Buying this TONIGHT; PLEASE HELP

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Boomer Jetson

Boomer Jetson

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Sep 1, 2010
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I am about to buy this build: 1st Build

My questions are...

1 - I am NOT going to overclock whatsoever, so is AMD still a good choice considering the upgradability and price per performance?

2 - I am going to be using this build to play games like StarCraft 2 and Total War: Rome II on my 40" 1080p Plasma TV; will it play these games and possibly future games at high frame rates?

3 - I have made this build on pcpartpicker.com; is this a safe site to purchase my parts through? And how reliable is it?

4 - Am I missing any details, parts, or anything in my build?

Thank you all for your help and feedback.
 
Solution
C
Your system might feel some drag in shader-heavy areas with games like Metro: Last Light or high particle areas in Crysis 3. The lowest FPS you might feel is down to 19fps. But that's still pretty smooth to the human eye, given that we view conventional motion picture films at 24fps.

If I was to make a personal judgement call on longevity until you would need some parts upgraded.. I'd say maybe 5 years tops until you experience any sort of warranted dissatisfaction with its performance. But that's a good 5 years. You'll be able to play games @ medium-high settings for god knows how long, so its really up to you. You should be able to enjoy the power of this build for a long while.

Performance isn't really too much of an issue once you...
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1. You have enough of a budget to go for an i5 instead of an FX-8320 which will be much better for gaming even if you overclock. If you don't overclock then the answer just gets even easier. Intel for sure.

2. They will play on ultra with 60+ fps

3. pcpartspicker just directs you to reputable sellers. They don't sell any parts themselves.

4. You have everything you need. Just change the CPU
 
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This is actually a nice build for and AMD based system. Look like you picked some fine parts, the prices seem normal as well.

Yes, it will perform above and beyond your expectations, it should run Crysis at max settings minus TXAA/ some anti-aliasing at a cool ~40 fps. As for longevity... Hmm, we can never know what developers will be coming up with next, especially with these new custom hardware consoles coming out like the PS4 and Xbox One. The demand will simply go up exponentially. for a $1k pc, you're deciding on a solid rig.

If you wanted to save a little more money and get a little more bang for your buck.. you can try to hop on Newegg and doing a separate purchase.. try to get the FX - 8350 (4Ghz) CPU bundled with a similar if not same Mobo. Newegg can shave off $20 from purchasing both together, and you could get a better CPU in that manner.

Also, looks like you might have to buy more storage space later.. but meh, I've been living off of one single 180GB laptop HDD + 500GB external HDD for a year now. It's not hard.
 
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Well, I normally would agree with you on this one, but seeing as he's trying to play SCII and Rome total war, he doesn't really need the i5 and a new mobo to match, it will only ring him up an additional $200...

From what it seems, he's not playing physics intensive games. So really, his GPU is going to do most of the gruntwork, and what should matter here is Texture, Shading, and Memory bandwidth. His build is good, and for the sake of saving money, this build would run well. Is it an i5? no, but absolute tip top premium performance isn't really in question here, is it?
 
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Your system might feel some drag in shader-heavy areas with games like Metro: Last Light or high particle areas in Crysis 3. The lowest FPS you might feel is down to 19fps. But that's still pretty smooth to the human eye, given that we view conventional motion picture films at 24fps.

If I was to make a personal judgement call on longevity until you would need some parts upgraded.. I'd say maybe 5 years tops until you experience any sort of warranted dissatisfaction with its performance. But that's a good 5 years. You'll be able to play games @ medium-high settings for god knows how long, so its really up to you. You should be able to enjoy the power of this build for a long while.

Performance isn't really too much of an issue once you get into this tier of computer performance, namely the "High End" gaming tier.

The real issues PC enthusiasts may pick at is your power consumption, heat dissipation, part reliability, bandwidth between CPU, RAM, GPU, and FSB, RAM timings, RAM clock speeds, etc.

