Choosing between rigs

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ChickenDog

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Feb 22, 2015
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I need to decide between two custom gaming rigs, I don't know too much about pcs, but I researched and put these custom rigs up. I'm going amd because of budget, otherwise I would choose intel because of their performance per core, but they cost a little too much, if anyone can build an intel build still in budget that would great. So anyways here are the builds so far, I would appreciate any help, if it is a good build I'm willing to go $500 max.

Amd Athlon 860k
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7XzzjX


Amd athlon 760k
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/vRbFqs
 
Solution
Poprin
If you have no interest in overclocking, then go Intel. I like AMD but I'm a hardware enthusiast. I can spend 3 weeks tinkering with a PC and about an hour playing a game. If you want a PC that you just put together, turn on and that's it go with an I3. If you can get the 4160, then you can get away with a much cheaper Mobo. You could just get the H81 chipset board and not worry too much about your selection.
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As a disclaimer I encourage you to go away and research this first, as in clearances for the cooler and the case you have chosen but I give you this build as a very quick example:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/qThRyc
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/qThRyc/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($73.78 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper TX3 54.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($17.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: MSI A88XM-E45 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($71.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($47.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R7 265 2GB Video Card ($129.99 @ Micro Center)
Case: Cougar Spike MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($29.99 @ Mwave)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($23.99 @ NCIX US)
Wireless Network Adapter: Rosewill RNX-N150UBE 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Wi-Fi Adapter ($11.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $462.49
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-22 21:32 EST-0500

This is taking your build and changing a few key things, I'll explain why. The 860k is generally a more efficient processor providing the same performance as the 760k so I would stick with that. With AMD you NEED a custom cooler, the ones that come as stock are at best noisy and inefficient at worst they will not cool the processor adequately even at stock speeds. You need to factor one of these into your budget. As for GPU if you are on a budget stick with AMD, the 750Ti is a great card but more for its power to punch ratio. The R9 270x is the sweet spot for 1080p 60hz gaming but on a budget the R7 260x's and the R7 265 are really corkers for the money. I have that particular card on a spare machine and for the money it's a superb card. Then the motherboard... AMD don't do microATX great, they leave out a particularly important thing called VRM heatsinks. Now on Intel, that's not as a big a problem IMO... on AMD to my mind it's a design flaw. The board I have selected is the cheapest board with VRM heatsinks and really you want the A88x chipset to allow you to get the most from the Athlon.
 
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The X4 and the Intel i3 are very comparable in terms of performance. The big difference is that the X4 is unlocked which means that you can overclock it, where the i3 cannot be overclocked. On a $500 budget you're limited to your budget, and you really can't go wrong with either processor. I guess the main question you should ask is do you want to overclock or do you not want to overclock? And alternately I'd suggest looking at the Intel Pentium G3258 for a more affordable Intel option on $500.
 
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Thank you guys so much for answering, but I've never built a pc and haven't a clue about overclocking, and idk which would be better, the 860k or an intel pentium build. I want to be able to play games like Dying light, Battlefield 4, and gta v at decent settings, and also some rendering. Because the laptop I have is not the best and is hardly able to play BO2 on low settings.
 
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If you have no interest in overclocking, then go Intel. I like AMD but I'm a hardware enthusiast. I can spend 3 weeks tinkering with a PC and about an hour playing a game. If you want a PC that you just put together, turn on and that's it go with an I3. If you can get the 4160, then you can get away with a much cheaper Mobo. You could just get the H81 chipset board and not worry too much about your selection.
 
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Solution
I personally don't rate the Pentium for gaming. I know it performs well now and overclocks like a beast but you need to buy a good board to take advantage of the overclock. Which then makes it's low price less attractive and you might as well buy an i3. So IMO the i3 is the way forward.

Don't go to the dark side, I was an xbox 360 gamer (after being a PC gamer for years) I thought it was the future... then I realised my limited edition star wars xbox 360 is worth about 2 pence and I have to spend another £350 to buy another xbox (one) that I can't play my library of 40 games on. PC gaming is the future and we must show people the light.
 
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I just didn't prefer the pentium because of the 2 cores and also like you said a more expensive motherboard, and I would need a $30 fan just to cool it. So the i3 is a little more convenient without all that oc, but I'm definitely going to upgrade to an i5 later. And I sold my xbox 360 a few years ago, but now I want to start playing some of the newer games as they seem more interesting. I knew consoles were not the best so I got a laptop, being as dumb as I was I thought it would perform better than the 360, next thing you know COD WAW plays at 20 fps on low settings, good memory to laugh back to, should have done research and got a desktop.
 
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Desktops all the way if you have the space, so much more flexible and cheaper.
 
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Out of curiosity what is it about the premise of an i3 that doesn't "satisfy"?

The i3 has about the same execution resources as the 860K (and actually has more execution resources than the 760K), they are quite comparable in terms of compute performance, but the i3 has a distinct advantage for gaming in this class of CPU; Any single thread can gain access to significantly more execution resources on the i3 than on the 860K or 760K. The result of this is better performance in most real-time workloads.

Just to clarify, I'm not some sort of Intel fanboy here. If it were me, I would go for the 860K and overclock it instead of the i3, but not because I think it is better. In fact, the i3 would be superior in most compute intensive games, but the 860K would be more fun for me to own simply because I like to do things differently for the sake of doing things differently. If you're not going to overclock the AMD option I'd say don't bother, go Intel.

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So, assuming you want to go AMD for the sake of it, I would highly recommend making some of the following changes and improvements to give the AMD option that best opportunity to perform well and be a reliable long lasting computer:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core OEM/Tray Processor ($79.99 @ Mwave)
CPU Cooler: Silverstone AR02 56.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($27.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A88X Extreme4+ ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($76.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($61.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Western Digital RE3 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($36.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Thermaltake Versa H23 ATX Mid Tower Case ($46.37 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Rosewill Capstone 450W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply ($59.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $539.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-23 01:20 EST-0500

CPU cooling + MOBO are selected to offer some overclocking headroom (should be able to do 4.4ghz +)

Memory is a dual channel dual rank kit for best possible performance in memory access intensive workloads.

Nvidia has a better DX11 implementation that runs better on AMD CPU's than AMD's DX11 implementation.

Cheap EVGA PSUs are made by HEC, not particularly great. The Rosewill capstone is a better quality PSU.

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Otherwise, go Intel i3... and while you're there...

Loose the EVGA PSU. (Go rosewill capstone, Seasonic G, Antec Tue Power, XFX, etc)

If you want a ~$50 motherboard, use the BIOSTAR Hi-Fi H81S2 instead, (that will require changing to an ATX case though).
 
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