How much does this all cost?
Also, the FX cpu does not have 8 "cores" in the traditional sense.It has four modules, each module having a shared front end and then separate integer units. So if your work is integer heavy, you'll possibly see a benefit over a comparably priced Intel cpu. Otherwise, the IPC is so much lower I have a hard time recommending AMD outside of low budget builds.
Also, Thermaltake PSU...meh
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I see. I guess I was misinformed, then.
As for the PSU, it was only a couple bucks to upgrade from a 600W, I believe it was either Corsair or Cooler Master. Can't remember.
Thanks!
Oh, and as for the price, it was $1,188.10 including shipping and handling. I also put a lot of needless amounts of money into stuff like PSU gaskets and liquid cooling upgrades and shipping protection (foam inside the case and what-not). But hey, that's what a noob like me does :P But there was a 500 dollar off sale, which I don't know if it's true or not, but I went with it.
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It's just that Thermaltake isn't exactly a big name in PSUs. A Corsair would be much preferable, even if its lower wattage. Overall wattage doesn't matter a ton either. The quality of the power supply and how much it can supply on the 12V rail is more important.
For that price...eh. You can't buy the parts and build it on your own? You could get a much better system. Also, does that build include an OS? Since it's not listed.
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I've always had good luck with Antec when it comes to PSUs. I don't really talk to anybody else about this type of stuff though, are they considered a reputable name? I learned the hard way to never cut corners when it comes to PSUs.
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Yeah, my build includes Win 7 x64 Home Premium.
I'll get a 650 Watt (or higher) Corsair when I decide to upgrade :)
Seems like my CPU, GPU cooling, and PSU seem to be slightly problematic, but for now it's too late to change.
Also, due to the $500 off sale, the $150 instant rebate off the R9 280X, and the $50 off coupon code, I actually SAVED 60 dollars, meaning it would have cost 60 dollars more if I have bought the parts separately and built it myself.
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Is the graphic card a reference model or non-reference?
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Reference model cooling system is made by AMD/ATI, non-reference cooling system is made by third party copanies like ASUS,Gigabyte,Sapphire, etc.
I would recommend always go with non-reference models both for AMD and NVIDIA as better cooling means your card will be quieter, last longer and probably give you a better overclock capability.
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that is mainly when it comes to the 290 and 290x cards, the 280x is fine.
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That's like buying a car "powered by volkswagen engine". Would you do something like that in real life?
You don't know what you're geetting. Don't do it. Get a specific model you have read reviews about. Otherwise you could end with a card that is loud as hell and which makes you not want to use it.
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Not bad, but I would've forked over the extra $40 or so dollars as a core performance on Intel processors are leagues ahead of AMDs. Also there's debate over whether or not that proc is a true 8 core. Looking at the specs and how it works it seems to be 4 physical cores with 8 logical. Think AMD style hyper-threading. The only thing the AMD will have over the Intel is how far you can push the overclock, but be forewarned those Vischera cores run hot. Well mine did before I quit team red :P
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I don't plan on overclocking. I'd rather not take the risk, since I'm a computer noob :3
I guess the next time I make a build I'll go with Intel. I really did want an Intel build, but my budget of $1200 was surpassed by the Intel build, so I had to go down to AMD if I wanted to keep the graphics card as it is. Freaking shipping HAD to be 95 bucks -.-
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http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3tMvw For what you listed I'm also showing that build being $820 dollars. Granted I don't know where you live. Is there anything else not listed? I'm wondering where 350-400 bucks went of your 1200 budget. Nevermind, went all derp and missed a line in your post.
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100$ for os, 100$ for assembly and burn-in (approximate, because that's what it cost me when I got a computer from Ibuypower), 100$ for shipping.(again approximate based on my ibuypower experience.). 100$ for random stuff like Optical, fans, coolers, and case.
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I don´t know the new Intel models but my I7 3770k could get up to 81° of temperature with no OC and stock cooler. I changed the thermal paste for some Artic silver and the stock cooler for a CM Hyper EVO 212 and was able to OC the processor up to 4.5 ghz with temperatures not going more than 70° most of the times, can be a little more if its a really hot day but never more than 80°. Temperatures are not the best but are acceptable though fans are noisy running at a minimum of 1400+ RPM.
What i want to say is Intel is no guarantee it will not run hot, better check by model.
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When a power supply says it runs 650 watts, you have to assume it's running only 80% of its capacity. That would mean at its peak efficiency, it runs at 520 watts which is what you assume is what your build uses, leaving no room for error. Well, you can use this power calculator to see how much your build will really use
Also, I don't know too much about ADATA RAM so I'm not sure if the brand is reliable or not.
