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Hello, I am building a PC for my 14 year old and have the choice of 3 processors. He mainly plays MMOG's like Runescape and others like Mechwarrior and Battlefield three(which I know puts heavy demands on video). Which should I get: An AMD Phenom II X4 960T Zosma 3.0GHz Quad-Core OR The 965 Black edition OR Finally The AMD A8-3870K Unlocked Llano 3.0GHzQuad-Core APU (CPU + GPU) w/ AMD Radeon HD 6550D

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smaerospace said:
Hello, I am building a PC for my 14 year old and have the choice of 3 processors. He mainly plays MMOG's like Runescape and others like Mechwarrior and Battlefield three(which I know puts heavy demands on video). Which should I get: An AMD Phenom II X4 960T Zosma 3.0GHz Quad-Core OR The 965 Black edition OR Finally The AMD A8-3870K Unlocked Llano 3.0GHzQuad-Core APU (CPU + GPU) w/ AMD Radeon HD 6550D


OOOPS~ newbie - I put this in the wrong category :??: 

A8 3870 is not going to run BF3 on the integrated video, and if you decide to crossfire it with a 6570/6670 your still going to be below a 6770 performance wise.

Are there any plans to overclock? If your leaving stock speeds go ahead and grab the 965 as it's clocked higher than a 960T, if you want to overclock and attempt to unlock cores go for the 960T. The 960T is a Thuban die with 2 cores disabled, you may be able to unlock to a Phenom II X6, and it has a better memory controller than the Deneb die(what most Phenom II X4 processors including 965 use).
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I just picked up a 960T from microcenter for $99.99. Mine unlocked to 6 cores rock solid stable. Granted this is not something that can be 100% counted on but the unlock rate on 960's is over 65% so you got some pretty decent odds of snagging a 6 core for 100 bucks. Even if you aren't able to unlock it a 960 has more than enough for any of the titles listed. Like loneninja said, it's all in what you plan to do with the CPU.

amuffin said:
This is the correct section LOL Anyways, what is the entire budget for the system and all of the parts?


Hi and thanks for your reply. Well its kinda of a re-build or massive upgrade to his current PC I built years ago. I'll only be re-using the case and its new 450w PS. Plus I already have purchased a 120GB Sata3 Solid State HDD. Don't want any bottlenecks. So my remaining budget is about $300.

smaerospace said:
Hi and thanks for your reply. Well its kinda of a re-build or massive upgrade to his current PC I built years ago. I'll only be re-using the case and its new 450w PS. Plus I already have purchased a 120GB Sata3 Solid State HDD. Don't want any bottlenecks. So my remaining budget is about $300.


So you have $300 for CPU/Motherboard/RAM and Video Card?

loneninja said:
So you have $300 for CPU/Motherboard/RAM and Video Card?


Well, knowing how I am as a Dad, if I have to cough up more I probably will find it somewhere but yeah $300 is why I was considering the A8-3870K. I read that it would indeed play BF3 with just the onboard graphics, all settings on high at about 60fps

cmi86 said:
I just picked up a 960T from microcenter for $99.99. Mine unlocked to 6 cores rock solid stable. Granted this is not something that can be 100% counted on but the unlock rate on 960's is over 65% so you got some pretty decent odds of snagging a 6 core for 100 bucks. Even if you aren't able to unlock it a 960 has more than enough for any of the titles listed. Like loneninja said, it's all in what you plan to do with the CPU.


Wow, what a buy, Thanks!!! That's the kind of deals it's going to take to do this for the remaining funds I have. I shall go check them out. Are you using yours with your AsRock 970 Extreme 3 MB or if not what MB did you unlock the cores with?

amuffin said:
Actually it doesn't^^ How about an i5-2500k, asrock z68 extreme 3 gen 3, and 8gb of ddr3 ram.


And the i5's HD3000 graphics will play BF3??? And I can get all that for $300?

What's the minimum stand alone card to play BF3 decently (I know what the game says but those cards alone would take my entire budget).

You can pick up cheap GPU's on ebay and get much better value. Check out GTX 280, 4870x2 and even sometimes gtx470's etc. all for really cheap compared to modern equivalents.

I run a 4870x2 Goes Like Hell Edition and it cranks out frames much better than what I would have bought for the £65 ($100 US) i paid for it...

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smaerospace said:
Wow, what a buy, Thanks!!! That's the kind of deals it's going to take to do this for the remaining funds I have. I shall go check them out. Are you using yours with your AsRock 970 Extreme 3 MB or if not what MB did you unlock the cores with?


Don't mind that muffin guy. He comes into every thread someone is considering an AMD build and tells them to buy a $225 i5 2500K. Go look at benchmarking scores between the Phenom II 1100T (comparable to the unlocked 960T) and a 2500K for the most part they are in the ballpark of eachother on everything and the 960T costs $125 less. Yes I love the 970 Extreme3 2X PCI-E 16X, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0 GB/PS and AM3+, cant beat it for $100 ! The core unlocking was a little odd at first as once I had everything set I was good until I did a cold start of the machine, sometimes it would boot with 4X cores and my OC, sometimes not at all. I pulled the power and cmos battery for 24 hours went back into the advanced options and manually set ACC to "on" as opposed to pressing "X" during boot up and so far everything works great !
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