Budget gaming PC

[Sai Ram]

Guys I'm planning to build my first gaming PC. I wanna play games like GTA V, watch dogs 2, mirrors edge etc at very high/ultra settings. Would a Rx 480 4gb be sufficient for this?

This is my rig.
>- Processor - i5 6500
> - Motherboard - Gigabyte B150m
> - Graphics card- Sapphire Radeon NITRO+ RX 480 4GB
> - Monitor - Samsung Curved LC24F390FHWXXL (with freesync)
> - PSU. - Corsair vs650w
>-Ram. -Hyperx (2x8GB)

I've chosen a 4GB Rx 480 so that it'll come in the budget and I can crossfire it with another rx 480 of 4GB in future. And if the PSU is ive choose is enough for crossfire in the future. Thank you.

 

[timeconsumer]

You will encounter issues with trying to crossfire two 4gb GPUs. Remember that VRAM is not shared in Crossfire so you will have both GPUs trying to operate on 4gb of VRAM which will probably be insufficient for the amount of power you are trying to leverage. The 8gb is the better choice for that situation.

To further complicate it B150 doesn't have enough PCI-E lanes for effective crossfire. The first slot runs at x16 and the second at x4. You would want a Z170 board for x8/x8.

Finally your power supply isn't sufficient for Crossfire. Even for single GPU I would try for a higher quality 550w unit like the Corsair CXM, a Seasonic, or an XFX.

I really like your build, I just wouldn't plan to crossfire in the future, it's really not very cost effective. When you want more performance sell the RX 480 and buy a newer better GPU.

 

[Sai Ram]

You will encounter issues with trying to crossfire two 4gb GPUs. Remember that VRAM is not shared in Crossfire so you will have both GPUs trying to operate on 4gb of VRAM which will probably be insufficient for the amount of power you are trying to leverage. The 8gb is the better choice for that situation.

To further complicate it B150 doesn't have enough PCI-E lanes for effective crossfire. The first slot runs at x16 and the second at x4. You would want a Z170 board for x8/x8.

Finally your power supply isn't sufficient for Crossfire. Even for single GPU I would try for a higher quality 550w unit like the Corsair CXM, a Seasonic, or an XFX.

I really like your build, I just wouldn't plan to crossfire in the future, it's really not very cost effective. When you want more performance sell the RX 480 and buy a newer better GPU.

 

[Sai Ram]

You will encounter issues with trying to crossfire two 4gb GPUs. Remember that VRAM is not shared in Crossfire so you will have both GPUs trying to operate on 4gb of VRAM which will probably be insufficient for the amount of power you are trying to leverage. The 8gb is the better choice for that situation.

To further complicate it B150 doesn't have enough PCI-E lanes for effective crossfire. The first slot runs at x16 and the second at x4. You would want a Z170 board for x8/x8.

Finally your power supply isn't sufficient for Crossfire. Even for single GPU I would try for a higher quality 550w unit like the Corsair CXM, a Seasonic, or an XFX.

I really like your build, I just wouldn't plan to crossfire in the future, it's really not very cost effective. When you want more performance sell the RX 480 and buy a newer better GPU.

But Rx 480 4GB crossfire gives more performance than a single gtx 1080 on most of the games. Why wouldn't you suggest crossfire? And b150m supports crossfire right. As amd GPUs require only 4x lanes rather than 8x which are demanded by the nvidia GPUs. Plus there's freesync monitor(60hz) which will avoid screen tearing if I go for crossfire.
And what issues will arise if I go for crossfire.

 

[timeconsumer]

1) Every benchmark I've seen disputes this. Perhaps with perfect scaling in a DX12 game you could get equal performance to a 1080. But in DX11 and games with average to poor scaling the single GTX 1080 will perform much better.

2) 4gb vs 8gb in Crossfire you may be able to get away with it now. But I can only assume (given the amount you are spending) you are looking to drive 2k or 4k resolutions, and 4gb of VRAM will not last for long in AAA titles at that level. Use your discretion.

3) And finally in regards to the PCI-E lanes yes x4 is sufficient for many cards. But remember that the 4 lanes of the second PCI-E slot are not CPU direct lanes (of which all 16 are dedicated to the 1st slot). These are lanes from the Platform Controller Hub that go through the DMI bus to the CPU. I have seen zero benchmarks on how well those two different connections will perform in Crossfire and affect frame time, minimum frame rates, stuttering, etc. If you wish to spend your $200 testing it...

 

[madmatt30]

As someone who's has a decent crossfire setup foebthe last 3 years got to agree with time consumer.
When it works it works brilliantly that support it properly.
That's about 25% of the time though.l

You'll be kicking yourself with a title like fallout 4 that doesn't support dual gpu's & actually performs worse with crossfire enabled.

There's getting less & less support for dual GPU gaming nowadays , developers don't seem that interested in including it (a lot of extra work for them) & I expect that to carry on.

 

[Sai Ram]

So what you are telling is z170 is a better choice over b150m and instead of 4GB I gotta go with 8GB.

And I had read it in some article that b150m would be a good budget choice if you are looking forward to crossfire in future. Coz it only supports crossfire since 2 nvidia cards require 2 x8 lanes of PCI-E slots.

But most of the games in future are gonna be based on dx12 or vulkan right? So going for amd and particularly for crossfire, will be advantageous. Plus with a freesync monitor, it'll be the best choice.

 

[madmatt30]

No, b150m is absutely fine for a 6500 & a single 480.

Your title says 'budget gaming PC' so with that in mind just get the idea of dual gpu's out of your head .

For people with insane budgets , 4k screens & dual 1070s/1080s that's entirely their perogative if they want to spend $3k to push the performance in the few games that support sli properly.
For someone on a budget its just not that great an idea.

The 4gb is fine for 1080p at the moment , if you can afford an 8gb model yes it's certainly slightly better & offers more future proofing.
Whether it's worth the extra money is entirely up to you - personally I don't think it is unless you get a really good deal.

 

[Sai Ram]

No, b150m is absutely fine for a 6500 & a single 480.

Your title says 'budget gaming PC' so with that in mind just get the idea of dual gpu's out of your head .

For people with insane budgets , 4k screens & dual 1070s/1080s that's entirely their perogative if they want to spend $3k to push the performance in the few games that support sli properly.
For someone on a budget its just not that great an idea.

The 4gb is fine for 1080p at the moment , if you can afford an 8gb model yes it's certainly slightly better & offers more future proofing.
Whether it's worth the extra money is entirely up to you - personally I don't think it is unless you get a really good deal.

Thanks madmatt30. It helped me clear my mind. Waiting for timeconsumer's thoughts on this.

 

[timeconsumer]

My thoughts are that your build with a single RX 480 4gb is great for 1080p 60Hz and a really excellent value. If you are trying to run 1440p 60Hz then you would probably be better served with a GTX 1070. I would avoid multi GPU configs entirely as the support has been getting worse over the years.

 

[Sai Ram]

My thoughts are that your build with a single RX 480 4gb is great for 1080p 60Hz and a really excellent value. If you are trying to run 1440p 60Hz then you would probably be better served with a GTX 1070. I would avoid multi GPU configs entirely as the support has been getting worse over the years.

Thanks alot.