First Build, Need People to Criteque It Please (Discussion)

The A10 isn't that great of a choice if your going to start off by adding in a dedicated card. It matches the i3 or even gets beat by it (depends on the game) (A10 at 4.2 i3 at 3.3) at the same price. For me this is my rationale only grab an A10 or really any APU if you can't afford a dedicated card (or perhaps you don't need the extra performance). Don't get me wrong for a budget build the A10 is amazing price/performance wise but it goes downhill the more you spend on the build not to mention if you actually NEED more performance for something you will have to go into a different platform or wait until a new series of procs come out for the FM2 platform.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6347/amd-a10-5800k-a8-560...

If you are an AMD fanboy, alright I get that and its fine but I would probably steer you more towards an intel setup as it does perform better in most situations.


Other than that I can't really see anything. Case is personal preference. The PSU is excellent. The ram is.. well.. its ram not much to say. Though if you do grab a FX or I series proc you are obviously going to need to swap out the motherboard  

The hard drive however I am not sure about. I haven't heard to much about the inteli power drives but IIRC they are mostly used for long term storage and as such don't need to be fast. if you are considering to use that as a boot drive I would reconsider. This black drive is only 20~ dollars more (thats with shipping) has an extra 2 years of warranty and will undoubtably be faster. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Edit: I was mistaken, went back and double checked my info. All good now.

I would (like mouse24 said) change to an i3 cpu and move to an ASRock z77 Pro4 motherboard. I also prefer Corsair to GSkill memory. Good choice in gpu, but I prefer MSI or Sapphire. Great psu choice. I would also change to a WD Caviar Black hard disk as it will be much faster than the intellipower.

Why should I change to a i3 and spend more money for less GHz, though the A10 has an okay on board GPU but will the HIS IceQ X with Crossfire work with that or should i look at another CPU? I really like the A10 because it's $130 for 3.8GHz quad-core. which beats the more expensive i3, i5, and i7.

just because it has more Ghz, it doesn't mean that it's better

It doesn't even beat a dual core i3 in most games. I can clock an old single core up to 8ghz, doesn't mean it would be better than an atom dual core proc at 1.6ghz. Its all about how efficient the architecture is man. I guess to use less technical terms I would say "the i3s ghz are worth more than anything amd has at this point"

The architecture is simply better.

And no you cannot use that onboard gpu + that dedicated to crossfire them. it needs to be from the same series.

Ah, so If I werent using a discrete GPU then the A10 would be the better choice but i am not so then the i3 would because it has lower power consumption because i don't need an on board GPU. Also, is the performance of an i5 significantly better than that of an i3 and what motherboard(s) would you recommend for them?

Ah, the i3 does have an onboard GPU (its actually on chip but all of the "onboard" are actually "onchip" now-a-days) They also have derivatives of the standard i3s/i5s/i7s, they are identified by the letter at the end of the model number.
Quick and dirty run down of what the letters mean
K = unlocked multiplier. (makes overclocking possible and very easy. non K series can be overclocked to some extent but its really nothing significant)
S= low power.
T=Ultra low power.
P= no on chip video.

The i3 does not have a K derivative sadly enough. The i5 and i7s do and thats what people use to get >4ghz.

The i5s perform quite a bit better than the i3s depending on what you are doing and the games you are playing.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-rev...

For a motherboard I would recommend I would pick this one. Its extremely nice for the price and has decently cooled chipsets/vrms/etc. So if you want to grab a K series overclock it will be able to go much further than with a cheaper board. Not to mention the boards components are generally much better than say a foxconn board (which are horrid, I wouldn't recommend anything by foxcon.)

So, I went off on a bit of a tangent there but I hope that cleared up some things. Any more questions feel free to ask  

Alright, here is a revised list:

ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM

COOLER MASTER Elite 431 Plus RC-431P-KWN2 Black Steel Body (0.5mm SECC), ABS plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Or
COOLER MASTER HAF XM RC-922XM-KKN1 Black Mesh, Plastic, Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

HIS IceQ X H785QN2G2M Radeon HD 7850 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

SeaSonic M12II 520 Bronze 520W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR

Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 BX80623I52500K

Ok, I replaced my A10 with an i5 which i may or may not overclock. So by doing this I will prob spend a bit less on the mobo and HDD. Now i need some advice on a motherboard for this and whether or not I should just get a HDD or HDD and SDD.

If you plan on overclocking I suggest an ASRock pro4 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... ).
If you cannot fit a pro4 into your budget/aren't overclocking I suggest a H77 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... ).

As for the hdd. SSDs do make many things feel snappier and faster such as booting but its not an increase in gaming performance it just reduces loading screens. The exception to this rule would be if you were trying to record gameplay with say FRAPS or DXtory then you would either want to A) record it to a separate HDD or B) use an SSD and record to that. But generally you don't want to record to the same drive you have your game + OS on as that hinders bandwidth pretty badly and will hurt your performance while recording.

As for the mobo, I have to stick by my choice as I find it to be an excellent board for the value and its money well spent.

Edit: Oh man my bad I JUST now noticed I didn't even link the board. I'm sorry. Here we go. : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

may i ask what your budget is on this build, or your current price of the components put together?

My budget is $500-800 but would rather keep it has cheap has possible for good components.
Alright here is my revised, revised list:


ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM

COOLER MASTER Elite 431 Plus RC-431P-KWN2 Black Steel Body (0.5mm SECC), ABS plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Or
COOLER MASTER HAF XM RC-922XM-KKN1 Black Mesh, Plastic, Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

HIS IceQ X H785QN2G2M Radeon HD 7850 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

SeaSonic M12II 520 Bronze 520W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR

Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 BX80623I52500K

ASRock Z77 Extreme3 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Western Digital WD Green WD10EZRX 1TB IntelliPower SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Alright the last few things are if I should go with the cheaper case or the twice more expensive case. Iam staying with a intellipower because the reviews are very good, they say it is quiet, fast, etc. Checked if my Ram was compatible with the mobo and it is soooo yeah. One more thing would you recommend 2 19'' monitors or just 1 larger one. Okay so the final price WITHOUT monitor(s) and a case is $808, which is a little past my budget but this looks like a pretty good gaming desktop.

i would go with the i5-3570k the performance gains in the architecture is just monumental. it is only 10 more dollars, plus i know this probably wont change your mind but you should check out the samsung spinpoint 1tb you can get it for a very nice price of 85 dollars, if you chose to get the intelipower i would suggest getting an ssd on top of that as a boot drive there is a 15 dollar off promo if you order it today on newegg. but im sure by the time you order it its goanna be way past today lol

edit:
the two processors are almost identical when it comes to gaming, but the ivy bridge beats the sandy bridge in rendering and converting by a good amount
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