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I think you have that backwards. Any reliable PSU should be able to supply its rated wattage to the components and top-notch ones often exceed their rating. However, since they are generally 80-90% efficient, they will pull more power from the wall socket, which is where you will see numbers higher than 650W for example.
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Only thing I would have changed is the cpu, I used a few AMD and was never convinced. I think Intel does a great job. Still have my old PC as secondary (a core2duo) and it runs great as the first day, and with stock cooler. It's probably close to 10yo, and it can run a lot of games pretty gun.
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Generally speaking, AMD motherboards are quite feature packed for the price. Also I would recommend a SSD, either as an upgrade later down the road or buying it now. It's the best performance upgrade you can make. They are getting quite cheap as well, so I would suggest you look into one.
Since you're not building it by yourself, you won't have to worry about BIOS updates for your MOBO incase your CPU isn't supported with the older version. I know quite a few people who had to either ask me or find someone that has a older AMD CPU to use just to upgrade the BIOS.
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Make sure to check your build on Ibuypower, a similar company, to compare prices. I got my computer from them in 2011 and running strong.
It also looks like you can get the amd 9370 for only 20+ more because of promo. Might be worth it.
and don't forget to check the freebies box for the amd rewards.
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Excellent AMD build. What people say about the FX line doesn't much apply to gaming most of the time. The FX line improved starting with the 8320, which is well-priced. As far as CPU-bound games go, a 50 USD upgrade to an 8350 (the best 8000 series) would net 2-3 fps over the 8320 in Skyrim at 1080p. Another 50 USD for the cheapest 8350-beating Intel CPU, the i5-2550K, would net you 1-3 fps more. You lose 3-6 fps but save 100 USD.
The 9000 series provides a bit better speed over the 8000 series, but it puts out extreme heat and draws more power than most motherboards can provide. 9000 series can only run on motherboards specially made for them, which means that you can't just upgrade your CPU if you want one of these. As for the heat, you would need a 2x120mm or 3x120mm radiator attached to a water cooler dedicated to your CPU to keep it cool under load.
Good GPU that will last you more than 5 years.
Good memory kit, but check the BIOS to make sure that your RAM is running at 1866 and not 1600 or 1333.
Good call on the WD HDD instead of a no-name. And the Black series are the best. You can always get another HDD later, if you find you need the space.
I'm not sure what your aversion to SSDs are. Consider picking up a small used SSD drive off of Amazon, large enough for your game with the longest load times, and see what the load times are when that game is installed on an SSD. Even a cheap SSD is faster than a standard platter-based HDD.
Also consider a hybrid drive, which is a standard drive that contains an SSD cache. Over time, the drive chipset learns what data from which files you access most frequently and stores that data in the SSD portion. This includes your OS, so you can drastically cut your boot-up times.
Motherboard details...
On/Off Charge means that a device that can recharge through USB does not need the PC to be on to do so. Not all devices work like this, but most do. This includes smartphones, if they're on.
PCIe is an expansion port type. 16x means that it is 16x as fast as PCIe x1. And PCIe x1 is nearly twice as fast as PCI.
Some devices that work in PCI will work in a PCIe slot, but it depends on the motherboard and/or the device. Soundcards and network adapters still work fine in PCI.
Your chosen video card will not be bottlenecked by your PCIe slots. Many people believe that they NEED x16, but this is not the case. Most of the time, just x4 will work without any impact on performance. The x just means that the slot can work with more data per second, and if it can already outpace your GPU, you will see zero increase going to a higher PCIe.
Gigabyte's model numbering determines the features of the board at a glance, if you know what it all means.
970 is the chipset that Gigabyte used on that motherboard. Specifically, that chipset is capable of 22 PCIe 2.0 lanes and 4 PCIe 2.0 lanes dedicated to Northbridge (memory, CPU) purposes. Motherboard makers can distribute these PCIe lanes in whatever configuration they wish. You could have five PCIe 2.0 x4 slots, for example. Perfect for four-way SLI or Crossfire. The standard configuration for 970 is one PCIe 2.0 x16 expansion slot, one PCIe 2.0 x4 slot, and 3 PCIe 2.0 x1 slots.
Many motherboard makers will map PCIe lanes to more than one slot, and just slow down some of the slots or turn them off completely if enough slots are occupied by devices. This is usually done when you are using multiple video cards, but any device can cause this behavior. Typically you bypass this behavior by only using every other slot, beginning with the closest to the CPU.
A = USB 3.0 ports (and probably onboard headers) capable of outputting three times the standard USB 3.0 power to a device that knows to ask for it. It also means that the board has SATA 3.0 6Gb/s ports for storage devices, which means you can transfer between drives at about 750 Megabytes per second. Halve that if you're copying to the same drive.
