AMD Based PC needing advice on parts and other first time build choices

[Vigge]

Budget Range:CHEAP! Bet you hear that a lot xD Realistically I understand that I'll be spending a large chunk of money on this project, I expect that anywhere between 3000 and 4000 could be numbers I'm looking at, but otherwise If I can lower the price the better, but not expecting it to be much less.

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming primarily, Otherwise just general use, nothing super intense but I would say that it will probably be fairly heavy usage most of the time.

Are you buying a monitor: Plan on it, the one I am looking at was going to be like $1000 so it might wait until later

Do you need to buy OS: Yes, I want windows 7, I disliked 8. As far as home/pro/ultimate which would be sufficient though? I heard once the Ultimate was better for gaming?

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: TigerDirect.com is what I have been using to pick so far, its what I've used for part replacements on my old computer and was recommended to me by the person who built it. However if you know another site that has the parts I want for less I'm open to suggestions, I'm not picky 😛

Location: Northeast Missouri, I will probably order it all offline regardless, and preferably from one site/store so that I can get it all at once (hopefully)

Parts Preferences: Going AMD parts, already decided that, however as far as brands, I just picked whichever brand had the part I wanted. If you have suggestions for better brands then what I'm going to list feel free to throw them out there, I haven't fully decided for sure how I'm going to go with it.

Overclocking: Probably, depends on how much more I can get out of the set up by OC, and as you will probably see a lot of the parts were unlocked (I could be mixing that up so correct me if I'm wrong) which I assume means they are overclock ready? And the mobo I believe said it was OC ready just a touch of a button, anyway, probably yes

SLI or Crossfire: Most of the parts I was picking I tried to make sure they were crossfire ready/certified, so definitely something I was thinking about

Your Monitor Resolution: Current is an hdtv, and I run it at 1920x1080, and for the one I was thinking of buying was going to be the 3440x1440, though I might stick to something 16:9 ratio, being as that is what I am used to.

Additional Comments: Don't care much for looks, no need for fancy LEDs or anything, I just want raw power, the better it is, well the better it is xD Though I also want something that will be able to keep up with the ages, so that 5 or 6 years down the line I can still easily run the newest games, whether at best quality or medium, long as I can play my games I'm happy

 

[Vigge]

My Parts List:
Case: Thermaltake VN10001W2N Level 10 GT Full Tower Gaming Case - ATX, Micro ATX, Extended ATX, 4x 5.25", 1x Ext 3.5", 5x Int 3.5", 3x 200mm Fans, 1x 140mm Fan, 3x USB 3.0, 4x USB 2.0, 1x eSATA Front Ports
Processor: AMD FX-9590 Eight-Core 5.0Ghz Processor - 8MB Cache, 1866 Max DDR3 - Socket AM3+ - Unlocked - FD9590FHHKWOF
Motherboard: MSI 970 Gaming ATX Motherboard - AMD 970 Chipset, PCIe 2.0 x16, SATA III 6Gb/s, 8-Channel Audio, CrossFireX Ready, SLI Ready, Gigabit LAN
PSU: Thermaltake TPG-1200M ToughPower Grand Power Supply - 1200W, 80 Plus Gold, 140mm Fan, CrossFireX Certified, SLI Certified
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR3 1600MHz CL10 Kit 4x8GB
Hard drive: WD Re4 2TB Enterprise Hard Drive– 3.5"– SATA 3 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 64MB Cache (Refurbished) - RB-WD2003FYPS (probably not a refurbished one, just the one I clicked on first)
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sound Blaster ZxR Sound Card - 5.1 Channels, 24-bit, 192kHz, 124 dB, PCI Express, - 70SB151000000
Optical Drive: LG Super Multi Blue 16X SATA Internal Blu-Ray Burner OEM - 12x BD Read, 16x BD-R Write, Buffer: 4MB, 3D Support - WH16NS40
CPU fan: Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO Universal CPU Cooler - 120mm Fan With PWM, LGA 1366, 1156, 1155, 775, FM1, AM3+, AM3, AM2+, AM2 - RR-212E-20PK-R2
Additional fan:Thermaltake AF0060 DuraMax 12 Case Fan - 120mm, Dual Ball Bearing, 4-Pin

