[SOLVED] Help me settle a whos build is better

[garyisbinary]

Me and a friend did a build contest to see who could build a better $800 Budget system. the builds are somewhat similar except for a few parts including the amount of RAM. The goal was to get a build good for everything (Gaming, Everyday use, Workstation) these were the builds:

My Build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/3PPHD2
Friends Build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/d7Kgmq

Whos is better for all around?

 

[SgtScream]

Your build is better. Ditch the noctua as the stock cooler is more than adequate use the savings to purchase a RX 580 8gb.
Unless you are doing content creation drop to 16gb of system memory and go with a B450 motherboard with a R7 2700(x).

 

[jeremyj_83]

Overall yours is a little more balanced. However, you could have cut your RAM in half and put the added savings towards a better GPU, PSU, and larger SSD.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Your build is better. Ditch the noctua as the stock cooler is more than adequate use the savings to purchase a RX 580 8gb.

1700X doesn't come with a cooler.

 

[garyisbinary]

Overall yours is a little more balanced. However, you could have cut your RAM in half and put the added savings towards a better GPU, PSU, and larger SSD.

My friend is under the impression his 8GB is more than enough for today's AAA titles with no bottlenecking to his other parts. Im sure 16GB is fine as you stated but any thought on 8GB?

 

[SgtScream]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 2700 3.2 GHz 8-Core Processor ($259.00 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock - B450 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($93.88 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($130.88 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Samsung - 860 Evo 250 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($52.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: XFX - Radeon RX 580 8 GB GTS XXX ED Video Card ($189.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Phanteks - Eclipse P300 Tempered Glass (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - 520 W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $800.73
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-12-19 11:44 EST-0500

 

[jeremyj_83]

Overall yours is a little more balanced. However, you could have cut your RAM in half and put the added savings towards a better GPU, PSU, and larger SSD.

My friend is under the impression his 8GB is more than enough for today's AAA titles with no bottlenecking to his other parts. Im sure 16GB is fine as you stated but any thought on 8GB?

8GB is the minimum right now for any system. For future use I recommend 16GB,

 

[SgtScream]

Triple A titles definitely use more than 8gb of system memory.

 

[garyisbinary]

Overall yours is a little more balanced. However, you could have cut your RAM in half and put the added savings towards a better GPU, PSU, and larger SSD.

My friend is under the impression his 8GB is more than enough for today's AAA titles with no bottlenecking to his other parts. Im sure 16GB is fine as you stated but any thought on 8GB?

8GB is the minimum right now for any system. For future use I recommend 16GB,

Wouldn't 8GB RAM bottleneck most titles now though?

 

[jankerson]

Overall yours is a little more balanced. However, you could have cut your RAM in half and put the added savings towards a better GPU, PSU, and larger SSD.

My friend is under the impression his 8GB is more than enough for today's AAA titles with no bottlenecking to his other parts. Im sure 16GB is fine as you stated but any thought on 8GB?

Single channel takes a serious performance hit in games, should be dual channel 2x 4GB.

However ideally should be 16 GB of ram in dual channel, 2x 8 GB.

32 GB is overkill and not needed.

 

[jwcrellin]

Overall yours is a little more balanced. However, you could have cut your RAM in half and put the added savings towards a better GPU, PSU, and larger SSD.

My friend is under the impression his 8GB is more than enough for today's AAA titles with no bottlenecking to his other parts. Im sure 16GB is fine as you stated but any thought on 8GB?

Technically 8gb is enough if you are not useing any other programs at the same time. For example, I ocassionally pop the game into windowed mode and look for something on the interweb if i'm stuck and don't know the strategy to get past a boss. Some games have mods you can aply to get better texture detail and other stuff but all that eats up memory.

Bottom line, 16gb is preferred.

 

[J_E_D_70]

8GB is flat out not enough. Depending on settings, Battlefield V will show stuttering with only 8GB.

 

[King_V]

I am not quite sure which is better overall . . what is the refresh rate and resolution of the monitor that the PC is going to connect to, and is that monitor FreeSync or GSync (or neither?)

There are some changes I'd make to both of them.

