AMD build, is it good?

[TheCrayonMan529]

Approximate Purchase Date: Tonight

Budget Range: $930 Before Rebates and no more than that.

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming and internet use.

Parts Not Required: Mouse and speakers.

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg USA

Country: America. Phoenix, AZ.

Parts Preferences: Doesn't matter.

Overclocking: No

SLI or Crossfire: No

Monitor Resolution: 1080p

Additional Comments: I am building a $900-$930 computer for my roommate. Can you tell me if it is a good build? Also I don't know what CPU to get. A Phenom II X4 960T Zosma or a FX-4100 Zambezi. This is also without combo deals.



Tower: Antec 900 He picked it out. $99.99

MOBO: MSI 870A-G54 (FX) AM3+ AMD 870 $89.99

GPU: HIS Radeon HD 6850 1GB $139.99

PSU: Corsair Builder Series CX500 V2 500W $59.99

CPU: AMD FX-4100 Zambezi 3.6GHz $109.99
OR
AMD Phenom II X4 960T Zosma $124.99

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) $29.99

Harddrive: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500 GB $89.99

Monitor: ASUS VH236H Black 23" 2ms Full HD Widescreen LCD Monitor $169.99

DVD Drive: ASUS 24X DVD Burner $19.99

Windows 7 OEM $99.99

Keyboard: LITE-ON SK-1688U/B $7.99


Comes out to be $917.89 with FX-4100 Zambezi and $932.89 with the 960t Zosma.

I also read the 960t can be unlocked to be 6 cores. Is it worth it???

 

[TheCrayonMan529]

Bump please

 

[whoareyou1982]

My 2 cents: The FX series is worthless for gaming. Check out the recent article on Tom's about picking out a sub $200 CPU. Seen benchmarks all over the net with similar results. If you really want an AMD build, stick with the Phenoms. Other than that looks like a pretty solid budget build, though I'm not quite in the loop regarding AMD motherboards anymore.

 

[manu 11]

get i3 2120 and a nice z68 or h67 mobo, its much better for gaming,bump some budget and get a 6870, really worth it, get the nzxt source case to save some bucks, its a nice case, you simply dont need the antec 900
nzxt source 210 elite
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146076 40$

 

[ScrewySqrl]

I'll second an intel chip.. AMD no longer has anything that competes at any price point except APUs for basic home/office/htpc use.

 

[vitornob]

Do a favor to yourself and grab an i5-2400 or an i5-2500k.

An article to inspire you: Picking A Sub-$200 Gaming CPU: FX, An APU, Or A Pentium?

 

[PurpleHayes]

For starters: The FX-4100 isn't really a quad-core; because each core shares its floating-point logic circuits with another core, it acts like a dual-core with HyperThreading. As a result, it won't perform as well as the 960T; checking the chart, the 960T is most similar to the 955BE, which outperforms all the FX chips. Get the 960T if you go AMD.

As the chart also shows, Intel's i3-2100 will handily outperform any AMD chip; one very important chart shows that Skyrim at its most extreme settings (Ultra, 8xAA, etc etc) on a 1920x1080 screen is just barely playable by an i3-2100, but doesn't reach 30 FPS min. by the 955BE. Also, you'll be able to upgrade to Ivy Bridge if you go Intel

Here's my attempted build; it uses combos (not using them is just downright masochistic), but I tried to stick to your (very good) parts choices:

CPU+DVD: i3-2100+Your DVD Burner-$137.98

Mobo:ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3-$109.99; This is a high-quality motherboard that you won't need to replace for a while.

GPU+RAM: HIS Radeon HD 6850 + 8GB RAM-$168.98; This costs exactly the same as your GPU and RAM selections($1 less 😛 ), but gives you 8GB of RAM that's also clocked higher

PSU+HDD: Your PSU+Your HDD-$129.98; This is why combos at Newegg are sweet. This gets you your original selections (nice picks btw), but also $20 off.