And I'm stuck between two graphic cards;
MSI AMD RADEON R9 295X2 GRAPHICS CARD - 8GB GDDR5, PCIe 3.0, DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.3, Liquid Cooling - R9 295X2 8GD5
or
Sapphire Radeon R9 290X Vapor-X Tri-X Video Graphics Card - Overclock, 8GB GDDR5, 512-Bit, HDMI, Display Port, 2x DL DVI-D, 1030MHz Core Clock, DirectX 12, DirectCompute, OpenGL 4.4 - 11226-11-40G

I would like to have two of the r9 295x2s mostly just for the heck of it, however being like $1300 a piece, I was looking at the r9 290Xs as a cheaper and maybe equivalent swap. Would 2 of the 290X cards be able to compete with 2 of the 295x2 or just one of them?

Also the power supply concerns me, since each of the 295s want 500watts each, along with everything else I wouldn't think a 1200watt could handle it, but it was the largest one I could find that was crossfire ready (not sure if it actually needs to be crossfire ready or not) and only on tigerdirect, if they have larger elsewhere and I need it I will buy it. Oh and also if it matters, it'll probably be running 24 hours a day, so I s'pose that might be a factor.

And another note about running 24/7 sufficient cooling? Should I look into definitely upgrading those fans that come with the case? Or should I just think about setting it up to be water cooled, if so what should I look at for that? Being as I am completely unaware of water cooling basics, I will need maximum advice for that bit. Or if there are other better cooling methods what do you suggest about those.

Also like a price range isn't necessarily something to worry about, just to clarify that again, I was going to begin saving for it anyway, I just want a basis to start from so I know when I have enough saved up to actually go out and get it.

 

[mas7873]

$3000-$4000? You can have one killer PC for the price! Usually AMD is used for budget build, and you could afford a 6-Core i7 at this budget. But if you're set on AMD for your reasons, you'll end up with a great build either way. I'll work on a part list now

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

You know there is a microcenter in the st louis area right? That's who i would deal with.

 

[mas7873]

And as for your GPU's I have 1 R9 290x and it performs awesome. 2x R9 290x's would be a great setup, in my opinion no need for 295's

 

[Vigge]

I did not know bout the st. Louis center, however that's a bit of a drive for me, so prolly not a feasible option. I figured the 295s would be extreme, especially two of them, however the monitor I was looking at is LG 34" Class UltraWide LED Monitor - WQHD, 3440 x 1440, 21:9, 1000:1, 5ms, HDMI, DisplayPort, ThunderBolt, Energy Saving - 34UM95-P and I wanted to make sure that I could easily run my games at max resolution without too bad of a drop in fps. That and I was thinking long term the 295s will be able to keep up longer with newer and more demanding games, otherwise just the 2 290Xs would be fine.

I know that amd is usually a budget build, however its what I have been using and I like it a lot, that and being as the console systems run amd I figured port overs would work better with less chance of glitches due to different hardware. That and I know more about amd parts then Intel xD

 

[mas7873]

Hey everyone's got their preferences I loved my 8350 and I love my 4690k both do great at what I throw at them. I'd go with the 2x 290s as I'm sure that'd run anything any ultra settings. You could then get top of the line parts for every other part

 

[Vigge]

Any idea how much better the 295 is compared to the 290 then? I looked at comparisons on gpuboss, but it wasn't very clear as to the actual performance difference. If its not that much different I'll definitely go with the 290s.

However the next issue would be cooling, the case I was looking at has 4 fans; 2 200mm intake fans on the front and side, spinning at about 600rpms; a rear 140mm exhaust at 1000rpms, and then the optional bottom intake which is the 120mm fan in the list, and it is 78cfm. Would these be enough to keep my system cool, or should I look at upgrading the fans that come with the case or just move over to a better cooling option?

 

[Vigge]

I just read that the msi 970 gaming motherboard might not be able to handle the 5GHz fx9590, but I also read elsewhere someone successfully overclocked it to 5.1GHz on the same mobo. Should I upgrade the motherboard to the MSI 990FXA-GD80V2 Motherboard - ATX, AM3, AMD 990FX+SB950, Phenom II, up to 5200MT/s, SATA III (6Gb/s), RAID, 8-CH Audio, Gigabit LAN, USB 3.0, SLI/CrossFireX which tomshardware says is better for it? And also looking at the specs of of the 990, it says its max supported cpu is the phenom II, isn't that going backwards from the fx processor?

