No idea how to finish this build

[Vossy1996]

Okay so I've spent around £300 so far, and I've only got £250 left for a graphics card, CPU & motherboard. It's not a lot, I know. I would ideally like the R9 380 4GB but it's £185. However, I do currently have a spare Phenom ii x4 965BE and ASUS AM3+ motherboard lying around which means if need be I could put up with that for a month or so before I get the CPU and motherboard.

I've read online that the Pentium and Intel Core i3 CPUs are supposedly quite good for gaming, but I find it hard to believe considering they're just dual core. I do plan on playing Fallout 4, and although the R9 380 can play it on mostly high (not ultra), I'd assume that the Phenom ii 965 would massively bottleneck it, as would an i3 or Pentium.

The other option would be to get a preowned older GPU for about £100, such as the 7950, then spend £150 on the CPU and motherboard, which could possibly be a higher end FX Bulldozer. What would you choose?

So far this is what I've got:

24" Acer 1080p Monitor (£100)
500W Corsair PSU (£45)
480GB SSD (£95)
Windows 10 Genuine (£50)

 

[Mac070]

I would definetly not go for an older hd series card as they are outdated .
The Pentium from Intel is a good overclocker . However it struggles to play games and it will stutter and be at full usage . Same story with the I3 here . Just tiny spikes there and here .
I would say get the R9 380X and use the phenom . There is nothing wrong with phenoms. Beck I would take that phenom quad core over the I3 or Pentium . Bottleneck would be very minimum or none at all .
Try it !

 

[-HH-]

dude :c you should've come to us before you did all this! You lie with the issue of; the intel side is better but I spend more and from the money I spend I effectively get less but on the AMD side I'd never usually recommend it, especially with a 500w PSU BUT doing this could work out:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£82.98 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£84.99 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £167.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-03 12:35 GMT+0000

If you haven't ordered the other parts yet I'd suggest this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£149.99 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-HD3 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£53.86 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Sandisk SSD PLUS 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£34.98 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 380 4GB Double Dissipation Video Card (£159.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 620W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£59.99 @ Amazon UK)
Monitor: Asus VE247H 23.6" Monitor (£109.45 @ More Computers)
Total: £567.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-03 12:39 GMT+0000

 

[Mac070]

Just buy the R9 380X from Gigabyte and use that on the phenom X4 . You'll be saving money !! If your not getting the performance you like , then upgrade to the I5 as stated above .

 

[-HH-]

Just buy the R9 380X from Gigabyte and use that on the phenom X4 . You'll be saving money !! If your not getting the performance you like , then upgrade to the I5 as stated above .

Aslong as the PSU can handle it it sounds fine.

 

[Mac070]

Yah but considering I've ran a R9 290 with a FX 8320 on a EVGA500B . It should run it .

 

[kwa-e]

A 500b is pretty poor when it comes to long term reliability, you'd be saving much more money long term if you opt for the S12II unit.

 

[lakimens]

I would not recommend you buy any of the 5 year old AMD processors, the i3 6th gen can beat the AMD FX-8xxx in most games, because it's newer and it's a smaller architecture, also it's a dual core, with 4 threads, acts like a quad core.

 

[kwa-e]

I would not recommend you buy any of the 5 year old AMD processors, the i3 6th gen can beat the AMD FX-8xxx in most games, because it's newer and it's a smaller architecture, also it's a dual core, with 4 threads, acts like a quad core.

What do you mean by smaller? And no, it beats the 8350 due to the fact that the way DX11 handles draw calls requires all the load to be put on the first core. This requires strong single core performance which something the 6100 is good at compared to the older 8350- which chokes at the very mention of IPC.

This is just pure speculation at this point but if DX12 is implemented properly then there may be a time where the 8350 pulls ahead of it's i5 brethren due to the fact that the overhead is spread evenly throughout the cores.

 

[Mac070]

We have to face the fact that dual cores can't keep up with today's gaming standards . I think EVGA puts out good products and considering you can get a 500b for $20 , it's a good deal . But I'm yah avoid the corsair and evga b series

 

[lakimens]

I would not recommend you buy any of the 5 year old AMD processors, the i3 6th gen can beat the AMD FX-8xxx in most games, because it's newer and it's a smaller architecture, also it's a dual core, with 4 threads, acts like a quad core.

What do you mean by smaller? And no, it beats the 8350 due to the fact that the way DX11 handles draw calls requires all the load to be put on the first core. This requires strong single core performance which something the 6100 is good at compared to the older 8350- which chokes at the very mention of IPC.

This is just pure speculation at this point but if DX12 is implemented properly then there may be a time where the 8350 pulls ahead of it's i5 brethren due to the fact that the overhead is spread evenly throughout the cores.

I meant about the architecture.
I may not have had my facts straight and forgot to mention that single core performance is better, but I was on point for the performance, that the i3 6th gen is better than AMD FX-8xxx

 

[Mac070]

^Good one dude

 

[kwa-e]

Not like I disagree with you on the fact that the 6100 is currently better than the 8350- was just making a correction.

 

[lakimens]

Not like I disagree with you on the fact that the 6100 is currently better than the 8350- was just making a correction.

I know and I like being corrected, learn something more.

 

[-HH-]

honestly one of the only few people that like being corrected haha, I'd say the 8XXX CPU's are better than I3's but then i5's destroy any AMD CPU.