System Builder Marathon, Q2 2013: $650 Gaming PC

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just for lulz, i went looking for an am3+ mini itx motherboard, after seeing so many unsatisfiable people posting stuff. couldn't find any. but i found one asus mobo (M4A88T-I Deluxe, discontinued @newegg) for 95w am3 cpus. it's 'cpu support list' doesn't mention any 125w cpu or any of the fx cpus.
as for socket fm2 athlon(s), amd is way too late to bring this cpu to u.s. market. 🙁 i was looking forward to seeing an unlocked trinity athlon in this quarter's $500 gaming pc and fx8320(+corsair h80+7970ghz) in the $1000 enthusiast pc (i didn't know it was gonna be mini-itx marathon). kaveri apus will launch later this year and those will likely have cpu-only variants as well.
 
^ Yep, No AM3+, meaning this theme points to FM2. And FM2 mobos didn't save any funding at all, which ruled out A8 & A10 Trinity.

Things changed after this story was all finished and X4 750K finally showed it's face. When we purchased, i3-3220 offered the top gaming bang in budget, allowing Tahiti LE for high-res gaming. If competing overall again, i5 + GTX 650 Ti boost would have been better. AMD really had little to offer at this budget, unless you simply choose to avoid Intel, as some folks here do. Anyone wanting the best high-res gaming bang within this budget would have been wise to choose i3. Hard fact for many to swallow. I'm excited to now have the 750K as a solid alternative.

Edit: Of course all this above falls under our mini-ITX theme. I do see the Phenom II X4 965BE and FX 6300 as solid alternatives to i3, better in many ways, if form factor and efficiency, heat, etc. are factored out.
 


any word on why the FX6300 has been skipped for 6 straight months in the best gaming cpu lineup... as it's been available since xmas at sub $120 price points? Heck, last month i found it for $99, and the day the article was released it was available for 119 from newegg (and that was the high end), and under $119 in a number of other retailers (110-115 seemed to be the general price range)

seems like the steal of the century, if you look at it's performance relative to an i5 in games which use multiple cores (pretty much identical performance in those titles). Especially since the fx6300 is a bit better and easier of an overclocker (in general) then the fx8350 and fx8320.
 

I agree with these points, and hope to see some tests (including power consumption!) on the 750K soon.
 


The AMD Athlon X4 760K Black Edition is available in Europe for ~$100. From the Richland reviews, the extra $15 may be worth the upgrade from the 750K.
 


Well, I recommended the FX-6300 to Don many months ago, at least for honorable mention. From his time testing FX-4300 and FX-6300, the later rarely shined brighter enough to justify the extra expense. Likely when and how he's been checking prices there was still a spread. It was $140 on Newegg until recently. Remember he doesn't go by a single sale price you and I may notice, he rather looks at AMD's suggested price and the more consistent (and reliable) trend in typical online pricing. At $120 recently, IMO it's now a serious top contender we must consider.

Keep in mind that is Don's list, and while we are accountable, edited, and all pretty close with our personal picks, we aren't in complete agreement on recommendations or placements on the hierarchy chart. Besides FX-6300 over 4300, I'd personally still have the G2020 on the recommended list. Paired with an HD 7850 or lower it is overall pretty much on par with the Athlon II X4 640, maybe one tier below if we emphasize threaded titles. For the right specific gaming build it is almost impossible to beat. For instance, those few extra bucks saved could step up from HD6670 to HD7750, a huge benefit. He has signed off on dual-cores moving forward (and honestly we all see that as the safer route) mainly based on his 18 CPU shootout paired with GTX 680 where the dual-cores lagged more and more in newer titles. This changes with driver versions, but from my time with Pentiums, they appear worse with dual-GPU Crossfire/SLI, and GeForce configurations than with a single Radeon. There seems to be less thread dependency with a single Radeon. NV made huge gains in SLI CPU overhead though. Last I compared SLI and Crossfire... SLI required far less CPU to get the expected performance.
 