Case, Monitor, Win7, and Keyboard are all from your choices, which brings the total to $924.89 before shipping and rebates This is just an idea, but it will outperform the AMD build at a similar price. It gets you an i3, which can be upgraded when Ivy Bridge comes out, and 8GB of faster RAM for a similar price. Best of luck!

 

[whoareyou1982]

For starters: The FX-4100 isn't really a quad-core; because each core shares its floating-point logic circuits with another core, it acts like a dual-core with HyperThreading. As a result, it won't perform as well as the 960T; checking the chart, the 960T is most similar to the 955BE, which outperforms all the FX chips. Get the 960T if you go AMD.

As the chart also shows, Intel's i3-2100 will handily outperform any AMD chip; one very important chart shows that Skyrim at its most extreme settings (Ultra, 8xAA, etc etc) on a 1920x1080 screen is just barely playable by an i3-2100, but doesn't reach 30 FPS min. by the 955BE. Also, you'll be able to upgrade to Ivy Bridge if you go Intel

Here's my attempted build; it uses combos (not using them is just downright masochistic), but I tried to stick to your (very good) parts choices:

CPU+DVD: i3-2100+Your DVD Burner-$137.98

Mobo:ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3-$109.99; This is a high-quality motherboard that you won't need to replace for a while.

GPU+RAM: HIS Radeon HD 6850 + 8GB RAM-$168.98; This costs exactly the same as your GPU and RAM selections($1 less 😛 ), but gives you 8GB of RAM that's also clocked higher

PSU+HDD: Your PSU+Your HDD-$129.98; This is why combos at Newegg are sweet. This gets you your original selections (nice picks btw), but also $20 off.

Case, Monitor, Win7, and Keyboard are all from your choices, which brings the total to $924.89 before shipping and rebates This is just an idea, but it will outperform the AMD build at a similar price. It gets you an i3, which can be upgraded when Ivy Bridge comes out, and 8GB of faster RAM for a similar price. Best of luck!

Nice work there. I second that nomination.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

I like that build as well, but would recommend an i5-2400 (or the new i5-2380P)

 

[Luckster]

For starters: The FX-4100 isn't really a quad-core; because each core shares its floating-point logic circuits with another core, it acts like a dual-core with HyperThreading. As a result, it won't perform as well as the 960T; checking the chart, the 960T is most similar to the 955BE, which outperforms all the FX chips. Get the 960T if you go AMD.

As the chart also shows, Intel's i3-2100 will handily outperform any AMD chip; one very important chart shows that Skyrim at its most extreme settings (Ultra, 8xAA, etc etc) on a 1920x1080 screen is just barely playable by an i3-2100, but doesn't reach 30 FPS min. by the 955BE. Also, you'll be able to upgrade to Ivy Bridge if you go Intel

Here's my attempted build; it uses combos (not using them is just downright masochistic), but I tried to stick to your (very good) parts choices:

CPU+DVD: i3-2100+Your DVD Burner-$137.98

Mobo:ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3-$109.99; This is a high-quality motherboard that you won't need to replace for a while.

GPU+RAM: HIS Radeon HD 6850 + 8GB RAM-$168.98; This costs exactly the same as your GPU and RAM selections($1 less 😛 ), but gives you 8GB of RAM that's also clocked higher

PSU+HDD: Your PSU+Your HDD-$129.98; This is why combos at Newegg are sweet. This gets you your original selections (nice picks btw), but also $20 off.

Case, Monitor, Win7, and Keyboard are all from your choices, which brings the total to $924.89 before shipping and rebates This is just an idea, but it will outperform the AMD build at a similar price. It gets you an i3, which can be upgraded when Ivy Bridge comes out, and 8GB of faster RAM for a similar price. Best of luck!

This guy is amazing ^

 

[whoareyou1982]

That would be nice, but would put him over budget without tweaking the rest of the build. If he could squeak out another 65 bucks it would be a worthwhile investment.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

about half that $65 difference could come from swapping the $169 Asus 23" monitor for the $139 Acer 23" monitor