DS3P:
D = better than standard capacitors, which gives longer lifespan and additional protection from power surges among other benefits.
S3 = Q-Flash BIOS (easily upgradeable) and potentially helpful overclocking features.
P = RAID support (1/0/10/5 in your case, look up RAID on wikipedia), extra PCIe slots (that's why you have mroe than 22 PCIe lanes), and extra SATA 2.0 ports.
GbLAN means that the built-in Ethernet port on that motherboard is capable of upload/download speeds of 1000 megabits per second, or about 125 megabytes per second. Assuming your internet supplies that, your internet will be that fast at the very most. It will still use this kind of speed over your LAN if your router can handle it, and most today can.
ATX refers to the size of the motherboard, which strongly correlates with the number of expansion slots available. The size also determines the smallest case that you can fit your system into, not including CPU cooler height and video card length.
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Thanks for all the info :O
I read everywhere on the Internet that SSDs won't last too long if you write too much on it, and as far as I'm aware rendering videos is quite a lot of writing. I need something that would last me a while. I suppose I'll consider an SSD later when I get some more money, and use the WD Black to write things on.
As for the CPU, I think I'm satisfied with what I've got. I'm used to playing everything on lowest settings at less than 20 FPS, so losing a couple at highest won't bother me.
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You are correct about video rendering vs SSD longevity. You would want a scratch disk for that, and you don't need a high quality WD drive for that. Some people just assemble a bunch of used HDD into a mirrored RAID so they get nearly-new speeds for almost no money.
An SSD lasts several years, unless you're running a minecraft server or a bit torrent box. Or rendering video on one. Otherwise, longevity concerns have been grossly exaggerated. They certainly won't last as long as a HDD, but you're not going to lose your files for 4-5 years at least. And even then, they're overprovisioned a bit so that as sectors begin to fail, things get remapped. And the SSD will tell you when it needs to be replaced, believe it or not. That S.M.A.R.T. thing when you boot up your PC allows software such as Hard Disk Sentinel and the like to display plenty of details about drive health.
SSD drives are like really fast SD cards, or USB sticks. Do you have one of these that doesn't read/write anymore? Granted, you're probably not running your PC off of one of them, but you definitely could without issue.
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I'm sorry but...what? CPU bound games are exactly where AMD falls behind the most. Gaming is one of those scenarios where single thread performance is the most important since few games take advantage of more than 2-4 threads. For the price his build isn't good...
You can easily see upwards of 15-20% improvements in average frame rate, depending on the game, with a comparably price Intel cpu and given his budget, there's absolutely no reason to go AMD. There's also minimum frame rates to consider, where the lower IPC simply can't keep frame rates as stable
http://www.techspot.com/review/787-thief-benchmarks/page4.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/608-hitman-absolution-performance-benchmarks/page6.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-processor-frame-rate-performance,3427-6.html
And keep in mind some of those benchmarks only include IVB cpus
I don't know...I always see people recommending FX-8xxx cpus and I wonder why. The only time they match Haswell is in well-threaded, integer heavy workloads.
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Exactly!
Also, the cheaper price of AMD's cpus might seem appealing at first, but in the end you will spend more on better aftermarket cooling (if you overclock) and on your electricity bills over the years...
Power Consumption:
Intel Core i7 4770K
TDP 84W
Annual home energy cost 20.24 $/year
Annual commercial energy cost 73.58 $/year
Performance per watt 13.68 pt/W
Typical power consumption 68.25W
AMD FX 8350
TDP 125W
Annual home energy cost 56.1 $/year
Annual commercial energy cost 159.62 $/year
Performance per watt 5.31 pt/W
Typical power consumption 159.66W
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Honestly, 16gb RAM might be more than you need but better to be safe than sorry. You will probably want more than a 1tb hard drive though. Go for 2 separate 1tb hard drives (1 for your main and 1 for backup). You could also get a smaller sized one for the OS but that's not really needed. Also, have you checked Newegg for the parts? I built my computer for gaming, and some graphic design, and the final price was around $1000 (but I bought the parts around Black Friday/Cyber Monday so it cost me more like $850 or so). Honestly, you'll hear a lot of people say that Intel is the way to go. I went AMD and have had no performance issues and it was way cheaper than Intel. Most of the parts you chose seem good, just make sure that they're all compatible. I know you only included the important parts but also make sure that you get a optical drive and that your case will be able to fit everything. The graphics card should be pretty big :P
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16gb of ram isn't actually that odd for rendering, honestly I would do 32gb if I was into that just because ram is cheap and never can have to much for rendering, but yeah 8gb is fine if he was only gaming.
