Budget Mid-end system.

[Andreas Mellis]

Hello everyone, a friend who is going to study abroad recently asked me to build him a PC to take with him. Obviously he is kinda low on money so his budget is about 400-550€ without the case and the monitor. I have found some components that might do the job for him but i need some tips.

First of all, for the CPU i chose is the AMD FX-8350, mainly cause some of my friends recommended it and the price is kinda low, although i am wondering if the i3-6100 would make any difference since it is about 40€ cheaper.

Now for the GPU i went for the RX 480 8GB which is an overkill i believe since he only plays League of Legends and some Cod 4 occasionally, when i asked him what games he wanted to play the answer i got is: "i want it to run Gta V on high" so i guess he wants it to handle some modern AAA titles on medium to high settings.

I do have some HDDs to give him, so storage won't be a problem except if i have the chance to get him an SSD, in that case i'm probably going to get a Samsung 750 Evo 120GB. The MOBO will be a Gigabyte 970A-DS3P if i decide to keep the FX-8350 but if the CPU changes the board will obviously have to follow along.

I haven't searched for a PSU yet but i'm pretty sure i can find a tier 2-3 one in a good price.

Thank you for reading my long and boring thread any suggestions and improvements will be highly appreciated.

EDIT: 1 EUR = 1.12 USD so you don't really need to worry about that.

EDIT 2: Totally forgot about RAM. I've got a spare Transcend DDR2 4GB stick and two Mushkin DDR3 4GB sticks, i'm currently looking for some better ones.

 

[Corwin65]

If you can do it, go with the i3. He will be able to swap it out down the road with a better one if needed.

 

[James Mason]

the thing is, an fx 8350 is basically the best CPU you can put in that motherboard, but it performs worse in games compared to the i3-6100 which is kind of the entry level CPU for intel skylake motherboards.

DDR2 ram is dead, DDR3 isn't dead but it's not modern anymore.

480 is kind of overkill for what he wants a 470 is more up his alley and better fits the budget.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor (€118.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: ASRock H110M-DGS Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (€55.49 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (€35.98 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: A-Data Premier SP550 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€40.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: HIS Radeon RX 470 4GB IceQ X2 Turbo Video Card (€207.89 @ Mindfactory)
Power Supply: XFX TS 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (€46.84 @ Mindfactory)
Total: €506.08
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-08-30 20:08 CEST+0200

 

[Andreas Mellis]

the thing is, an fx 8350 is basically the best CPU you can put in that motherboard, but it performs worse in games compared to the i3-6100 which is kind of the entry level CPU for intel skylake motherboards.

DDR2 ram is dead, DDR3 isn't dead but it's not modern anymore.

480 is kind of overkill for what he wants a 470 is more up his alley and better fits the budget.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor (€118.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: ASRock H110M-DGS Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (€55.49 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (€35.98 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: A-Data Premier SP550 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€40.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: HIS Radeon RX 470 4GB IceQ X2 Turbo Video Card (€207.89 @ Mindfactory)
Power Supply: XFX TS 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (€46.84 @ Mindfactory)
Total: €506.08
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-08-30 20:08 CEST+0200

Thanks for the build, but why does the i3 perform better?

 

[Corwin65]

Better instructions per cycle.

 

[James Mason]

Thanks for the build, but why does the i3 perform better?

A lot of complicated reasons.

Think of it as like, the size of train cars. Intel's train cars can carry 30% more passengers per car compared to AMDs train cars. (Instructions per clock, a hidden spec left off of all spec sheets.) A clock (i.e. a mhz/ghz) is the time it takes the train to reach the next station, or maybe how many stations a train can reach in a day or something. So even if AMD has a higher clock than an Intel, the Intel is still getting more work done.

 

[Corwin65]

Thanks for the build, but why does the i3 perform better?

A lot of complicated reasons.

Think of it as like, the size of train cars. Intel's train cars can carry 30% more passengers per car compared to AMDs train cars. (Instructions per clock, a hidden spec left off of all spec sheets.) A clock (i.e. a mhz/ghz) is the time it takes the train to reach the next station, or maybe how many stations a train can reach in a day or something. So even if AMD has a higher clock than an Intel, the Intel is still getting more work done.

I have to thank you for that awesome explanation. Mind if I (i'm gonna anyway) steal it when I have to explain it in the future?

 

[James Mason]

Thanks for the build, but why does the i3 perform better?

A lot of complicated reasons.

Think of it as like, the size of train cars. Intel's train cars can carry 30% more passengers per car compared to AMDs train cars. (Instructions per clock, a hidden spec left off of all spec sheets.) A clock (i.e. a mhz/ghz) is the time it takes the train to reach the next station, or maybe how many stations a train can reach in a day or something. So even if AMD has a higher clock than an Intel, the Intel is still getting more work done.

I have to thank you for that awesome explanation. Mind if I (i'm gonna anyway) steal it when I have to explain it in the future?

It's not one of my best, but if you want.

another easy explanation:

CPU Cores = Car wheels. If you only need a motorcycle to get to work, you only need 2 cores/wheels. If you're transporting heavy cargo, you need an 8 wheeler/cores. In certain cases a mototrcycle is faster than a 4 wheeled car, and a race car is gonna be fastest. But all these vehicles no matter the type still need to be moving the right type of cargo to perform correctly.