Trying to get into PC gaming

[impLi3D]

Hi guys, i've recently been thinking about getting a PC for gaming because i am starting to get bored of my xbox, however i am completely new to all these things. I have no idea what i want to buy, i created three PC's for fun a few minutes ago and i'd just like to know if these specs are good enough to run current games such as crysis 3 on medium settings and if they will be able to run any of the next gen games.

First PC:
- AMD FX-6300 Six Core Processor Socket AM3+ 3.5GHZ 14MB 95W

-Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus Direct Touch 4 Heatpipe Heatsink AM2 AM3 LGA1366 LGA1155 LGA1156 120mm

-Gigabyte 78LMT-USB3 AMD760G mATX AM3+ 1PCI-E16 1PCI-E1 1PCI DDR3 SATA2 DVI HDMI GBLAN Motherboard

-Kingston KHX1600C9D3P1K2/8G 8GB Kit 2X4GB 1600MHz 240PIN DIMM DDR3 Nonecc CL9 HyperX 1.5V

-Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 OC 1100MHZ 2GB 4.8GHZ GDDR5 DVI HDMI 2XMINIDP PCI-E Video Card

-Fractal Design Core 1000 mATX Computer Case

- Antec Basiq VP450 450W Power Supply ATX12V V2.3 Dual +12V Rail 120MM Fan 80% Efficiency

-Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM 64MB SATA 6Gbps 3.5in Internal Hard Drive - OEM

-ADATA ASP900S3-64GM-C SP900 2.5in 64GB SATA3 Solid State Disk Drive SSD

-LG GH24NS95 24X SATA Internal DVD Writer Black OEM

-nGear Flash Card Reader 3.5in Internal USB Black CF/SM/SDHC/MMC/MS/XD 18IN Cable



The total price for this PC is around C$1000, again i do not know if this is a fair price or not so please any replies would be great.



Second PC:
- Intel Core i5 3550 Quad Core Processor LGA1155 3.3GHZ Ivy Bridge 6MB Retail

- Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro REV.2 CPU Heatsink Cooler LGA1366 LGA1155 LGA1156 AM2 AM3 w/ 92MM Fan

- Gigabyte B75M-D3H mATX LGA1155 B75 DDR3 2PCI-E16 2PCI HDMI CrossFireX SATA3 USB3.0 Motherboard

- Kingston ValueRAM 8GB (2X4GB) DDR3 1333 CL9 240-PIN SDRAM

- Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC 1032MHZ 2GB 6.0GHZ GDDR5 2xDVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Video Card

- Fractal Design Core 1000 mATX Computer Case


- Seasonic S12II 520W EPS12V 20/24PIN ATX Power Supply Active PFC 80+ Bronze 6+8PIN PCI-E w/ 120mm Fan


-Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6GB/S 7200RPM 64MB Cache 3.5in Hard Drive OEM

- Mushkin Chronos 60GB 2.5in SATA3 SandForce SF-2281 SSD Solid State Disk Flash Drive

This one is around C$1100.

Third PC:

-Intel Core i5 3570K Unlocked Quad Core Processor LGA1155 3.4GHZ Ivy Bridge 6MB Retail

- Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro REV.2 CPU Heatsink Cooler LGA1366 LGA1155 LGA1156 AM2 AM3 w/ 92MM Fan

- MSI Z77A-G41 ATX LGA1155 Z77 DDR3 2PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 2PCI SATA3 DVI HDMI CrossFireX USB3.0 Motherboard

- Kingston HyperX Blu Black Series 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1600 CL9 DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit

- MSI GeForce GTX 660 OC Twin Frozr 3 1033MHZ 2GB 6.0GHZ GDDR5 2xDVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Video Card

- Bitfenix Shinobi Window ATX Mid Tower Case Black 3X5.25EXT 8X3.5INT No PS Top USB3.0 Audio

- Seasonic S12II 520W EPS12V 20/24PIN ATX Power Supply Active PFC 80+ Bronze 6+8PIN PCI-E w/ 120mm Fan


2 x Bitfenix Spectre BFF-BLF-12025B-RP 120MM Blue LED Case Fan 1000RPM 43.5CFM 20DBA 3/4 Pin

-* Please Set The Hard Drives in RAID0 for Extreme Performance - 2 Identical Hdds Required ( Don't understand this)

-Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB 2.5in SATA3 LSI SandForce Solid State Disk Flash Drive SSD

- nGear Flash Card Reader 3.5in Internal USB Black CF/SM/SDHC/MMC/MS/XD 18IN Cable

This one is around C$1200. Sorry for the long post but im really confused.

 

[ohyouknow]

Although the antec basiq is a nice PSU, I would stick that Seasonic 520w in both builds regardless.

 

[jaguarskx]

If you do not overclock, then the Intel CPU is better than the AMD CPU. Assuming the same clockspeed, an Intel CPU is roughly 15% - 20% more powerful than an AMD CPU.

The CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ a good yet inexpensive heatsink for either build.

Since both Radeon and GeForce graphic cards are overclocked, they should perform about the same. The Radeon's overclock is higher than the GeForce. In general, the performance difference those two cards at stock speed is pretty close; the GeForce being 1% or 2% faster. Not really enough to notice unless you are benchmarking the cards.