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I think you should get a Trinity Force, then your build is all set.
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I checked out the price of each part you're being sent. It comes to about 1250 USD. So you're potentially saving money, unless they send you a reference R9 280x.
If they sent a reference card, you might want to use AMD's config tool to turn down the max temp allowed. R9s ship at 90c max allowed temp. AMD had some thermal paste issues in the first few months and I don't know if that issue was resolved. And the reference coolers aren't good enough to keep the card from overheating at stock. Once 90c is hit, the card with slow itself down to maintain 90c (by design) and no higher. If heat dissipation is not enough, you may end up with a 90c version of a 7770. If you do get sent a reference card, keep an eye on heat and your fps. If you notice issues, look into putting new thermal paste onto it to fix AMD's issue there. If the stock heat sink is JUST RIGHT, everything is great.
Non-reference coolers do not seem to have this issue. As long as the card doesn't have that black-with-red-trim shroud that has that tiny fan in there, you're good.
Non-reference can keep temps around 80c at full load at stock speeds. The cheapest R9 280x 3GB on the market at the moment comes from Sapphire, and they make good cards. Sapphire does make two better versions of the 280x 3GB, but their basic Twin-X model is fine if your case has good airflow.
If it wasn't for the cryptocurrency boom eating up all the best AMD cards, I would go with an ASUS DirectCU II. They're quieter, cooler, and able to keep an overclock of 1070MHz/6.4GHz at 74c under full load. This is how ASUS' own factory-overclocked "TOP" card is shipped.
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Sweet ^.^
I'll definitely keep an eye out on the temperatures. I bought an HDD fan, a liquid cooling unit and a slightly upgraded CPU fan, but I completely forgot that the GPU might be a problem. Silly me.
I'm guessing 80 max should be good enough.
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Get an Intel i5 quad core and AMD R9 280 or GTX 760. Get a WB Blue to save some money. For mobo, get the cheapest H87 available.
For PSU, always go for Seasonic.
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"For PSU, always go for Seasonic."
????
Why do you say this? Many other brands are great, Corsair for example.
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Corsair doesn't make their own PSU. They OEM from other companies. If I am not wrong only the top tier ones are from Seasonic. The mid tier ones are from CWT or others. The entry level ones, I'm not sure.
If you get a Seasonic, it's definitely a Seasonic. I recommend the G-Series.
Go to Johnnyguru for detailed information on PSU. Most Corsair mid tier and entry level have mediocre reviews.
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Did not know that, but I can say I have built 10+ PC's and about 7 of them have been Corsair and have had 0 issues, even if they take from OEM's they must be choosing pretty well...idk, not saying you're wrong just saying I never heard of any issues.
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Nowadays there are a lot less terrible PSUs so even the mediocre ones should do fine. It's true that only the higher end Corsairs are Seasonic built though with the rest from CWT. It's not like CWT is bad or anything, they do make some pretty good units, just not as good overall as Seasonic. Though Seasonic's cheaper units aren't the greatest either.
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i have built around 60-70 computers, got the cheapest psu at the time, had no issues.
In fact, the only psu that i had issues with it was actually on my own computer, damm thing burned.
It was a termaltake 500w psu. it had over 2 years of use.
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Question is what CPU cooler does it have? If it has a very good cooler (like H100i) then go with the AMD build so you can overclock it in the future. The PSU is REALLY bad. There are quite a few good brands but the best ones are Seasonic and XFX
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I have just 30 dollars left after having recently bought my new PC, so I decided I might as well buy a game or two to test my new rig with (even though it won't arrive for a month). I need some advice on what games are worth getting right now.
Here are the options as of now:
Order I want the games in:
Battlefield 4, DayZ, Goat Simulator, Rust
Some issues:
I already have BF3 from the Origin Humble Bundle, but only the base game, so I thought I might go for all the content while it's cheap.
I really want BF4, but I usually prefer not to buy a game without buying a pack with all the DLC included, but the Premium edition is around $75.
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Can't comment too much on the ones you listed but BF4 still has some major bugs so be wary of that.
If you are interested in other games, there's some nice sales going on right now.
http://www.reddit.com/r/GameDeals/comments/23d5xc/gamefly_aspyr_build_your_own_bundle_3_for_15_4/
http://www.reddit.com/r/GameDeals/comments/239uu5/get_games_aspyr_sale_up_to_75_off_borderlands_2/
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Why not just get the Arma II stuff for the DayZ mod while it's 75% on sale? The standalone (last time I checked, somebody correct me if I'm mistaken) was still way behind the mod. I'm sure the standalone is graphically better, but I don't see that being important.
