A little assistance with new build

jpsenior

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Hey folks,

Been a while since i've posted but one of my friends asked if I could throw together a "budget PC" for him. So i did! Just wanted to post it here to see if anyone thinks I can do significantly better.

Approximate Purchase Date: within the next 2-3 weeks

Budget Range: $650 max after rebates and before shipping

System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming (SC2, diablo3), recording music, surfing the internets

Are you buying a monitor: No Sir/Madam


So here's what i've got so far:

CPU - i3-3220 ivybridge - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116775
PSU - corsair cx500 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139027
MOBO - AsRock z75 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157304
GPU - radeon 7850 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150609
HDD - seagate 1tb - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148840
case - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147153
RAM - 8g(2x4) g-skill ripjaw x series - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428
media - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

IF my usually terrible math skills are correct, this comes out to around $600. Can anyone point out any mistakes that I made or make suggestions for upgrades/downgrades? Will the 3220 be enough?

Thanks
 
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Personally from experience, the piledriver/bulldozer generation is lacking in some areas, and is less reliable. Also from what ive seen, the improvement over the i3 he selected is superficial and after ocing both to their stable maxes, non existant.
 

hbeduryan818

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Bulldozer architecture was not stable at all but the piledriver shows improvents and right now the 4300 is better than all i3s according to benchmarks
 
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yes, but its a superficial better in performance-similar to how a 840 pro samsung ssd will be better than an 830, but in use the difference is not noticeable. In addition, while the benchmarks might say 4300, the i3 is shown to perform better in single threaded games.
 

hbeduryan818

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Not with piledriver trust me on this
 
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its kinda hard no offense since I have both in systems.......also that is what the majority of the community says as well
 
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are you really gona fight me on that...........i can show you hundreds of posts saying i3 is better or equal and you can show me hundreds that say the opposite. Fact remains its not a noticeable difference and itll simply come down to preference
 

hbeduryan818

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How anout i make a new thread asking right now you dont get to answer we leave it as a poll
 
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except there is already a thread look for it
look im not going to hijak this guys thread to have an arguement with you. I came here to make an observation of a different view for him and if you don't like it, tough
 
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sorry jpsenior, i shouldn't have continued what obviously was going to turn into a debate on your thread.........I personally prefer WD hard drives but its up to you. Other than that.........ram +1, case is personal preference so thats up to you, gpu +1, PSU +1, mobo +1
cpu-up to you that or 4300, honestly different benchmarks that stress different things will say one or the other is better, honestly it shouldn't make a difference.
for a $600 rig, I give it my thumbs up
 

hbeduryan818

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I liked his build but i recomeneded a 6300 and you interfered its his choice at the end
 
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see my post about his build
 

jpsenior

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It's all good. I know how these things can escalate. I also understand that we're essentially splitting hairs between the 4300 and the i3. I really just wanted the help because i've never built a computer this cheap before. I've put together 3 or 4 different rigs, but they're all in the $750-950 range with components like the 2500k sandybridge. So, from my own personal experience, I don't know how this processor will "play" with this gpu and how this computer as a whole will serve its user in terms of gaming.

Really just looking to make sure i didn't screw anything up (always nice to have a few extra pairs of eyes just in case) and I wanted to know if this is more than sufficient for what he wants.

Furthermore, is this the type of setup that will only perform admirably for a couple years and then be kind of "obsolete" for the near-future of gaming? For example, I don't play SC2 anymore, but I know the expansion comes out in 2013. I'm sure the requirements aren't anything too rigorous, but I don't want him to be laggin' up a storm. This is really my main concern. If there's one component you'd suggest upgrading (i'm assuming cpu), if only slightly, what's your recommendation?

Sorry this is kind of unorganized.

Appreciate all the help from everyone so far.
 

hbeduryan818

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If you would please listen to me ive built amds intels ect the 4300 or even the 6300 will suit you better than the i3.
 
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The current CPU, either 4300 or i3, will probably be fine. It's hard to define what games will be like in 4 years, but it's almost always a GPU upgrade required rather than CPU. Ultimately it's your choice. Are you an amd guy or intel guy? Personally I've been an amd guy till the last 2 generations(pile driver and bulldozer), but with i7 extremes and the solidness of the i5/i3 builds I have vs their amd counterparts, I have changed to intel.
That graphics card you decided on is nice so I doubt a near future upgrade would be required...

It ultimately comes down to you. We can talk benchmarks all day long but it remains that both have their positives and negatives. Intel has stronger individual cores, but the 4300 is a tiny bit more powerful overall. By this I mean you won't notice anything.

tl dr: either one choose which company you like better. I can argue I3 all day and hbeduryan can argue amd all day, but it's so minuscule in the differences it becomes preference.
 

hbeduryan818

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Couldnt have said it better. My only counterpart is AMD IS FUTURE POWER NEW ARCHITURE NEW ADVANCMENTS ECT. Thats where theyre lacking. INTEL ON THE OTHER HAND IS RAW POWER DAY BY DAY OPERATIONS.
 

jpsenior

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Short story time. bear with me please.

I have a roommate who i put together a computer for and he changed some parts cause he didn't want to spend as much and he didn't ask me what he should and shouldn't change out and he ended up buying an A8-3850 and a 6850 gpu. The performance was, quite frankly, kinda awful and he lagged frequently during gameplay and the computer occasionally froze and restarted when graphical elements escalated in game. Someone told me that the A8 wasn't specifically meant for gaming and that it simply "does not have enough cache memory to produce high end video performance."

Is this an accurate assessment? If so (and keep in mind here I'm totally unfamiliar with AMD processors and have only used intel), i noticed the A8 is quad core and has 4mb l2 cache while the i3 is a dual core and has 3mb of L3.. My limited understanding of the difference in L2 and L3 is just the proximity to the core it belongs to and every core has different "levels" of cache memory. Will the 3220 be significantly better because of the l3 cache even though it's smaller (and to my understanding slower than L2) than the A8?
 

hbeduryan818

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The a8 has an integregated gpu thats meant for light and when i say light i mean LIGHT gaming nothing more than low or medium settings
 

jpsenior

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And the i3 and the 4300 and other being mentioned.. are these meant for medium gaming or somewhat-high-performance-gaming?
 

hbeduryan818

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These dont have gpus built in so a good seperate gpu is required. But the reason i bring up the 4300 is because its in the same price range and benchmarks show it having a higher single threaded score plus it is a quad core which will last you a bit more than a dual core
 

jpsenior

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fair enough, i'll look into the 4300 as well and maybe look at some AMD motherboards.. If anyone has any suggestions that would be great; but it sounds like the consensus here is that i can't really go wrong with either cpu and its a decent build for the money. So i appreciate all the input.

thanks.