Need help in building my first PC!

Dom Salsbury

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Nov 25, 2014
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To begin I started building a Gaming PC a month or so ago (buying parts etc.) but as I was earning some more money for parts I began having second thoughts on my original specs and have changed my mind. This is what I have came up with. Any help would be greatly appreciated! (some of these parts have been bought already which is a pain but I hope it isn't detrimental). P.S. I don't really have a great amount of money to spend (£650 everything together).

CPU: AMD FX-8320
CPU Cooler: 212 EVO (bought)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-970-UD3P (bought)
RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) Crucial Ballistix Sport 1600MHz
Storage: 1TB Seagate Barracuda (bought)
GFX: Radeon R9 280X
Case: Corsair 300R (Bought)
PSU: XFX 550W (Bought)
 

Dom Salsbury

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Nov 25, 2014
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Thanks for answering so quickly! I know this is a slightly diverted question, but from that build do you know what I can expect performance wise on average?

P.S. I was also thinking that about the PSU, I will most likely change it soon!
 

Matthew-san

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Feb 25, 2014
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I would put just a little extra towards the CPU and get an FX-8350. It offers about a 15% increase compared to the FX-8320 and it's stock speed is 4.0 GHz compared to that of the FX-8320 which is 3.5 GHz. The FX-8350 will come in handy for the more CPU intensive games, and there seem to be quite a few of them nowadays. Other than the CPU, your build looks perfect! High/Ultra build right there (1080p).
 

Dom Salsbury

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Thanks Matthew!
 

Matthew-san

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You're welcome Dom Salsbury :). Btw Dom, I advise getting the FX-8350 because at one time I had an FX-8320 and it bottlenecked my GTX 770 4GB and when I upgraded to an i5-4690k, which is roughly 8% faster (maybe a little more) than the FX-8350, it made a world of difference.

This gives you a bit of comparison between the FX-8320 and the FX-8350 and how they compare against other CPU's. The benchmarks are a bit old but they give you a general idea of what they can do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGBebNoy32E
 

Dom Salsbury

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Thanks again Matthew haha :p Do you think maybe a slightly larger PSU is worth investing in too?

 

Matthew-san

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With the build you have now tha PSU will serve perfectly. I only suggest upgrading your PSU if you decide to overclock, add a bunch of hard drives and SSD's, or crossfire your 280X. As of now though that XFX power supply unit will serve your build well.