New Build with some twists?

heavymetal2000

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Oct 28, 2012
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OK so this ought to be fun. Building a new Budget Gaming PC to replace my old one which im giving to my cousin.

I have 700$C Max to spend on it IT MUST BE: AMD CPU, Nvidia GPU, and i'd like everyhting to be BLACK and RED.

I compiled a list below of the things ive looked at and placed on my build. Biggest thing i would really like to know is can anyone make this better for under 700$? Or better yet can someone make it cheaper without losing any performance. OR haha make it better and cheaper While still maintaining my wants. I do not necessarily want or need the best of the best I just want a good black/red AMD/Nvidia Gamin pc in my budget that has some OCability.

The list below is just what ive come up with i leave it with the community to switch things in and out or even a totally new build. I currently have an eclipse II keyboard, R.A.T. 5 mouse, lite on DVD drive, logitech 5.1 surround, and i also have a coolermaster black 500W PSU.
If my current psu wont power these builds feel free to throw one in that will.

Thank you all in advance also if i left anything out feel free to remind me.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/nanI
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/nanI/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/nanI/benchmarks/

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($79.99 @ Newegg Canada)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($28.91 @ DirectCanada)
Motherboard: Biostar TA990FXE ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($109.99 @ Canada Computers)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($37.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($94.79 @ DirectCanada)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card ($224.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Power Supply: Corsair Enthusiast 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($89.99 @ NCIX)
Total: $666.65
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-11-10 09:49 EST-0500)
 

heavymetal2000

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Is the FX-6300 a good CPU? i know the psu is overkill it just landed me a price on it that was better then even some of the smaller ones due to the combo deal it had.

So could i slap an FX-6300 into that build with my 500w Cooler master PSU and everything else on the list problem free?
 

heavymetal2000

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Ill see if i can get the exact model of the psu and maybe you or someone can tell me if its not a goodie. if so im not opposed to spending a little extra to get something dependable.

And great thank you for your reply this helps a lot.
 

heavymetal2000

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OK so I have decided to change things up according to what blazorthon mentioned. Below is the new start of the build I still only have 700$ max to work with for this so its prolly gonna be tight or im gonna have to over spend i think.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/nkpV
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/nkpV/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/nkpV/benchmarks/

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($131.39 @ DirectCanada)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($28.91 @ DirectCanada)
Motherboard: Biostar TA990FXE ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($109.99 @ Canada Computers)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB Video Card ($179.99 @ Memory Express)
Case: Sentey GS-6050 Halcon ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($16.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Total: $537.26
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-11-11 15:17 EST-0500)

Any thoughts on whats there currently would be great. Specifically the GPU. Is that a quality GPU for the price or could i do better for less? Ive understood that some brands are better then others and also some models outperform others at a cheaper price. Help with this would be great id liek to stay at the GTX 560 level or better for less.

Also i need a PSU, RAM, and HDD that will fit the build and the budget and the psu must power the pc ofc. some suggestions for quality built psu's that dont break the bank would be awesome.

thanks
 
That's not even remotely true. Any Intel build would be a trade-off between CPU and graphics and overclocked, the FX-6300 is fast enough to not need to worry about the CPU performance in any game anyway, so it's easily more of a personal preference choice. More graphics or more CPU performance. OP wants more graphics, so that's that.

Furthermore, as games are getting more well-threaded, the FX-6300 is equalizing with the i5s in gaming performance even at stock. It's already managed to do that in a few current games such as BF3 MP.

Also, when you're going to have to sacrifice the Radeon 7850 for a weaker card if you want an i5 as your CPU, you're making a mistake because that's about the cheapest that you can go and still be able to max out almost any and all games in 1080p. Any Intel build with a similar price would be smoked by this AMD build overall unless you went with an i3 for similar cost and an i3 isn't going to beat the FX-6300 much at all in average gaming performance (i3 would lose if you overclock).
 

heavymetal2000

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Sadly, A good Intel/ATI build would smoke this computer easily and at the same price too.

Buying an AMD CPU right now is like hitting yourself in the head.

Thanks for the input but this was never about amd vs intel. I am and always will be an amd cpu fan. My last two were both amd cpu's and both of them took everything i could throw at them and performed well in the process.

So antec is a good brand of psu i can trust and depend on? Only asking cause if the brand is good i would like to get one just preferably black. I am aware the color does nothing for performance lol but im a bit fussy heh.

Normally i would want an nvidia card but for that price if the card you recomended is quite a bit better i'm interested. Aside from prices is there any major differences between radeon and nvidia cards for gaming?

Lastly the case i chose fits for me personally and i dig the black with red interior. Im assuming the blue lights on it are all aftermarket but if anyone knows better the information would be much appreciated cause unchangeable blue lights on the case is a dealbreaker for me. Also if anyone knows i would like to oc this a bit is that case gonna be good for flow and heat dissipation?

Ty again blazorthon for your insight and help it is greatly apreciated.
 
Antec is a great PSU company. I don't know of any bad Antec PSUs (I'm not saying that they can't exist, just that if they do, it'd be news to me).

Unfortunately for Nvidia, their cards are a little out of whack with AMD's pricing at more or less all price ranges. Sometimes, they get close, but they don't win. They do however often win in power efficiency right now (not in all price points, but in several price points), granted I think that AMD's Never Settle deal kinda ruins that right now since it gives AMD cards so many free games.