Most of us "mortals" need not worry about such things. The build you drafted is a fine example of the fx 8350 drafted in a somewhat balanced manner. Have fun with it!
 
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Solution
If you're going with AMD to save money, then get a FX-6300. The way I see it, either get a FX-6300 or go for an i5 and skip the FX-8320 entirely. You're not going to be using the 2 extra cores that the FX-8320 offers anyways.
 
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Go with this, saves you money and is faster :)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($179.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI 970A-G46 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($79.98 @ Outlet PC)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($57.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($212.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card ($283.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Zalman Z5 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Microcenter)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX750B BRONZE 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($59.99 @ Microcenter)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($18.48 @ Outlet PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 Full (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Keyboard: Gear Head KB5150W Wireless Standard Keyboard w/Optical Mouse ($17.79 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $1051.17
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-09-08 21:37 EDT-0400)
 
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Well, guess he could do this, but why risk saving $100 and lose two cores and possibly throttle his GPU performance?

But if you're a penny pincher, there's always another thing you can do, right? :)
 
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RazerZ, the only things that I'm looking at possibly changing is the CPU, Video Card, and MOBO if it's Intel. Therefore, the only change you suggested is 8350 over my 8320. I don't see a reason to pay more for a slight boost, if any, if I don't want to overclock.
 
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woohoo, someone did it for me! yes, do this! do this! fx 8350 all the waaaaaay
 
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So, losing the two cores could throttle my GPU?
 
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Mmm, if you did not overclock both the i5 and the fx 8350, maybe. If you're talking about long term..

overclock the i5.. you'll be in a better state.
 
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Seriously though, I'm not going to be overclocking, so is it really a good choice to upgrade it to 8350?
 
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This is simply not true. Most games these days utilize 2 threads. Very few utilize 4 or even more. However of those that utilize many threads, most of the work is put onto 2 main processing threads. Thus the extra cores will make a marginal difference in your gaming performance even for the few multithreaded games. I doubt there would be any difference really.

Looking into the relevant future for your processor (2-3 years), games will continue to run off 2 threads and possible expand to 4. There is no need for a 8 core processor. This is especially true since games rely more on single core performance rather than number of cores.

This is why I say either get a $115 FX-6300 or a $190 i5. Getting a $160 FX-8320 makes no sense at all.
 
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Thank you refllect. That was a good explanation. So, I shall change the cpu to 4 cores then.
 
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You're welcome! The FX-6300 is actually a 6 core processor. It only costs $5-10 more than a FX-4300 4 core processor so I think it's worth it to get the 6 cores.
 
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Look a bit closer and you'll see there's a lot of stuff that changed 😉. I managed to get the total lower than yours, so why not? Also as future games come out the 8350 will come in handy :)

Also games are starting to move towards multi threads like crysis 3.. But if you play mostly mmorpgs I'd say go for the Fx 6300
 
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It does make sense actually, because you can't just assume he's only going to be playing a game when he's playing games.
If he decides to alt-tab and multitask and do something else while he's playing, maybe if he decides to record his gameplay with fraps, stream his gameplay on Twitch, etc. Then his PC will start to take a performance hit when he starts to do those things. His GPU will be waiting for the main threads on his CPU to clear up, which can lead to performance issues.

Why waste a marginal amount of cash on two whole physical cores? Cmon, why wouldn't you?

Even though I am in favor of adopting an i5 base for any gaming build over the FX 6k/8k series, because he does not want to overclock and wishes to keep a relatively low budget and get the bang for his buck, the 8350 would be the ideal way to go.
 
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As Razer stated, if you're only going to be playing mmo's or RTS games like SCII and Rome II.. You can get away with a 6 core CPU like the FX 6300. You won't feel the difference.

If later on you choose to try playing games with more physics, input operations, etc. Like Crysis 3 of BF4.. You might get some chokey chokey going on.

Simply looking ahead in the future, it would not hurt to go for the 8 core CPU over the 6 core CPU. Its money well spent, figuring there are other places to cut back on speditures like SSD selection or peripherals.
 
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