Hi all,
I'm not necessarily looking for advice, just thought I'd vent and share my frustration. Might be helpful to somebody out there. All comments are welcome.
I want it all, but I guess I can't have everything.
I always try to build myself a BUDGET system that uses good quality parts, but not necessarily cutting edge... my systems tend to last for a LONG time. Upgrading CPU or Graphic Card is irrelevant for me because by the time I'm ready to upgrade it's really time to build a new system anyway.
(For example, I have no intention of looking at 4K resolutions for several years to come.)
My system needs to be multi-purpose...
- Small form factor, uATX or smaller
- Photoshop, Video Editing, and Music Production (all small projects)
- some gaming at 1080p, though not necessarily max settings.
- Blu-Ray player w/ 7.1 audio
- Dual HDMI, one into my desktop monitor, one into my A/V receiver to my big HDTV
I want all this, and keep it down near $600. Possible? It should be!!
I built a system with these features about 4 years ago and it's still working fine. However, the latest games have caught up to me, I wan't more CPU cores, and I want faster I/O.
So SSD, USB3, SATA 3 (6GB/s), and 16GB DDR3 are essential.
I did a LOT of research. I selected my "bare bones" system w/ Case, PSU, RAM, GPU, SSD, and HDD.
All that's left is MoBo and CPU. And THERE's the frustration.
I'm rejecting the APU solutions... single core speeds not fast enough, not enough cores, graphics still not good enough, and too expensive for what you get.
The sweet spot for me is the FX-6300 and a decent graphics card. I've looked at dozens and dozens of build options, and I keep coming back to that. FX-6300 is still the work horse in the $120 range.
Tom's 3Q 2013 build uses this option for their $600(ish) build. But it's always paired up with a full sized ATX mother board.
I figured it would be simple... just power search NewEgg for AM3+, 970, uATX. OK... not so simple !!
The 970 chipset simply doesn't exist in uATX.
So it's 760G chipset or nothing.
AM3+ on a uATX w/ USB3 leaves me with 3 choices.
Add the SATA3 (6Gb/s) and we're down to one MSI Mobo with some bad reviews.
I got choices up the wazoo for the F2/F2+ sockets.
I got loads of options for full size ATX.
I could drop an additional $80-$90 for an Intel i5-5470 (i5-4430 is slower than FX-6300) and still end up with two fewer cores. (I'd rather put that $80 towards the 16GB of memory.
Why are the manufacturer's hating on the AM3+ line??? Where's Gigabyte and Asus when I need them ?!?
Sooo frustrating !!
I'm not necessarily looking for advice, just thought I'd vent and share my frustration. Might be helpful to somebody out there. All comments are welcome.
I want it all, but I guess I can't have everything.
I always try to build myself a BUDGET system that uses good quality parts, but not necessarily cutting edge... my systems tend to last for a LONG time. Upgrading CPU or Graphic Card is irrelevant for me because by the time I'm ready to upgrade it's really time to build a new system anyway.
(For example, I have no intention of looking at 4K resolutions for several years to come.)
My system needs to be multi-purpose...
- Small form factor, uATX or smaller
- Photoshop, Video Editing, and Music Production (all small projects)
- some gaming at 1080p, though not necessarily max settings.
- Blu-Ray player w/ 7.1 audio
- Dual HDMI, one into my desktop monitor, one into my A/V receiver to my big HDTV
I want all this, and keep it down near $600. Possible? It should be!!
I built a system with these features about 4 years ago and it's still working fine. However, the latest games have caught up to me, I wan't more CPU cores, and I want faster I/O.
So SSD, USB3, SATA 3 (6GB/s), and 16GB DDR3 are essential.
I did a LOT of research. I selected my "bare bones" system w/ Case, PSU, RAM, GPU, SSD, and HDD.
All that's left is MoBo and CPU. And THERE's the frustration.
I'm rejecting the APU solutions... single core speeds not fast enough, not enough cores, graphics still not good enough, and too expensive for what you get.
The sweet spot for me is the FX-6300 and a decent graphics card. I've looked at dozens and dozens of build options, and I keep coming back to that. FX-6300 is still the work horse in the $120 range.
Tom's 3Q 2013 build uses this option for their $600(ish) build. But it's always paired up with a full sized ATX mother board.
I figured it would be simple... just power search NewEgg for AM3+, 970, uATX. OK... not so simple !!
The 970 chipset simply doesn't exist in uATX.
So it's 760G chipset or nothing.
AM3+ on a uATX w/ USB3 leaves me with 3 choices.
Add the SATA3 (6Gb/s) and we're down to one MSI Mobo with some bad reviews.
I got choices up the wazoo for the F2/F2+ sockets.
I got loads of options for full size ATX.
I could drop an additional $80-$90 for an Intel i5-5470 (i5-4430 is slower than FX-6300) and still end up with two fewer cores. (I'd rather put that $80 towards the 16GB of memory.
Why are the manufacturer's hating on the AM3+ line??? Where's Gigabyte and Asus when I need them ?!?
Sooo frustrating !!
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