Working on it, stock & overclocked, pitted against other AMD chips.
 


We'll need US availability before we'd test that one. Look at the 750K fiasco. Perhaps the German team will dig into 760K?
 


thank you for your reply. that actually covers a huge communication gap that sometimes springs up around here.
 
No problem ingtar!

FYI - Don packs a huge workload and is often tackling time sensitive pieces. So please consider that as excuse why he may not keep up with the comments and suggestions.
 


its actually no big deal on one hand. I don't really have a dog in the hunt. I mean i build intel systems all the time, am comfortable overclocking them and the like... it's just when you have clients who want xyz (gaming system, crisis3, ultra settings, $800) and you're forced to educate them on how unreasonable they're being and offer them outside the box suggestions to keep to their budget AND meet most of their performance goals, they inevitably look to Tom's best cpu lists (especially the smarter ones).

So it gets aggravating when you get the feedback "why not an fx4300?" or "why not a PhIIx4?" or "why not an i5-3350?"... of course all 3 cpus have been on Tom's best lists for almost 6 months now. When you offer a suggestion outside that list, blow-back happens, because even if they don't know to check here they have their own "computer guy" (everyone knows one) who DOES check here.

now trust has been breached. they think you're trying to sell them a bill of goods, when in reality you're trying to squeeze "close to" 1300 worth of performance into a 800 budget, by saving cash everywhere you can. for me, the FX6300 is the lowest AMD chip you can go to and get "intel like" gaming performance in games which work well with multiple cores. Its huge price advantage... relatively low temps, and high overclock room really make it an acceptable alternative on a budget. but since it isn't on these lists, it's very hard to explain that to clients.

(i don't really make much money system building, i do it more because i love computers and love the chance to work on a new one... i'm a baptist missionary by trade, not a computer guy, and of course missionaries are poor folk so i'm well versed with bargin hunting... which is why i love this article... its just ego which causes me to type stupid stuff sometimes about the builds here. Sorry about that.

actually i'm trying to save money so that i can replace all 12 computers in the church and supporting homes with something "better" then a dying 8 year old P4... 90% of my time is spent working on the ministry computers, which is something i'd like to change going forward...)
 


LOL, yeah constructive feedback from those who read the article will go way further than direct assaults from those who (at least appear) do not. Time is often too precious to get involved there.

I'm pretty much always with Don on his GPU recommendations to a T, and only really differ slightly in CPU hierarchy, where our personal experience with different configurations lead us apart. I see dualies as having more value than he does, as many quads already let us down in games like SC2, similar to dualies in some multiplayer shooters. G2020 vs. X4 640 is an area we need to agree o disagree on to a small degree. I've got more FX-63 data coming soon, and will nudge Don if warranted based on prices and data.

Shoot, a few vocal readers scream nothing shy of K-series Core i5 is worthy of being dubbed a gaming CPU. I totally disagree there, as folks on a limited budget can be serious about games. Grab the GPU you need first, then don't cripple it with too little CPU. Processing reserve is great if possible, which is where locked down Pentiums get scary. Frugal folks may need to run a cleaner system, and not multitask while gaming, lacking the CPU and RAM capacity to do too much at once.
 


Already answered by others, but just to clarify reasoning here.

I'd always favor 8GB immediately when limited to a pair of RAM slots, but it isn't always in budget. Its rough when the same funds now buys 4GB, which with earlier systems we compare to then grabbed 8GB. Robbing $30 from graphics isn't ideal and can result in missed system goals. Coming in $35 over budget doesn't fly with many folks.

The truth is, 8 GB doesn't help in our test suite, running one test at a time. 8GB robs funds without putting up numbers, yet yes we would recommend it if possible. Similar to storage capacity upgrades.

Personally I prefer a 4GB dual-channel kit when RAM is priced high, rather than a single 4GB stick. For dual-channel performance now and compatibility later. BUT, I'll often stock up on multiple kits when RAM is cheap, and don't mind having a couple extra 4GB kits around for testing or cheap builds.
 