Changes to both:
- The Ryzen CPU and the Intel non-K CPU both come with coolers. The stock coolers should be more than sufficient to the task. Getting an aftermarket cooler isn't necessary. EDIT: the Ryzen 1700X and 1800X do NOT come with a cooler, my bad
- Insufficient storage. Get at least 500GB.


Changes to Ryzen:
- the video card is weaker than that of the Intel build. An RX 580 8GB would be the way to go. Also, the Armor cooler is not that great, though Armor2 is pretty good from what I read.. IF you're sticking with MSI.
- FAR more RAM than necessary. Go with 2x8GB instead.
- the RAM selected is SLOW, and Ryzen gains FAR more from faster RAM. Go with 3000Mhz or faster RAM

Changes to Intel:
- the Intel does not need RAM that fast, as Intel sees little benefit from faster RAM.
- the Intel build has only 8GB, and further, only one stick, so that's forcing single-channel only use - go with 2x4GB or, to have closer parity to the Ryzen system, 2x8GB
- going with NVMe is a bit of overkill, as with most consumer workloads, you'll never see the benefits of the NVMe's theoretical higher throughput. EDIT: Go with a SATA SSD unless the NVMe can be had for about the same price as the SATA version.

 

[WildCard999]

Not as many MIR's but the base total is less.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor ($164.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($73.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team - Vulcan 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($109.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Crucial - MX500 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($64.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Zotac - GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB Mini Video Card ($329.99 @ B&H)
Case: Fractal Design - Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($43.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - 520 W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $822.81
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-12-19 11:53 EST-0500

 

[g-unit1111]

Overall yours is a little more balanced. However, you could have cut your RAM in half and put the added savings towards a better GPU, PSU, and larger SSD.

My friend is under the impression his 8GB is more than enough for today's AAA titles with no bottlenecking to his other parts. Im sure 16GB is fine as you stated but any thought on 8GB?

Depends on the card. Right now the RX580 is a decent performer but it is starting to show its' age. The newer card while it may have less VRAM still has the better processor and in that regard the 1060 will win.

Both of those rigs are decent and there is definitely a way to make a combination of the two without losing performance:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor ($164.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus - PRIME B450-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard ($104.71 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial - MX300 525 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($128.90 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($44.85 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6 GB GAMING Video Card ($259.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Phanteks - ECLIPSE P400S TEMPERED GLASS ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($79.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $1003.41
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-12-19 12:36 EST-0500

That's how I would spend $1,000 on a PC anyway.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Overall yours is a little more balanced. However, you could have cut your RAM in half and put the added savings towards a better GPU, PSU, and larger SSD.

My friend is under the impression his 8GB is more than enough for today's AAA titles with no bottlenecking to his other parts. Im sure 16GB is fine as you stated but any thought on 8GB?

Depends on the card. Right now the RX580 is a decent performer but it is starting to show its' age. The newer card while it may have less VRAM still has the better processor and in that regard the 1060 will win.

Both of those rigs are decent and there is definitely a way to make a combination of the two without losing performance:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor ($164.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus - PRIME B450-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard ($104.71 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial - MX300 525 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($128.90 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($44.85 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6 GB GAMING Video Card ($259.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Phanteks - ECLIPSE P400S TEMPERED GLASS ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($79.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $1003.41
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-12-19 12:36 EST-0500

That's how I would spend $1,000 on a PC anyway.

Why the MX300? It is $20 more expensive than the 1TB MX500 or $70 more than the 500GB MX500. Also you say that the RX580 is starting to show its age, however, the 1060's uArch is just as old and nVidia cards for a while now haven't aged as well as AMD with newer games. On top of that the 580 tends to be faster than the 1060 6GB all while being less expensive.

 

[g-unit1111]

Why the MX300? It is $20 more expensive than the 1TB MX500 or $70 more than the 500GB MX500. Also you say that the RX580 is starting to show its age, however, the 1060's uArch is just as old and nVidia cards for a while now haven't aged as well as AMD with newer games. On top of that the 580 tends to be faster than the 1060 6GB all while being less expensive.

