3 Options for Workstation/Casual Gaming

[iloveusernames]

Dear all!

I am planning to update from my X4 955. Mainly with regard to it is getting a bit slow in prototyping for simulations before porting to the big guns.

So Main purposes are Simulation/Gaming (potentially playing around a bit with VMs).

Planning on getting a R9 270 possibly a X version depending on CPU/Mobo combo. Should be a decent upgrade from the 560Ti.
16GB of RAM
Old HDD and Drives + windows


First of, AMD
FX-8320
GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3P
Price: 200 quidish
2. Intel
i5 4570
ASUS H87-PRO (C2)
Price 260 quid
3.Intel
E3-1230v3
ASRock B85 Pro4
Price 280 quid

What do you think will be best? Overall budget is 700 pounds.

Cheers for your answers!

 

[bob hays]

the 2nd intel option is a bit better for gaming but the amd option is better for threaded applications. What do you mean by simulation? like flight simulators?

 

[Its_Byte_00]

the 2nd intel option is a bit better for gaming but the amd option is better for threaded applications. What do you mean by simulation? like flight simulators?

I do belive OP means pro simulations, like arcitecure, 3d modeling...... suit case bombs...LOL JK JK...

I would personally reccomend the i5 3770 and a Z77 Mobo so you can OC via core with out the extra 40$ price tag.
also the Xeon wont preform well unless your doing 8+ threads work with 2 CPU's. the Xeons are pretty much just 3570/4570 w/ hyper threading enabled and ECC registers.

would also recoomend a 760 x2 from asus even though it doesnt do DP I do belive that SP will be fine and will work well if the application is CUDA Enabled. You could always go for a low end NV Tesla for higher compute preformance if you can find one on the cheap... Sorry I dont really know the situation in your country.

 

[iloveusernames]

Thanks for the answers so far!

Yes I mean pro simulations. Essentially a bit of Probabilistic approaches.

I was thinking going OpenCL /CUDA for some time. Unfortunately, the code base is all in x86 code and it is a lot. Therefore porting is a long run option in maybe a couple of years. The workportion is coding/prototyping mainly for a E5/Opteron environment so i threading/scalibility is right up there.

Also the E3 has ECC support enabled but as far as I can see it is not a must as it runs on most Intel boards.
http://ark.intel.com/products/75054/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E3-1230-v3-8M-Cache-3_30-GHz

Also with "future-proofness" in mind, how much better is getting an Ivy Bridge base rather than a Haswell base?
As far as i understand there is another die shrink coming to the 1150 right?

Thanks for some answers much appreciated!

 

[iloveusernames]

I looked up a few benchmarks for FPU performance on the x86 core between Ivy and Haswell doesn't seem to be that much of a difference.

So basically it's between this here: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2TyGE
And this here: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2TyIi

The overall budget is 700 quid.
Thanks for any suggestions

 

[bob hays]

The AMD solution. The fx 8 series performs really well in threaded applications

 

[sora]

I'd go for the first one depending on your goals. I think you should get the first one because I personally don't like AMD much.

 

[bob hays]

I'd go for the first one depending on your goals. I think you should get the first one because I personally don't like AMD much.

well that doesn't seem biased at all.....

 

[iloveusernames]

Cheers for the comments! I'm tending towards the intel option and downsizing it to a mATX case. Is this sound given a Xeon E3 and a 270X? Not really dabbled into the mATX arrangements so a recommandation of case and power supply option would be grand. My absolute limit is an extra 100 quid to do that. Thanks for the anwsers!

 

[bob hays]

You can just get an matx amd motherboard if you really want to size down but I highly suggest the AMD over the e3. It performs much better in scaled applications.

 

[iloveusernames]

Thanks Bob for the fast reply. My worry is that a 125W CPU will develop quite a bit of heat and that in a small environment. If it was 95W like the FX6300, I'd be less anxious. As far as I have heard the FX8320 do run quite hot.

If I go with AMD, I'd have to undervolt to get the temps down, right?

 

[bob hays]

that's only the max tdp when its under full load, I wouldn't worry about it too much. At worst, your fans will just be louder.