FX-8120 good for multi-tasking & non-gaming needs?

[zenrunner92]

Am looking at this DIY package offered today, what do you guys think:

http://dealnews.com/AMD-8-Core-3.1-GHz-Barebones-PC-for-350-after-rebates-11-s-h/578591.html

Price is attractive. Would be adding an SSD for the boot drive, and probably upgrading to 8GB of memory.

I do zero gaming or video editing. Just lots of multi-tasking: up to 100 Chrome tabs open at one time along with Office, Skype, Pandora, maybe uTorrent as well...want maximum stability and snappiness in that capacity.

Not sure about the MSI mobo though, would prefer an Asus mobo.

Will run Windows 7 HP 64bit, and dual boot with Ubuntu.

 

[Uther39]

Am looking at this DIY package offered today, what do you guys think:

http://dealnews.com/AMD-8-Core-3.1-GHz-Barebones-PC-for-350-after-rebates-11-s-h/578591.html

Price is attractive. Would be adding an SSD for the boot drive, and probably upgrading to 8GB of memory.

I do zero gaming or video editing. Just lots of multi-tasking: up to 100 Chrome tabs open at one time along with Office, Skype, Pandora, maybe uTorrent as well...want maximum stability and snappiness in that capacity.

Not sure about the MSI mobo though, would prefer an Asus mobo.

Will run Windows 7 HP 64bit, and dual boot with Ubuntu.

Thats a very good deal, and MSI make good quality mobos, so no worrys there.

 

[geekapproved]

Looks good!

 

[zenrunner92]

thanks for the feedback.

btw, is soldering still required in today's DIY packages? A friend said that the parts just snap together, and that unless you are overclocking or doing something else super intensive like that, even thermal paste is no longer required. Sounds a bit too good to be true, but as a first-timer I'd be eager to keep it as simple as possible.

 

[Blahman11]

Nope there's no soldering whatsoever now. I think soldering's before my generation :L. You need thermal paste to attach the heatsink to the cpu but if that's already attached then you don't need to worry about that. Also most heatsinks have their own thermal paste pad applied its not too bad a thermal compound. The deal is very good I'd go for it.

 

[Uther39]

Yep, no soldering required, and the AMD cpu cooler already has the thermal compuond pre-applied.

 

[zenrunner92]

thanks guys...last question: would a NON-gamer like myself see any noticeable difference going with something like an i5-2400 or even an i3-2120? I know the Intel CPUs are usually faster on paper, but not clear how noticeable it is in real-world performance for someone with my very mundane applications. Probably the most graphics-intensive thing I do is 1080p video watching (not streaming) and rudimentary photo editing using freeware like IrfanView.

 

[Uther39]

thanks guys...last question: would a NON-gamer like myself see any noticeable difference going with something like an i5-2400 or even an i3-2120? I know the Intel CPUs are usually faster on paper, but not clear how noticeable it is in real-world performance for someone with my very mundane applications. Probably the most graphics-intensive thing I do is 1080p video watching (not streaming) and rudimentary photo editing using freeware like IrfanView.

For multitasking the FX8120 is the better CPU

 

[zenrunner92]

For multitasking the FX8120 is the better CPU

ok, thanks---I had a feeling that # of cores is more important than processing speed for multi-tasking usage.


The only small thing that I didn't like about this system is the motherboard seems to be Sata II not III --- but I've heard some people say that for most applications that would never make any difference with an SSD. True?

 

[Supernova1138]

For most SSDs SATA II does not really impact real world performance. Your SSD will likely benchmark lower than if it was on SATA III, but most OS and application operations do not require a huge amounts of bandwidth, and won't suffer from having a lower theoretical maximum read/write speed due to having 3Gbps bandwidth rather than 6Gbps bandwidth.

I have a SATA III SSD on a SATA II port myself, and it is quite fast loading windows and programs installed on the SSD, I don't see SATA III offering any real noticeable boost, maybe half a second faster under certain circumstances.