Goat Simulator is not worth the asking price unless modders significantly add content or you're okay getting a few laughs in 4-5 hours that you can experience just watching a Youtuber play.
I can't comment on Rust too far-indepth, but it's infuriating first playing alone unless it's a smaller server and you know what you're doing. You'll probably want a few friends to play with you, though.
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Silly me, looks like I can just buy BF3 Premium membership for 15 bucks instead of buying membership AND the game at 20 bucks.
Guess I'll go with that, Arma II Operation Arrowhead, and -maybe- Goat Simulator.
EDIT: Looks like the DayZ Mod only gets around 450 people at once during its peak hours now. Might not be enough. I'll just go with BF3 Premium and save 15 for something else, maybe Fallout New Vegas or Skyrim the next time either one is on sale. Or Bioshock games. Or whatever the heck I want that comes first.
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Comparatively it's low, but 400 is still a decent amount of players. You also don't need a hundred people per server on DayZ, as you'll be killed by people who got on before the wave of new players.
Please for the love of god do not buy Goat Simulator at full price, unless you want the stupidly named badges.
Completely unrelated, I see you won a gift. Congratulations <3
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Uhh, thanks. Happened a while ago.
As for Goat Simulator I'm gonna wait it out...I think I'll save the 15 bucks I have left now for later.
Just tried the DayZ Mod and SA on a friend's PC and seems like I'm not going to really get into it. The fact that you have to raise your axe with a separate button before slicing...nope.
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Yeah, but a month ago we weren't talking.
Good.
I didn't know you had to do that on DayZ, but it makes some sense.
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I see them as pointless until they have more captivity for reasonable prices.
Not everyone has the same opinion btw, doesn't mean they are poor.
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"Oh hey I'm poor and on a super small budget, but let me go ahead and buy an FX processor, a mid-range GPU, and a whole 16 gigs of RAM." I see your logic there XD
Blindfrog, I already stated to two other comments that I do a lot of video rendering. SSDs simply won't last as long as I want them to with all the work I'd be putting into them.
Besides, this build cost over a thousand dollars. I could very much have replaced my HDD with an SSD if I wanted to, or had gotten a tiny SSD and a 500 GB HDD combo. But, I simply prefer HDDs over SSDs.
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FX-8320 - $160
R9 280X - $330
16GB RAM - $150
wow u sure are rich as fuck with that AMD CPU
my budget CPU is more expensive than yours
whats the matter, u didnt have another $1000 for 1TB SSD?
you should've stated that they dont do too much good for ur video rendering, but you cant say 'im not a fan of ssd' lol
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Considering I even stated in the original post that I'll be doing video editing (twice!) in addition to the two other comments, shouldn't have been too hard to make the connection :)
I won't consider having just an SSD as a main drive unless some technological advancement makes SSDs last longer even when writing a lot of files.
Besides, as you said so yourself, I am totally "rich". IMO the cost is not worth it if I'm not building a monster PC with an Extreme i7 and 4 GPUs with 256 GB RAM.
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The problem with SSD's is that they're flash storage. Flash storage, as explained here, is unreliable. TL;DW version is under the video. Knowing all that, I personally would still risk it. The controllers, majority of the time, do their jobs well(if you get the better ones*) in keeping SSD's as reliable as possible.
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Not sure if it's too late already, but you might want to change R9 280X to something else or just hope you get lucky. I had 3 R9 280Xs (1 Gigabyte, 2 Asus) that were faulty and after the third one I switched to GTX 770. All of them had this weird artifacting on desktop, which could be related to the card switching between 2D and 3D clocks very often. It could be a driver issue, but AMD hasn't even acknowledged it and has done nothing about it. I also occasionally had artifacts in games.
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Hopefully you get lucky and don't get a faulty one then. It's a great card if it works properly.
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I'm just copying and pasting the important parts. This is the first time I'm making my own custom build (using CyberPowerPC. Don't want to try building it by hand :P), so I thought I might ask a question about it.
I'm going to be doing a lot of gaming AND video editing with this build. I wanted to know if my build is balanced. Is there any part that is too overkill or underkill compared with the other parts? I know it's strong enough to be able to handle games and software, but I need to know if there's a part that won't need an upgrade for a while or if there's a part that will need an upgrade soon.
I'm especially worried about the motherboard. I know nothing about motherboards, so I just left it default while upgrading or degrading everything else.
No giveaway in this post since all my allowance went to the build, but I'll try to have one next time I make a thread :)
Guhh, that 1 month shipping time, though. I can't wait >.<
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