Building gaming pc help

Solution
The one is the way too go: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TFtPK8
The intel CPU will give more performance during gaming.
You will also get a extra 50 watts in the power supply with it.
But, I would recommend using a SSD as the OS drive as this will dramatically speed up boots and program load times (If you place them on that drive)
Hope this helps!

Hjgrove

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Dec 8, 2013
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The one is the way too go: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TFtPK8
The intel CPU will give more performance during gaming.
You will also get a extra 50 watts in the power supply with it.
But, I would recommend using a SSD as the OS drive as this will dramatically speed up boots and program load times (If you place them on that drive)
Hope this helps!
 
Solution


Both are good, but to be honest, I am a bit partial to Intel. The 8 cores of the AMD looks good on paper, but in reality, not really needed for the the most part. Games are not even optimized for that. Quads are enough.
 
yeah... without an ssd there is almost no point going with a computer newer then a core2quad/phenomII these days.

the intel will game better... and if you were asking about that amd build by itself i'd tell you it's not built right. just wrong all over the place.
 


It's not. It's an Octacore, meaning it has 8 physical cores and not needed for most applications. Heck, for that matter neither is a Hex core. The i7 4770k I have in here has HT. It has 4 physical cores, but with HT, it has 8 Virtual cores.
 
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4570 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($189.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($89.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Team Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($50.97 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 290 4GB TurboDuo Video Card ($330.00 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case ($47.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($26.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($14.98 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 - 64-bit (OEM) (64-bit) ($99.98 @ OutletPC)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN881ND 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($18.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $934.86
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-05-31 13:07 EDT-0400)

Cheaper RAM, DVD drive, Wifi card, and PSU, a lot better GPU.
 
Granted its a little more then the intel build... but i would take it in a heatbeat over either of the origional builds.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor ($139.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright TS-120M 53.3 CFM CPU Cooler ($38.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Kingston Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.43 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 290 4GB TurboDuo Video Card ($330.00 @ Newegg)
Case: Thermaltake Versa H21 Window ATX Mid Tower Case ($42.21 @ Mwave)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($59.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS95 DVD/CD Writer ($21.74 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.99 @ NCIX US)
Wireless Network Adapter: Asus PCE-N15 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($27.99 @ Best Buy)
Total: $1035.29
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-05-31 13:16 EDT-0400)
 


WHAT ?!?!?! Core@Quad is old socket 775 tech and there is every reason in the world to move away from it and the biggest reason is performance. To move from a Core2Quad to a Haswell i5 4670 is a huge jump and will show up in the performance big time. An SSD is nice a heck of a jump in load times, but it is an enhancement and not an end all be all when it comes to performance. You upgrade the CPU / Motherboard and Graphics card, you wil be a happy camper in the results, and if, you get killed as often as I do in games, the SSD is very nice to have, as you can get back into it very quick ( so you can get killed again; very slow learner ). The AMD build is good, but the 8 core CPU is not really going to accomplish much as the games are not optimized for that.
 


Hard to say as I have not used that card. I am using the GTX 680, so I would imagine they would be good. The processor is good and shouldn't bottleneck the card.
 


tell you what. grab yourself an old p4 and a brand new i5, stick a 5400rpm hard drive into each, install windows, ms office and time it. I guarantee they take just as long as each other. Then start the two systems up and watch how they both start at the same speed, both open web browsers jst as fast as each other.

The desktop computing experience is 100% bottlenecked by your hard drive. I work in IT. I set up a lot of new systems for businesses. I work with a lot of old computers and new computers. I assure you, outside of a game where your FPS can depend on the cpu, or some giant zip archiving or some sort of 3d modeling with a CAM program, you'll never be able to tell you have a brand new i5 and not a freaking pentium4.

Its painful to work with these new systems, I have a desktop computer at home... it has a 8 core fx, and an ssd, in every respect it functions superior to these brand new haswell i5s and i7s leaving the dell factory. Not because it has a faster cpu (it doesn't), but because these i5s & i7s all are hopelessly bottlenecked by their own hard drives. This is a major irritant to me, it's almost like the industry doesn't want to sell computers anymore. You should see our clients faces when they try out their new pcs for the first time and can't tell the difference between their brand new i5 and their old p4-d. it's embarrassing.