Aside from pricing, AMD has a significant win in overclocking headroom, MSAA/CSAA and high resolution scaling efficiency (AMD can handle higher memory-based workloads much better than Nvidia), and the Never Settle deal that gives out free games with most AMD cards. Nvidia has their advantages too, but I think that I'd give the win to AMD overall, especially thnks to AMD's more aggressive pricing and driver improvements lately.
 

heavymetal2000

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Alright so i have decided to go with the 7850 at that price it seems to outperform my previous selection for a similar cost and the information you've given me helped in my decision a lot.

Now im just stuck with the last few questions before i actually start dropping cash for this thing.

thanks again blazorthon.
 

heavymetal2000

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For the case in question it says my mobo has usb 3.0 but my tower does not have usb 3.0 ports on it in a specific location. Is there a way aroun this with some sort of adapter to add them so i can use it?

Im also still looking into thos awful blue lights. Not for me haha.
 


You could go for a different case. Have a look at these cases:
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/zalman-case-z11plushf1

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/rosewill-case-redboneu3

Also, yes, you can get a front USB 3.0 adapter. Many of them fit in either an external 5.25" or an external 3.5" slot.
 

heavymetal2000

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Guess ill jave to price out an adapter then. I dont think i can part ways with how much i love the look ofthat sentey tower especially that rigid style in the front. May look through a few more cases though too thanks again blazorthon i think im pretty close to making my purchase finally.
 

cutebeans

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Yes, of course. It's not about it. I'm an AMD fan as well but looking at performance and value. Intel is smoking AMD. Although, of course I don't mean to say AMD sucks but Intel is clearly the best right now and it's prices are really competitive. I'm only biased to the performance/price ratio.
 

heavymetal2000

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Valid point i understand what your saying. Just ant to stick with what i like personally is all.
 
i-3570K has a roughly 40% average gaming CPU performance advantage over AMD's FX-4300 (that doesn't necessarily mean 40% higher FPS, just that it can usually handle that much more should the graphics be able to keep up and the game allow you that high of FPS; not all games do) at stock and with CPU frequency overclocking. What's the price advantage? Well, the i5-3570K is priced about 50% higher. Counting CPU cost alone, that most certainly is not better performance for the money unless we count on power consumption and even then, that'd take several years just to make up the difference, let alone let Intel win more than marginally in that.

Is the i5-3570K the better CPU? Obviously yes. Does it have better price/performance? No, not really, at least not by itself.
 

heavymetal2000

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Thanks again blazorthon. I have a few other questions id like to ask ill post them here if you'd like to answer them that would be great if not i can re direct them to different sections of the forums and try for individual answers.

For the most part i think i have what i want in terms of a finished build i just looked into a few different things.

Firstly other than antec is there another brand of psu you would recommend for quality and dependability. Basically what other brands would you yourself consider when building a computer for you. Rosewill? Raidmax?

Also i changed up my case to the Cougar Volant (black steel) The price seems right it has front side USB 3.0 and all the size i could ever need. The reviews seem pretty decent on newegg have you or anyone ever heard anyhtign bad abotu these cases in passing? for a case that size with all the doo dads it seems cheeply priced compared to others in its class which worries me heh.
 
When I buy PSUs, I usually don't go by brand, but by individual model (even within the same family, different models can have different build quality). Some brands have a mix of good, great, bad, and crap PSUs. Antec, XFX, and Seasonic, to the best of my knowledge, are the only brands that don't have any bad PSUs, at least not any modern ones.

Corsair, PCP&P, Enermax, Kingwin, Silverstone, OCZ, NZXT, Rosewill,Xclio, Xigmatek, Ultra, and probably another one or two dozen companies have a very wide variety of different quality PSUs ranging from garbage with some of these companies to among the top PSUs ever.

Raidmax, Logisys, Diablotek, and some other companies don't have any good PSUs at all that I'm aware of.

I don't have much experience with Cougar cases and none with that particular model, so I couldn't really help you there. I just looked it up and overall, I like the case, although I'd prefer having more than only one 120mm cooling fan. I think that it'd do the job fine, but an intake fan or two might be helpful.
 

cutebeans

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i5-3570k vs FX-4300??? You are like comparing an ant to an elephant. The i5 is the best CPU for gaming out there.

The FX-4300 should only be compared to at most an i3 3220. I won't be surprised if the FX-4300 gets beat by a Pentium. AMD CPUs aren't leading edge.
 


That's irrelevant. My point was that Intel doesn't smoke AMD in gaming performance for the money and I used the simplest comparison to do it with.

Furthermore, Pentiums are junk for gaming compared to the FX-4300.

gaming-scatter.gif


The Pentium G2120 is the best Intel Pentium CPU and it can't even fight with some of AMD's cheaper CPUs. The fairly small price deficit between it and an i3 masks the very large real-world performance difference.
http://techreport.com/review/23750/amd-fx-8350-processor-reviewed/14
 

cutebeans

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Wow, so an i3-3225 can smoke an FX 8320.

Actually from the charts. You can see that the i3 3225 is owning every AMD CPU except the FX-3850. And you can see that Intel is the king on the last tier since no AMD CPU can even get in.
 


FX-4300 would be on-par with the i3-3225 too. Your point fails because you forget that AMD's eight-core models are not gaming CPUs like Intel's SB-E CPUs aren't gaming CPUs. AMD's much cheaper CPUs such as the FX-6300 game about as well as the FX-8350 which is on-par with the i3-3225.