$1300 Build Help

[YOLO12345]

I am building a gaming PC for a friend and want to know what you think.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/VmnXGX
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/VmnXGX/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor ($141.98 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($28.95 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($101.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston Fury Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($57.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Sandisk Solid State Drive 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($49.98 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($46.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB WINDFORCE 3X Video Card ($329.99 @ Micro Center)
Case: NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($64.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($34.00 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($87.79 @ OutletPC)
Wireless Network Adapter: Belkin F9L1001 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Wi-Fi Adapter ($5.99 @ Micro Center)
Monitor: Acer K272HULbmiidp 60Hz 27.0" Monitor ($349.99 @ Amazon)
Keyboard: Cooler Master CM Storm Devastator Gaming Bundle Wired Gaming Keyboard w/Optical Mouse ($26.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $1312.61
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-18 16:26 EDT-0400

 

[ksham]

1. Intel > AMD
2. Do you have access to Micro Center?
3. PSU is low-end

Those are my opinions unless you have personal preference of AMD > Intel, etc.

 

[Archaic59]

1. Again, as above, Intel > AMD CPU.
2. Sandisk SSD is ok but Crucial MX100 or Samsung 850 EVO are much better.
3. Seagate has more HD failures than any other manufacturer. Try WD Blue.
4. Corsair CX series has cheap Chinese capacitors. Replace with XFX, Antec or Seasonic.
5. Cheers!

 

[ksham]

3. Seagate has more HD failures than any other manufacturer. Try WD Blue.

Slightly inaccurate because it depends on sales. For example, 1000 fails across 1 million sales is better than 100 fails across 500 thousand sales. So unless you have statistics on that, you cannot justify that statement. It also depends on the type of failure -- DOA or term use. Lastly, not every failure incident is reported.

 

[YOLO12345]

3. Seagate has more HD failures than any other manufacturer. Try WD Blue.

Slightly inaccurate because it depends on sales. For example, 1000 fails across 1 million sales is better than 100 fails across 500 thousand sales. So unless you have statistics on that, you cannot justify that statement. It also depends on the type of failure -- DOA or term use. Lastly, not every failure incident is reported.

He is right studies have shown Seagate hard drive to have a much higher failure rate than Western Digital's.

 

[YOLO12345]

1. Again, as above, Intel > AMD CPU.
2. Sandisk SSD is ok but Crucial MX100 or Samsung 850 EVO are much better.
3. Seagate has more HD failures than any other manufacturer. Try WD Blue.
4. Corsair CX series has cheap Chinese capacitors. Replace with XFX, Antec or Seasonic.
5. Cheers!

1. Intel CPUs do have better per core performance, however the price to performance on the 8320 is hard to ignore.
2. I think the Sandisk SSD is plenty fast, and I don't think it is worth the extra money for a higher end SSD
3. I remembered Seagate HDDs being slighty less reliable, but I had forgotten how much less reliable they were before I looked up the numbers. I will being changing to a well priced WD Caviar Blue I found.
4. I think that a CX series PSU is fine for this build, however I don't want to be running it at full load all the time and I will be doing some serious overclocking, so do you think I should invest in a higher wattage PSU?

 

[jerdle]

as much as people like to bash AMD for gaming, for the most part you wont notice a difference between the 8320 and an i5 in your games.

and seriously, with the PSU, if you're spending under $40, it's a piece of crap.

 

[MasterMace]

Before I start, I'm going to mention - most people giving advice here do not add in the monitor/os/keyboard/mouse/network card/sound card into the price of what we refer to as a "build", as it's really separate from the build in terms of where the money is going. Your build is about a $900-950 build.
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1. No mouse listed.
2. Windows 7. You'll find that Windows 8/8.1 is equivalent to Vista - never pay for it, pay for the previous.
3. CPU; as the others have mentioned, AMD even thinks its FX processors are bad. They haven't released a new architecture in years for desktop, as they've realized their folly. It performs titanically worse per cycle than Intel's CPUs, and even, in many cases, the old Phenom IIs.


You selected Microcenter as an option in your parts list. If there is a microcenter nearby, you should buy your CPU/Motherboard from them in a combo. This combo in fact. Your pick is $244. This pick is $259(-$10 rebate), and it blows it out of the water.

If not, go with an i5-4460+motherboard of your choice (don't know if you don't want microATX blahblah)

4. Corsair's CX series is significantly lower quality than the TX series that brought them fame. You'll want a better Power Supply. http://pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-power-supply-p1550sxxb9 This Power Supply will do much better.



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You'll likely want an N450 as a wireless adapter instead of the N150 that you have there, or an a Wireless-AC adapter.

 

[MasterMace]

Take note, when I recommend going to Intel, I have and use an FX 8320, but I got it for $100. At or above the price of an i3, it's not worth it. For $100, it's a deal. Consider it this way - an FX-8320 is not an 8-core, it's an 8-thread. Windows refused to recognize it as an 8 core until they had to update Windows. It's a 4-module CPU, where the modules are the cores. 4C/8T FX-8320 is certainly worth $100.