So no... i'll never recommend someone build a brand new system without an ssd. it might add to the price a little, but they'll thank me in the long run. (and yeah, the ssd won't improve your FPs in a game, it will simply make it load faster, but i dare you to watch the load times in modern games on a hard drive then on an ssd, and tell me the SSD isn't "required")
 
I had a machine running a Pentium D 945 ( 3.4 Ghz ) with XP MCE 2005. I bought a Gateway running an i7 920 ( 2.66 Ghz ) and running Vista Home Premium 64 bit. Both HDDs were running at 7200 RPM. Admittedly, the Hdd in the XP machine with the PD was a PATA connection and the one in the other Machine was SATA II. Both start times were nearly identical as was the load times. I then added a second Hdd to the Vista / i7 920 machine and installed Windows 7 on it. It was faster and so were load times. I then upgraded to the i7 960 and that even went better. When I intially built this rig, I moved the Hdd with Windows 7 over to it ( it was a Retail Copy so no problem ). It was running an i7 2600k. Another jump in performance. In June 2012, I changed out the GTX 560Ti for a GTX 680 and yet another kick up in performance. After that I installed an SSD. It is one of the early Samsungs ( Series 830 ). Yes, there is an up kick in performance to some degree. Took the Windows thing to 7.8 out of 7.9 ( everything is 7.9 except the processor which is 7.8 ). Bench marks went up some as well, but not to a huge degree and didn't expect it to. In June '13, I upgraded to the ASUS Z87 - Pro motherboard and i7 4770k processor. I was going from a 2nd gen CPU to a 4th gen, but wasn't sure if the performance kick would jusstify the cost. I was sure there would be some, just not how much. It was huge and worth the expense.

In short, although the SSD will make a diference in performance it is not an end all be all solution for increasing performance. It helps, but as I have pointed out in that narrative, there is a lot more involved that will result in a major uptick in performance. Even memory plays a part, although I haven't paid much attention to that aspect. As I said in my post, I am fully aware of the load times with a SSD and that it is well worth including in a build. If I can squeeze one in one someones build with in their budget I will. If I can't I will recommend that they consider getting one at some point. As for the Hex core Octa Core CPU's, they are pretty much a waste. There are few applications that are optimized to take advantage of multithreading.
 
oh i don't know.

Granted most of my day to day work is intel pcs... heck i'm typing on an intel right now, while playing games on my ipad, so i'm not brand loyal at all. I do know i'd take my home computer over this intel and the only place it has the advantage is that SSD

That said when i upgraded to this fx8320 i was coming from a quad core phII clocked to 4ghz. by every metric out there, a stock fx8320 is slower then an overclocked PhIIx4 965be sitting at 4ghz. Yet the experience was instantly improved. At that moment i became a convert to the "MOAR COARZ!" brigade, slower cores, yes, but doubling the cores over that phII made an instant performance upgade... then clocking that 8 core up to 5ghz made it behave like every intel i've ever touched.. Maybe it's because i play with i5s and i7s all day long, but i'm not impressed... I might splurge this upcoming xmas on an $1000 8 core extreme edition intel (if those end up being good overclockers), but i'll never back down to 4 cores again.

there just isn't enough difference between an intel and amd right now for me to feel the "need" to back down on the core count. I don't have a 120hz monitor, i'll never see the "improved" gaming experience on an intel because my fx will hit +80fps in any game out there with this clock speed.
 


The AMD Phenom II x955 and up were very good processors in my book and I have recommended them on many occasions when someone was on a tight budget. The 965 and up really had my attention, but I know several running the 955 and enjoying the experience. If you look at benchmarks, AMD still lags behind Intel on performance, but have a leg up when it comes to multithreading. I was never a big fan of their high TDP, but looks like that has come down on the newer processors. The fx 8320 seems to be a capable processor from what I've seen, just that I don't see a need for more than 4 Cores. If an application isn't optimized for that type multithreading, it won't do you any good anyway and maybe in some cases won't even run unless you shut down a lot of cores ( I have had that happen ). I have this one clocked to 4.6 Ghz. Couldn't go any further due to thermal issues. I was going to try and push 4.8, that I have seen done on several occasions, but I didn't have the cooler for it. I used to Moderate over on the PCWorld forums until they were shut down a few weeks ago. It can get a bit testy when you get the AMD / Intel Fanboys going at it. As for that $1000 Intel Extreme Octacore, I have yet to hear much about the Extreme Hexcore that is already out there. I have run into a couple running it and at least one benchmark that was posted. Pretty impressive. My Mother passed away in Feb. And I am in the process of buying the house from the estate. I don't think $1000 processors will be in my budget. lol I do have a 1 TB SSD on my wish list and maybe a GTX 780Ti. That will be Intel's first run at an Octacore, but then again so was that Hexcore that turned out well. If nobody else does, I expect MaximumPC with build some around the 8 core extreme.