Final Post About my Build Upgrade, need serious advice

[Taafe]

So I'm upgrading my computer in August.

I've been stuck between an i5 and an AMD FX 8350

So this is the last post I'll make about the upgrade.

I have a budget of a strict £450

What I want/need

CPU
Motherboard
RAM
PSU (Semi-Modular if possible)
Case (Optional)
New HDD (Optional)

And a nice backlit keyboard (also optional)

What my computer will be for:

Gaming (Obviously)
Recording
Photoshop
After Effects
Video Editing (Nothing major)

What games I would like to play:

Watch Dogs
GTA V (When it comes out)
Battlefield 4
Euro Truck Simulator 2
Garry's Mod
Star Citizen

My current specs:

AMD Athlon x4 760k
MSI A78M-E35
4GB Corsair Value 1333Mhz RAM
MSI Radeon R9 270 2GB Gaming Edition
500w EVGA 80+ PSU (Non Modular)
500GB Basic HDD @ 7200RPM
Zalman Z3 Plus MidTower Case

 

[Taafe]

If you want a chip that is around as fast as a stock i7 and is drawing 300w of power, feel free to overclock your 8350. you'll be a budgeting wizard. until your power bill comes in. 😛

If that's the case, there is an argument to be made for something like an FX-8120 and a nice watercooling (or big dual heatsink dual fan) setup. The 8120's tend to have a similar headroom to the 8350's, from what i've heard, and you can save a little cash that way. But again, overclocked FX series chips are seriously topping out around 300w peak power draw.

"Until you power bill comes in" What a £10 increase a year? Don't make me laugh.

I can confess complete ignorance of UK power rates, but assuming 4 hours of heavy use a day (conservative for me), we're talking about $50-80/yr where I live (assuming http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx8350-fx8320-fx6300-and-fx4300-tested/8 holds true)

I have my PC on 24/7 😛 We probably spend about £30-40 a week or so on power.

 

[blue17echo]

What made you switch, blackbird? I'm currently actually running an 8350 as well. I like the chip fine, I just wish there was room to really upgrade on the AM3+ platform (not that I need a CPU upgrade right now)

The 8350 is totally capable of pulling 300w at peak. Read the article I linked.

Nevermind the article...I actually own one! LOL. Mine is OC'd to 4.5GHz and according to H/W Monitor the peak watts is around 47 watts. 300 watts is a total system draw, not just the CPU.

software wattage calculation is probably less reliable than a fairly reputable reviewing website running an article. But either way, you're probably not seeing reliable throttling on your CPU in most games. I would say get the i5 for more upgrade room and the certainty that you will see at least another 2 years of LGA 1150 upgrades to pick from for the future. At best, there is serious uncertainty about the future of the FX line and the AM3+ socket.

 

[kira70591]

http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=809&f1=&f2=&f3=&f4=&f5=&f6=&f7=&f8=&f9=&f10=&f11=&f12=

AMDs own website has it listed at 125w. I could definitely see it pulling over 200 when the voltages are raised to give it a good OC.

I have personally seen H/W Monitor be waaay off with its watt measurement. This is where a multimeter comes in nice so that you can see the real amount of watts that you are pulling.

Haswell introduced nice new C steps that allow it to idle at extremely low wattage draw. This is great for machines that are left on 24/7.

The fact of the matter is that most benchmarks have proven that Intel trounces AMD on most editing / producing software. Programs that are more geared towards single thread performance is where AMD normally catches up as most of them have a higher clock rate per core.

OP: There is nothing wrong with AMD if you want to save some money but if you are going to be using your machine for creating anything that will earn you a living, you will want to go with Intel. Time is money and even if you only save a couple of seconds, those seconds add up to be quite a bit over the life of your machine.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

I agree HWMonitor is junk.

 

[Taafe]

Agreed, considering it gave me false temps 😀

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

It's rarely accurate , HWINFO is not too bad.

 

[Taafe]

So yeah I've decided just to stick with an 8350, can you recommend a decent motherboard + RAM?

 

[kira70591]

I would recommend G. Skill RipJaws X 1600 - (whatever frequency you want) memory. I have had absolutely zero problems with G. Skill in all of my builds and they have all ran at the listed speeds. I have had a stick come DOA before and with one call had it replaced with no problem. Some of the best customer service that I have ever received.

 

[Taafe]

Quick question guys, would getting a nice 60GB SSD for my OS only be alright? I'll probably get another 1tb HDD too

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

60 is a waste , with the prices out there dropping get a 120 minimum.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Storage: Crucial MX100 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($74.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $74.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-07-23 18:31 EDT-0400

 

[Taafe]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-Technology-120GB-Solid-2-5-inch/dp/B00A1ZTZOG/ref=sr_1_19?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1406154778&sr=1-19&keywords=SSD

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Exactly nice find.

 

[Taafe]

Any good motherboards for around £80-£100?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Good fit for 8350.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Motherboard: Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£106.49 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £106.49
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-07-23 23:37 BST+0100

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Or a great combo.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£62.96 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£62.40 @ Kustom PCs)
Total: £125.36
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-07-23 23:39 BST+0100

 

[Taafe]

Will the second option be okay for a small overclock?

 

[Taafe]

http://puu.sh/aojAM/e2a0ac5111.png

 

[kira70591]

Good choice on cooler. I love my CM 212 Evo. I was going to get a Noctua DH-14 but I tried out the CM and it has been fantastic so far.

 

[Taafe]

How does it look?

 

[kira70591]

Looks great, but if your case and memory sockets have the clearance, I would go with the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo and save yourself a couple of bucks.

 

[Taafe]

I currently have a Zalman Z3 Plus but I'm hoping to upgrade to either a Zalman Z11 Plus or a Bitfenix Shinobi in a few months

I've been told to go with the Noctua due to it's amazing cooling 😛

 

[kira70591]

The Evo has one of the best cooling / price ratio out of heatsinks. I have OCd pretty well using it. Noctua fans are some of the best due to their noise level / cooling ratio. Corsair makes some great fans such as the SP120 Quiet Editions.

You could always use the saved money to go towards a video card upgrade. Either way they are both great coolers and you could always go with the one that you like the looks of more as they both have great performance.

I would also recommend using a Corsair case such as the Carbide 400r. I have used a lot of the cases out of the Corsair lineup and each of them has had a great feature set and have been extremely durable.

 

[Taafe]

My R9 270 will do me til next year hopefully then I'll probably move onto a 280x

 

[blue17echo]

for what it's worth, the FX-8350/Sabertooth cpu/mobo combo is what I have in my build right now, and when I have dabbled with overclocking it has certainly not let me down (although I won't be doing any of that until I replace my shitty cheapass 550w CM eXtreme power with a better PSU in September)

Also next year the 8 series nVidia chips should be kicking around, and maybe Tonga? who knows!

 

[Saumya Dudeja]

So yeah I've decided just to stick with an 8350, can you recommend a decent motherboard + RAM?

Hey man
Not meant to crash your dreams but I recently saw the thread , if you use your PC for like 10-12 hours daily , don't ever buy an amd CPU , not because of heat , but because of power consumption, I was also kinda fanboy of the amd processors and bought them , so my net speed was slow , like 2-4 mbps and I left for downloading 5-7 days overnight.....and now my father received the bill..it usually came $30-35 here in India , and look what we have , a whooping $95!