Is this build good for gaming?

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mokresh

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Jul 21, 2014
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So here's the parts that I've chosen so far.

Motherboard - ASRock 990FX Killer
CPU - AMD FX8350
GPU - Sapphire R9 280 Double X
RAM - Corsair Vengeance 1600 2x4GB
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 7200
Cooling - Cooler Master 212 EVO
PSU - Corsair VS 650W
Case - Corsair 200R
Optical Drive - Samsung SH-224BB

I'm on a 1000-1100$ budget so chose to go with AMD. However I've searched around the internet a little and most 1000$ PC builds are with intel i5's. Is my build any good or should I really consider switching to Intel, which is considerably more expansive than AMD here (I do not live in the US).
 
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geofelt
In theory, yes... but in actuality, no.

1. FX8350 is sold for it's 8 cores. But most games only can use 2-3 cores and many like minecraft and civ 5 use only one fast core.
Intel cores are 30-50% faster which is why the i5 and even i3 chips are good gamers.
I might suggest the i5-4960 which should cost the same, or even the i3-4370 which would be even cheaper.
For future upgradeability to a K cpu or broadwell 14nm upgrade a Z97 board would be good. Otherwise a cheaper H97 motherboard would be ok.

2. Many are in love with the R9 series graphics cards which have impressive synthetic benchmarks.
But, they do run hot and many owners are dissatisfied. For the card you selected, the unfavorable rating(0 or 1 egg) by verified users...
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I really dont plan to go for over 1080p for now. In future i might upgrade my GPU and get a better monitor but for now 1080p suits me. Would it hurt the build if i switched the 990FX Killer motherboard for a ASRock 990FX Extreme 3? I'm planning to overclock in the future.
 
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I am currently using the exact same CPU and I managed to bring it up to 5.0 Ghz with a stable clock. This would be able to run games at 1080P with no issues at all on high-ultra settings. However I doubt that the GPU may allow you to game anywhere near 4K, so you might want to crossfire another card when it's time for you to step up into 4K gaming.

The FX-8350 performs similarly to the i5 but I still recommend the FX because in the future there will be more games that would support more threads / cores, which the FX has a massive advantage on.

If you plan to overclock though, I suggest you go on water. This CPU heats up unbelievably quick when compared with the i7-4790K which I also own. A H80i or H100i is a pretty good choice.

Also, you may want to give it a 700-750 W PSU because this CPU sucks electricity insanely when under load, especially when you're overclocking and your core voltage is over 1.5 V. Make sure that it's at least a gold rated one though, this would prevent BSOD crashes due to lack of power efficiency.

Hopefully this gives you a clear idea on which one to stick with, but in the end it's still up to personal preference.

AMD
Pros: Performs better in multi-threaded games, unlocked = overclockable, higher clock speed.
Cons: Overheats quicker than i5, uses more power.

Intel
Pros: Lower temps, lesser power consumption, better single core performance
Cons: Does not perform as well as FX in multithreaded games, not unlocked (Depends of your CPU is a K), lower clock speed.

Good luck :)

Ryan
 
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In theory, yes... but in actuality, no.

1. FX8350 is sold for it's 8 cores. But most games only can use 2-3 cores and many like minecraft and civ 5 use only one fast core.
Intel cores are 30-50% faster which is why the i5 and even i3 chips are good gamers.
I might suggest the i5-4960 which should cost the same, or even the i3-4370 which would be even cheaper.
For future upgradeability to a K cpu or broadwell 14nm upgrade a Z97 board would be good. Otherwise a cheaper H97 motherboard would be ok.

2. Many are in love with the R9 series graphics cards which have impressive synthetic benchmarks.
But, they do run hot and many owners are dissatisfied. For the card you selected, the unfavorable rating(0 or 1 egg) by verified users on newegg is a dismal 46% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202061
By comparison the most popular and similarly performing GTX770 , the EVGA superclock is 7%
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130921
3. The corsair VS series is an ok budget psu. 650w is appropriate.
But, see if you can't find a higher quality Seasonic or XFX unit
Here is a list to assess quality:
https://community.newegg.com/eggxpert/computer_hardware/f/135081/t/45344.aspx?Redirected=true
 
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Solution


the argument for the i5 over the FX 8 core is getting weaker and weaker, thats obvious. The next Directx API is being written from scratch for utilizing cores, just like on the xbox one and ps4 consoles (8 core AMD chips under the hoods). Generally they are equal to each other. But to recommend an i3?...you have to be kidding me.

Plus, the games you mention are pretty old. Newer AAA games starting from last year and apparently from now on, will support more and more cores.
 
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I would be incline to agree that multicore support is becoming more important.
You can never keep up with technology though. By the time games are utilizing 8 cores, the FX 8xxx series will be obsolete and this most recent generation of haswell quad cores will be obsolete too. There will always be better (unless you buy into intel x99) the year after you purchase your system. That said, it took a while before benchmarks even showed CPU's bottlenecking a GPU. And that is because of ever higher resolutions appearing.

Just spend your money on a great GPU, get anything between an i5 3670 to i7 or any AMD 8xxx series chip. Your performance will be limited to GPU unless ultra high resolution gaming.
 
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The time spent in the apu is relatively minor, and really is only important to slower cpu's.
That is why amd is so interested in mantle.

As to newer games here is a link comparing 9 gaming cpu's.
The i3-4340 comes off very well
Interestingly enough, the FX4300 does about as well as the 6300 and 8350
http://www.hardwarepal.com/best-cpu-gaming-9-processors-8-games-tested/2/
It is worth a read.
 
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Thank you guys. I haven't decided yet but i think I will go with AMD. The reason behind is simply the price. Apparently after comparing the prices of the parts some of you listed in builds with the prices in my country the Intel builds go over 1200$ and its something that I can't afford right now. A solution would be to get cheaper RAM and PSU, but I have a rule and its to never cheap out on a PSU. I might change R9 280 for a R9 270x. Would that make too much of a difference?
I checked some benchmarks and comparisons and the i5's are only better in some cases and the difference, if any, is usually 2-5 FPS. It'd be nice if you could link me to some more benchmarks and comparison charts so that i could make out a better picture of it.
 
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Just read through it but and its really surprising. I haven't even considered getting an i7 but never though that an i3 performs so well. And the fact that in this benchmarks the i5 4670 beats the FX 8350 in pretty much everything except Tomb Raider also warries me a little.

 
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Good build! I am running an FX-8350 @4.2GHz with the ASRock 990FX killer and an MSI r9 280x. I have been pretty happy with it so far, however, expect pretty damn high temperatures as AMD products naturally run hotter than Intel and NVIDIA. you'll definitely be happy with performance though, I can run just about everything at Ultra graphics (even BF4)!
 
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