A 450w PSU for the AMD PC is a be weak in my opinion especially if anything is overclocked. Antec in general is an okay brand; a little better than average. The Seasonic 520w PSU is a better choice. Seasonic is simply the best PSU manufacturer out there. They also build PSUs for Antec, Corsair and XFX.

I prefer Western Digital Black hard drives. Having owned at least 16 Western Digital hard drives, it is my #1 choice. "Green" drives are the slowest in terms of performance and have low power consumption. Great for storing a lot of videos; which is what I use them for. "Blue" drives have a balance of both performance and power consumption. Higher performance than Green, but also higher power consumption. "Black" drives are the performance drives; most of my hard drives are "Black".

SSDs are more of a luxury than a necessity. They will allow the PC to boot up faster. I recall reading about how some guy tweaked his PC to boot up from a cold start and into the login screen in 9 seconds. I think with an SSD it normally takes 20 or so seconds. However, I do not have a SSD. It will make Windows feel more responsive because programs (games) will load quicker. SSD does not improve frames rates.


Since you are new to PC gaming just be aware that playing games on a PC is much different from a console because new hardware is always coming out. That means new games will always push the performance envelop. From the day the Xbox 360 was launched to today any game released for the Xbox 360 will run on the Xbox 360 because the hardware has remained the same since... 2008 when it was released???

When I bought my Intel Q9450 (2007) and Radeon HD 5850 (2009), they provided very good performance. Now the Q9450 is considered "okay" or "good enough" to play modern games. The Radeon HD 5850 was considered a high performance card (not very high, just high). Now it's performance ranks a little above mainstream performance.

 

[jaguarskx]

Of the 3, the 3rd is the best.

RAID 0 basically "links" up both hard drives so that the computer sees it as a single hard drive. RAID 0 is great for performance because it read and writes data to both drives that the same time. For example, you wrote a 400 page book. If you only had single hard drive, the book will be saved to the hard drive 1 page at a time. If it takes 1 second save each page, then it will take a total of 400 seconds to save the book. With a RAID 0 setup you have two hard drives acting as one. The even number pages will be saved to hard drive #1, the odd number pages will be saved to hard drive #2. Therefore, 2 pages are being written to the hard drive every second. Total amount to time to save the book is cut down to 200 seconds.

But there is a downside... should one of the hard drive fail then you can potentially loose all your data. In general (and simply speaking) you will not be able to recover 200 of the 400 pages. When even a small amount of data in a file is corrupted, the entire file can be corrupted.

 

[impLi3D]

Although the antec basiq is a nice PSU, I would stick that Seasonic 520w in both builds regardless.

Of the 3, the 3rd is the best.

RAID 0 basically "links" up both hard drives so that the computer sees it as a single hard drive. RAID 0 is great for performance because it read and writes data to both drives that the same time. For example, you wrote a 400 page book. If you only had single hard drive, the book will be saved to the hard drive 1 page at a time. If it takes 1 second save each page, then it will take a total of 400 seconds to save the book. With a RAID 0 setup you have two hard drives acting as one. The even number pages will be saved to hard drive #1, the odd number pages will be saved to hard drive #2. Therefore, 2 pages are being written to the hard drive every second. Total amount to time to save the book is cut down to 200 seconds.

But there is a downside... should one of the hard drive fail then you can potentially loose all your data. In general (and simply speaking) you will not be able to recover 200 of the 400 pages. When even a small amount of data in a file is corrupted, the entire file can be corrupted.

Thanks for the detailed reply! I sort of have an idea now 😀

 

[impLi3D]

Sorry, one more question: Is the third PC worth 1200$? Also, will the PC overheat from this setup?

 

[ohyouknow]

Not a big fan of MSI motherboards personally. But that is just from my experience, their GPU's are good.

Other than that. The third build is relatively solid. Although I'd much rather have the smaller brother of the 212 than that arctic freezer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103064&Tpk=coolermaster%20tx3&IsVirtualParent=1

I'd find a way to fit that 660TI into your final build more than anything else.

 

[RedJaron]

AMD CPUs start getting trounced in the performance/budget category once you pass the $700 threshold, so I'd stay with Intel in this price range. Also, the K-series CPU, aftermarket CPU cooler, and Z77 mboard are only necessary if you plan to overclock your CPU. If you're fine running at stock rates, which is more than suitable for most people, grab the 3550, use the stock Intel cooler, and look at an H77 or Z75 board. This will save you some decent money but and barely impacts gameplay.

Second, if you're looking at an SSD, I wouldn't go lower than 128GB. A 64GB drive leaves room for an OS and that's about it ( once you fill a SSD 50% - 70% up, performance starts going downhill pretty fast. ) A 128GB drive has space for your favorite 2-3 games on it, meaning you'll get to load them up faster. Larger capacity models also greatly outperform 64GB models. But if your budget is tight and you really want a SSD, then 64GB will at least make a nice system drive.

Third, I'm not a big fan of the GeForce 660 due to its limited memory bandwidth ( 192-bit compared to 256-bit on other cards in the price range. ) This gets to be a significant bottleneck when you crank up the resolution and/or AA. If you're playing on a single monitor at high settings but aren't cranking the AA, you shouldn't see a problem. If you want to play across multiple screens are cranking the details as high as you can, I'd look at a or 7870 Tahiti LE or a 7950.