Let me make this clear. I am the one that posted this. I did it just for fun to see how I could do with the same price limits and using PCParts picker. There is no better involved. I know that they also have a long lead time on these articles so I just wanted to see how I could do right now. I have done some other builds for the different price points as well just for fun. Come on people and stop getting nasty over nothing. Why not post your ideas for a build, you know for fun?
 


I know what you mean. I'm rolling with a PhIIx4 965 and a HD 7770; to most people around these parts this isn't a gaming system... yet for some pesky reason i can play pretty much any modern game on high or even ultra settings... at 1080p. Granted, i don't play crisis (not much of a FPS fan); but i'm pulling around 40FPS on high settings for tomb raider (man does that TressFX setting hit the fps hard!, with that on my FPS drops to 20~25); and 50fps on highest settings for ME3

Even civ5 is perfectly fine on it's highest settings... of course i'm sure the fps sucks... but that game apparently doesn't need high fps to look smooth as silk (makes me wonder about it's utility as a FPS benchmark)

the general point isn't to brag on my cheap machine... it's to point out all the power even a low end system can wield these days.
 
Ingtar33, I absolutely agree. GW2 needs to be turned down a good bit on a HD7770, but it still looks quite good. I readily admit I've upgraded in some cases thinking "what if," but I'm trying to keep a lid on that.
 

I really don't get the concept of multi-tasking while I'm gaming. If I'm playing a game, my attention is there. Who really watches Netflix while playing Mass Effect? If you've got a background process running while playing, I can see that. But a system that's beefy enough to transcode video or do serious compiling/rendering while playing BF3 is far outside the reach of most people.

As for CPU preference, too true that some people get so stuck on min/maxing a build budget that they ignore or forget other factors. What does the actual END USER want to do with it? What are their needs for gaming and longevity? Too little CPU now means it'll be the first thing you have to upgrade. Too much CPU means you'll never utilize it and that extra money could have gone elsewhere for some extra oomph ( my mistake in grabbing an i7 two years ago. ) I think a CPU should last through at least one GPU upgrade before you need to move to the next platform.

And I think that many people put far too much emphasis on overclocking. Some builders just don't want to bother with it. Some worry more about power consumption and noise. Personally I haven't seen enough of a boost in my gaming because I'm not at that cusp between smooth and mildy irritating stutter. My 6870 can nearly max out graphics on the titles I like @ 1680x1050 ( GW2 runs +50fps most the time, though Crysis 2 had me drop detail to med-high. )


Your post was an i5 and a 670. I liked it, I only question if you can fit that 212 in the case and how the GPU cooling would work. The post you quoted above was debating a rather different build using a AMD 750 that hadn't even been released at the time the SBM was being built. Reminded me of an SBM last year when half the comments were complaining that a 670 wasn't used even though multiple people stated it simply wasn't available at the time. I try not to get nasty unless someone wants to belittle me or someone else on the thread. I like hypothetical builds too ( in fact me and Slo were having a guessing game of sorts for Tom's $2600 build. ) But if you're going to posit a build, own it and list any limitations or restrictions it may have, or how it may or may not fairly compare to the SBM.
 
@Paul: interesting last few posts, thanks!

BTW, there are two games i wish i could see added:

1) Arma 3: tends to be very CPU bound. Hitting beta in 4 days. Very attractive because you can make your own benchmark using the editor, and make it available publicly for download.

2) FreeSpace 2 Open: Single threaded, very CPU bound. Again, has an excellent mission editor with which you can make a repeatable benchmark sequence.

Lost Planet 2 also has a free benchmark tool available, so you could use that too maybe. Just for some variety 😀
 
Hope we win one of those suckers. Tom's it pro's are the best in the business putting the systems together. I'm off to sleep going to go dream of my 12 yearold pc getting its retirement.
 

this quarter's is a mini-itx marathon. there are no mini itx motherboards with am3+ socket available on newegg. i know this because i searched for one.


 
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