Yeah true about the storage, I would definitely get the 1TB model since it is cheaper. As far as which card is better though I think I would have to see benchmarks on current games to be able to make that assumption that the RX580 is faster. As far as deals go the RX580 is significantly cheaper than the 1060 since you can get it in some places for less than $200 and that makes it very appealing in that regard. I guess you could do something like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor ($164.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock - B450 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($93.88 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial - MX500 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($118.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI - Radeon RX 580 8 GB ARMOR OC Video Card ($199.99 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT - H500 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($64.99 @ Newegg Business)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($79.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($98.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $961.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-12-19 12:58 EST-0500

 

[King_V]

I'd skip the MSI Armor OC and go either with the PowerColor Red Dragon for $20 less, or, at $10 less than the MSI, the XFX GTX XXX Edition.

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=391&sort=price&G=8589934592

The GTX 1060 6GB is more power efficient, definitely, but it's edged out slightly, performance-wise, by the RX 580 8GB. Further, if you are planning on getting a monitor with adaptive sync, AMD's FreeSync does not incur the hefty price premium on monitors that Nvidia's GSync does.

 

[g-unit1111]

I'd skip the MSI Armor OC and go either with the PowerColor Red Dragon for $20 less, or, at $10 less than the MSI, the XFX GTX XXX Edition.

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=391&sort=price&G=8589934592

The GTX 1060 6GB is more power efficient, definitely, but it's edged out slightly, performance-wise, by the RX 580 8GB. Further, if you are planning on getting a monitor with adaptive sync, AMD's FreeSync does not incur the hefty price premium on monitors that Nvidia's GSync does.

I'd go with the XFX model, the Red Dragon was close to $300 which wouldn't exactly make it a value priced card. You could get a decent 1060 6GB model for that.

 

[King_V]

The Red Dragon was at the top of the list at $179.99. It's at NewEgg, at $219.99 less the $40 promo code.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131720&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

Admittedly, I got the Red Dragon for my son about 2 weeks ago, when it was that, and also had a $20 mail-in rebate, basically making it net $159.99. Installed it, and he's going to be putting it through its paces this weekend.

I'd go with the XFX model, the Red Dragon was close to $300 which wouldn't exactly make it a value priced card. You could get a decent 1060 6GB model for that.

Maybe a mis-click? Or if anyone IS trying to sell it for $300, they're crazy, since the faster RX 590 is available at $279.99.

 

[g-unit1111]

I'd go with the XFX model, the Red Dragon was close to $300 which wouldn't exactly make it a value priced card. You could get a decent 1060 6GB model for that.

Maybe a mis-click? Or if anyone IS trying to sell it for $300, they're crazy, since the faster RX 590 is available at $279.99.

I got the pricing from PC Part Picker - it must be a Newegg / Amazon minion seller that's jacking up the price:

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/XzrcCJ/powercolor-radeon-rx-580-8gb-red-dragon-video-card-axrx-580-8gbd5-3dhdoc

Ah, Outlet PC of course. They're notorious for this kind of thing. :lol:

 

[King_V]

I'd go with the XFX model, the Red Dragon was close to $300 which wouldn't exactly make it a value priced card. You could get a decent 1060 6GB model for that.

Maybe a mis-click? Or if anyone IS trying to sell it for $300, they're crazy, since the faster RX 590 is available at $279.99.

I got the pricing from PC Part Picker - it must be a Newegg / Amazon minion seller that's jacking up the price:

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/XzrcCJ/powercolor-radeon-rx-580-8gb-red-dragon-video-card-axrx-580-8gbd5-3dhdoc

Ah, Outlet PC of course. They're notorious for this kind of thing. :lol:

In other ridiculousness, SuperBiiz is trying to sell it for $424.99

 

[g-unit1111]

In other ridiculousness, SuperBiiz is trying to sell it for $424.99

That's why you don't buy from minion sellers like SuperBiiz and Outlet PC.

 

[garyisbinary]

Wow, just wow. The endless responses. Thanks to everyone. It seems from our point of view that both systems have their ups and downs and that either one is lacking something it could have done better with. Guess the real answer of who won is neither of us really. I realized now I forgot to mention we had exactly 10 minutes so it was a bit rushed. Overall the changes everyone recommended were good changes and maybe if these systems existed they would need the tweaks. Thank to all who replied!

 

[King_V]

Glad to be of help.

Wow - 10 minutes, yeah, that's kinda hard to make all the right decisions in! I'm sure there are some people on these boards who could probably do it... but I most certainly am not THAT good, lol