Any way to make this system cheaper?

[Agonyworm]

I'm on a bit of a tight budget and have chosen the following components for my new PC:

CPU - AMD fx6100
Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-970A-DS3
GPU - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATAIII
PSU - Cooler Master 500W 12V Elite Power 500
Case - Aerocool Strike-X
RAM - I'll be popping down to my local tech exchange store and will pick up 2 sticks of 4GB ram, probably Kingston

I haven't chosen an optical drive and was hoping you guys could help me with choosing this.

Is there anywhere I can get a different component for cheaper whilst still maintaining roughly the same level of performance? For reasons I won't go into here it is IMPERATIVE that I have an NVIDIA GPU.

Thanks very much

 

[excella1221]

Please fill up the format on the link below so we can have knowledge of the right info and give you the most appropriate advice for parts.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/353572-31-build-upgrade-advice

 

[basty2168]

Which 650 ti are you getting. The base $140 card or one of the higher end because you may want to go with a gtx 560 instead its quite a bit faster. I would go with an i3-2100 (here it is benchmarked against the fx-8150 http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/434?vs=289 ) its also the same price. Here is a comparable motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128555 . As for cheaper i think you would have to lose performance to go cheaper.

 

[Agonyworm]

Sorry - here's the form


Approximate Purchase Date: e.g.: this week (the closer the better)

I have no set date as of yet and am willing to wait a fair few months

Budget Range: (e.g.: 300-400) Before / After Rebates; Before / After Shipping

up to £550, but I'd rather be around the £450 maark. This includes shipping. (I already have monitor/keyboard so this is not a problem)


System Usage from Most to Least Important:

Gaming, internet browsing, video playback, 3d modelling, 2d graphics design

Are you buying a monitor: Yes / No

No

Parts to Upgrade: (e.g.: CPU, mobo, RAM) **Include Power Supply Make & Model If Re-using**

Buying new components from scratch (see first post for details)


Do you need to buy OS: Yes / No

Yes, Windows 8


Preferred Website(s) for Parts: (e.g.: newegg.com, ncix.com -- to show us selection & pricing)

Amazon.co.uk


Location: City, State/Region, Country - we need to know where these parts are being assembled and whether there are good store-only deals available

West Midlands, UK


Parts Preferences: by brand or type (e.g.: I would like to upgrade to Intel CPU)

I MUST have an NVIDIA GPU

Overclocking: Yes / No / Maybe

Probably not, it's not a major concern

SLI or Crossfire: Yes / No / Maybe

Not in the forseeable future

Your Monitor Resolution: (e.g.: 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1440x900, 1600x1200, 1680x1050, 1920x1080, 1920x1200 or if you're upgrading please state what you'd want to get)

1680x1050

Additional Comments: (e.g.: Need to have a window and lots of bling, I would like a quiet PC. Please also list specific software or games you're using)

Wifi capability in the motherboard would be nice

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading:

My current prebuilt PC really isn't up to scratch for most games

 

[Agonyworm]

Are i3s any good to get nowadays? I was always told that to futureproof I should go for a CPU with more cores

 

[thehiddenlotus]

I would go with more cores for sure since more games are starting to utilize them.
At Microcenter you can get $50 off your motherboard if its purchased with a cpu, plus they have the best cpu prices around on average.
Why windows 8? If your planning on gaming its not the best choice.

 

[Agonyworm]

Because most games I'm looking to play work fine with Windows 8, it'll get more regular updates AND it's £25 cheaper than Windows 7

 

[thehiddenlotus]

Well do what you will, but just a heads up that purchasing both your mobo and cpu at Microcenter will save you some money

 

[basty2168]

More power is better when you benchmark a cpu against another in programs and applications the on that does it faster is better. You future proof by going with the best performance and upgrade ability (unless you want to pay for a whole new system again) and with the i3 it leaves room to upgrade in the future to an i5 or i7. To me cores don't matter its all about performance i think the reason people say cores matter is because having more normally boosts your performance but not in this case this processor is better in every way than than the fx 8150 which has eight cores which says it all.

 

[thehiddenlotus]

More cores are better for multi-threaded programs. Which AMD performs better on. But for Gaming right now Intel is on top. Though more games are starting to use more cores and I think we will see a lot more utilizing them soon. Though not 8 anytime soon.

 

[basty2168]

No the bench-marking is all that matters it beats the 8150 in every game including battlefield which is a game that utilizes 4 cores. like i said i have friends that have the i3-2100 and their game looks and runs better than my old system that had a phenom II x6 1055t in it (yes we all had the same graphics cards {460gtx} and we all had 8Gb{ddr3 1600mhz Kingston hyperX} ram with 7200 rpm hard drives{Seagate Barracuda}). Also that processor is actually faster than the fx 6100.