 

[mas7873]

I'd recommend a 990FX motherboard personally, as for cooling 600rpm fans really isn't that fast as I have my 120mm fans running at more than double that speed. As long as you have a good CPU cooler your temps will be fine, as for fan setup you could run 2 front intake fans, 2 top exhaust fans and a rear exhaust fan as well as your CPU cooler. That always kept my temps down and had good airflow. The corsair SP120 fans are nice quality ones, I'm sure there's others but I've always liked my SP120's so haven't explored the fan world much.

As for GPU's the 290 will run any game at Ultra settings and get nice FPS, and if you plan on throwing a 2nd one in there it'll be way more than enough! I personally don't see the need for 295's, and it'll keep costs down.

 

[mdocod]

You can spend hundreds trying to overclock an FX 8 core to the tune of 300W and 5ghz, and still have less gaming performance than you would get from a stock clocked haswell E3/E5 or i7. The AM3+ platform is comparable in performance to a 3 generation old X58 platform build from Intel. The only possible way to arrive at the conclusion that an AM3+ build is the right choice at this budget is if the goal of the system is to build an AMD focused novelty with no real concern for resulting performance.

--------

Here's a very AMD-enthusiast build ($1000 worth of AMD GPUs) that doesn't drown those GPUs under a pathetic CPU. The i7 in the following build is seriously like twice the compute performance of an 8 core AMD when configured at similar clock speeds.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor ($389.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Phanteks PH-TC14PE_RD 78.1 CFM CPU Cooler ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: MSI X99S SLI Plus ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($215.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($249.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($219.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Se 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 290X 4GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (3-Way CrossFire) ($339.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 290X 4GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (3-Way CrossFire) ($339.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 290X 4GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (3-Way CrossFire) ($339.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Luxe ATX Full Tower Case ($149.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1300 G2 1300W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($178.33 @ Amazon)
Total: $2574.22
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-09 03:18 EST-0500

 

[Vigge]

I would have liked to have more fans, but without changing the case or adding appropriate holes to the chosen one I can't put that many in :/ and I figured the fans that come with the case would need upgraded, just didn't know if I could get away with not xD

As far as the parts though, mdocod, I understand that intel is currently better, but I feel amd might be moving on top soon with the consoles in their pocket, and that also being said, most games are designed for the console systems, so when they port it over to the pc I figure it'll be less glitch that way. anyway I'm pretty firm on using amd, though I will keep that build in mind for maybe a future project.

Edit:
I just was researching the 990fx mobo, and I read somewhere that it needs a bios update for it to work, do I need to do that manually, or should the board come with the update? And If I need to do it manually, how do I do that?

 

[mdocod]

Your assumption that the AMD consoles will have an impact on the way that games are ported and compiled to the desktop is based on false pretenses. Until AMD has an enthusiast class HSA enabled desktop platform, there is no place for a console optimized game to be ported to with hardware specific optimizations still in tact on any desktop hardware. AM3+ is not even remotely similar to the proprietary implementation of hardware found in a console. The ONLY thing about these platforms that is even remotely similar, is the superficial "core count" metric. You're letting intuition guide your hardware purchasing decision here. Unfortunately, intuition in this field is wrong about 99% of the time.

Please read my response in this other thread here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2471075/4460-290-tri.html#15013859

You're obviously not the first person to make the mistake of assuming that console ports will run better on AM3+. I guarantee it won't be the case.

 

[Vigge]

Well then I stand corrected on the port overs, but I still prefer to use the AMD pats

 

[Vigge]

I've picked out some fans, and was curious as to which I should go with, I've got 3 200 fan spots, 1 140 and 1 120 spot, the fans I picked are:
200mm;
Thermaltake 129cfm
Bitfenix 148cfm
Bgears 103cfm

140mm;
Aerocool 96cfm
Cougar 73/124cfm
Bitfenix 122cfm

120mm;
Thermaltake 78cfm
Bitfenix 70cfm]

On the 200s I know that the Bitfenix has better airflow, but isn't thermaltake supposed to be a good brand to go with?

And the 140s, bitfenix again is higher, but I am using aerocool currently and they work really well, but the cougar has the highest air flow, but it also has the lowest?

the 120s the thermaltake is higher this time, but if the bitfenix are a better fan parts, then should I not go with them?

Anyhow your guy's input would be very helpful as to which I should go with.