Build frustration. Expensive things come in small packages.

[JLawL]

About 3 weeks ago I had a friend give me a modded Silverstone TJ08-E matx case. Its airbrushed to a metallic grey violet, has perfect side panel cut out on the right side (the case opens on the right) 2 matching black handles,and has a 5.25" to 4x 2.5" adapter in the bottom 5.25" drive bay, as well as a temp gage / fan controller in the bottom 3.5" drive bay. A case worthy of photos lol.


Unfortunately, what my buddy does with a $100 case as a hobby doesn't fit well with what I can do as a student with a light wallet. I've only got about $650.00 to work with right now. I did manage to locate a dvd drive and a hard drive, so those are out of the way. The rest is up in the air. The last time I built a computer I was 16 and it was a Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz with a 128 mb video card. Was top of the line at the time lol.


Anyway, I'm open to suggestions. I don't know much about the newer AMD / Intel processors or the balance between them and the video cards as far as which one bottlenecks first. Just looking for something I can play games on when I'm not working on the computer.


Feel kinda dumb putting a $650.00 build in this case. Its probably worth about half that. I know the paint was $65.00 lol. But yea, I'd love to have a full system to take photos of and actually show off.

 

[andrewcarr]

Well it does perform better, and will perform at higher settings for a bit longer than the 7870, although 3 GB of video memory is beneficial for higher resolutions it's also a factor at higher settings (such as max AA). As newer games come out it should be able to better cope with that.

The 7950 will be able to match and possibly beat a stock 7970 when overclocked. Although not necessarily it's a nice addition, but if you'd prefer to step down to a 7870 and go a bit up to an i5 that would also be an option.

As for the motherboard, the one I listed is by no means bad, but there are better ones of course. It'll be just fine for overclocking.

 

[JLawL]

Alright, so I have basically everything ready to order. My friend made a point a few minutes ago that has me thinking again lol.

He said that if it were him, he would get an i3 processor - since its the same price and roughly same performance as an FX6300 - and a motherboard with the features I wanted. And that way if I chose to later I could put in an i5 or an i7 when they were cheaper, and get a drastic performance increase.

Versus the AM3+ motherboard, which although AMD is planning on keeping the AM3+ chipset for a while, doesn't have many features as AMD doesn't seem to have any decent / current AM3+ boards out for their newer stuff yet.



So now I think thats what I am going to do. I can get an i3 3220 with a discount from Newegg for $96.87 with shipping. Which would mean I can also keep the nicer video card and then in 6 months or whenever just swap the processor and still have a nice system.


Either way, will be a massive upgrade from what I'm used to. I had to play Skyrim on my PS3 because my computer couldn't handle it on lowest settings lol. So I'll be happy no matter what.

 

[andrewcarr]

Okay but I doubt you'll upgrade in the future, it's much better to just outright buy an i5 if that's what you really want. The new FX CPU's aren't awful and will do better in more heavily threaded workloads vs the i3. Also the next gen intel CPU's are getting a new socket so the best you could get would be an ivy bridge. Overclocked the FX would be better overall but the i3 could be upgraded to better, so you have to make a decision there. Best of luck though with whatever you chose and I don't think you'll be dissapointed either way.

 

[djangoringo]

Alright, so I have basically everything ready to order. My friend made a point a few minutes ago that has me thinking again lol.

He said that if it were him, he would get an i3 processor - since its the same price and roughly same performance as an FX6300 - and a motherboard with the features I wanted. And that way if I chose to later I could put in an i5 or an i7 when they were cheaper, and get a drastic performance increase.

Versus the AM3+ motherboard, which although AMD is planning on keeping the AM3+ chipset for a while, doesn't have many features as AMD doesn't seem to have any decent / current AM3+ boards out for their newer stuff yet.



So now I think thats what I am going to do. I can get an i3 3220 with a discount from Newegg for $96.87 with shipping. Which would mean I can also keep the nicer video card and then in 6 months or whenever just swap the processor and still have a nice system.


Either way, will be a massive upgrade from what I'm used to. I had to play Skyrim on my PS3 because my computer couldn't handle it on lowest settings lol. So I'll be happy no matter what.

It doesn't make sense, you can have the i5-3470 right now, it fits the budget, why pay 100$ now for a dual core and 200$ later for the same i5 ?
There's no more cpus that will be released for lga 1155, so its best to get the i5 now, also you a 660 ti will do for 1080p just fine.
You'll have a well balanced pc.

 

[JLawL]

No I said that backwards I guess. He said that if I got the i3 I could upgrade to an i5, but I knew the line ended with 1155s. Where as the FX would let me upgrade to a totally new chip since it was staying on AM3+ lol.


Either way doesn't matter now, Amazon screwed up my order and I couldn't cancel, the support rep I spoke to said "oh just refuse the package and we'll refund in 5-7 business days" ok cool, so I wait 5-8 business days for the package, refuse it, wait 5-7 more, then order and wait 5-8 more. Fantastic. So yea. Pretty much put off and may not even build one now. Might just go buy myself a tv -,-