khatri · Dec 4, 2013

I improved it a little bit :

--> There is no need of 16GB RAM for gaming. 8GB is plenty.
--> 280x is a lot better than the 7870 Ghz Edition. Yes, there is a little bit bottleneck. But in GPU bound games, it would perform way better than 7870. BF4 is quite a GPU bound game.

--> Corsair CX 600 is a better PSU. Also it is semi modular. Hence cable management would be neater.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($104.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Asus Radeon R9 280X 3GB Video Card ($316.13 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ Microcenter)
Total: $586.09
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-04 11:24 EST-0500)

This build would perform better than the previous one. I hope this helps.

Anyways whenever you have the extra money, consider upgrading the CPU to an 8320. It is a very good CPU for about $150. Fx 4300 is a weak CPU.

Also if you overclock, then get the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO and consider overclocking to remove as much bottleneck as possible. It would improve performance a lot.

I hope this helps.

Grover Baxley · Dec 4, 2013

Sangeet Khatri :

I improved it a little bit :

--> There is no need of 16GB RAM for gaming. 8GB is plenty.
--> 280x is a lot better than the 7870 Ghz Edition. Yes, there is a little bit bottleneck. But in GPU bound games, it would perform way better than 7870. BF4 is quite a GPU bound game.

--> Corsair CX 600 is a better PSU. Also it is semi modular. Hence cable management would be neater.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($104.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Asus Radeon R9 280X 3GB Video Card ($316.13 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ Microcenter)
Total: $586.09
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-04 11:24 EST-0500)

This build would perform better than the previous one. I hope this helps.

Anyways whenever you have the extra money, consider upgrading the CPU to an 8320. It is a very good CPU for about $150. Fx 4300 is a weak CPU.

Also if you overclock, then get the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO and consider overclocking to remove as much bottleneck as possible. It would improve performance a lot.

I hope this helps.

Sounds great, but is that really true about RAM? Why is that? I always assumed the more the better.

Sangeet Khatri · Dec 4, 2013

No, it mattered in the past when things were quite different. Like some ten years ago when RAM was very expensive and not easy to buy. Then you could store a lot less things on the RAM.

But as for now, 4GB is enough for any home PC. 8GB is enough for a gaming PC and 16GB is enough for pretty much anything.

But for gaming, there is no reason to buy more than 8GB RAM. So, get 8GB RAM. It is plenty for a gaming PC.

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Advice and opinions needed on these components for my build

Grover Baxley

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Sangeet Khatri

Sangeet Khatri

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Grover Baxley

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Sangeet Khatri

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