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Building a new rig. Suggestions?

536 views 13 replies 10 participants last post by  Ningi07 
#1 ·
Hi.

I am building a new computer, primarily for gaming. My last desktop, and Intel, was built 6 years ago, so I'm a bit out of the loop now. Doing some quick research, it seems that AMD is the more cost effective option this time around, but I'm not unwilling to go Intel again if it is the better option.

I'm looking to squeeze the most power that I can out of a $1000 budget. Your thoughts?
 
#2 ·
Hi, and welcome to OCN. What games will you be playing and at what resolution?

I'll make a couple of assumptions, you can correct me as you please: for a gaming computer @ 1080p playing BF4, this would work very well.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor ($99.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory ($57.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($98.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card ($249.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $846.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-28 18:19 EST-0500

With a few adjustments, you could squeeze another 290 in there if you planned to go to 1440p.
 
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#3 ·
p4inkill3r:

Thanks for the response. I plan on gaming at 1080p, and I want to play current games such as: SC2, BF4 and the like, as well as future games.

I'm not a huge graphics junkie, and I don't need to play the newest games on the highest settings. What I want is efficiency - I want this machine to last me at least 4 years.

That being said, do you think I could get any extra mileage by trading in the graphics card for a cheaper one, and upgrading my processor?
 
#4 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Plethorix View Post

p4inkill3r:
That being said, do you think I could get any extra mileage by trading in the graphics card for a cheaper one, and upgrading my processor?
Thats the wrong thing to do if you want it to play games, games these days dont use the CPU all that much so if you want it last longer as a gaming rig you should spend more on the video card not the CPU.
There are still some that are using Core I7 920´s on X58 motherboards and those came out in 2008 and even those old CPU´s dont bottleneck modern video cards all that much.
 
#5 ·
If you go here and look at the results, AMD has plenty of high scoring mid range CPUs. Some of them are quite a bit cheaper than similarly performing CPUs, too. But this doesn't exactly mean that AMD is a good choice for you.

Have a look at this screenshot from the page for the 4790K
kaTQGDn.png


The number shown on the previous page of results was the number in the blue box here. This number is almost meaningless as a measure of gaming performance. The number you should be interested in is the one below it in the green box.

Here is a page similar to the first one, but with the numbers from the green box instead.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

Hit Control + F and search for AMD on this page, the first result that shows up with the highest score for AMD is an FX-9590 which is about $200 right now on sale. It only scores 1720, while a $200 i5 (4570) from Intel which is not on sale scores 2062. By these results, the i5 is 20% faster than the FX. So what makes AMD any good? The overall score for the 9590 is over 10,000 while the i5 only scores 7,000. The AMD is about 45% more powerful if you use all the cores but in your situation you won't be, especially with Starcraft II.

Since you did not mention you will be recording gameplay, streaming, multiboxing, heavily multi-tasking like rendering an animation or encoding a video while gaming, I would recommend going Intel for this build. With a $1000 budget, you can even go with a higher end i5 or an i7 which will lessen the gap in multi-threaded performance and give higher single-threaded at the same time.

Do you need everything to build a new PC or can you re-use anything from your old one like the monitor and case?
 
#6 ·
You could go with something like this for an intel option. Possibly replace the poverty cooler down the line if you get into heavier overclocking.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($209.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($26.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($56.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($109.00 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB ACX 2.0 Video Card ($319.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Rosewill Capstone 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $965.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-28 21:16 EST-0500
 
#7 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Plethorix View Post

p4inkill3r:

Thanks for the response. I plan on gaming at 1080p, and I want to play current games such as: SC2, BF4 and the like, as well as future games.

I'm not a huge graphics junkie, and I don't need to play the newest games on the highest settings. What I want is efficiency - I want this machine to last me at least 4 years.

That being said, do you think I could get any extra mileage by trading in the graphics card for a cheaper one, and upgrading my processor?
As stated, GPU is going to make the largest difference. The FX 8320 in conjunction with the NH-D14 could get you a potential overclock over 4.6GHz which would allow an even greater dollar:dollar increase in favor for AMD. Granted, the build I made still has another $150 you could spend on going with a Radeon 290X if you wanted, but even without that, you're going to have very nice results.
 
#9 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by p4inkill3r View Post

Hi, and welcome to OCN. What games will you be playing and at what resolution?

I'll make a couple of assumptions, you can correct me as you please: for a gaming computer @ 1080p playing BF4, this would work very well.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor ($99.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory ($57.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($98.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card ($249.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $846.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-28 18:19 EST-0500

With a few adjustments, you could squeeze another 290 in there if you planned to go to 1440p.
You would want to take out 970UDP for a Asus killer Z,990 gd80 or any top mother board so you know your mobo will not die on you
 
#10 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Iwamotto Tetsuz View Post

You would want to take out 970UDP for a Asus killer Z,990 gd80 or any top mother board so you know your mobo will not die on you
The UD3P is a fine board for overclocking.

Also, there is no such thing as an "Asus Killer"
 
#11 ·
Quote:
You would want to take out 970UDP for a Asus killer Z,990 gd80 or any top mother board so you know your mobo will not die on you
He'd be served fine with the Gigabyte.
 
#12 ·
If you see yourself adjusting graphics settings because you have high standards regarding fps, then you'll want an unlocked intel cpu and oc it nicely.

If you want to run everything on very high/ultra, then you'd be gpu limited first. (in some games)
 
#13 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by PunkX 1 View Post

The UD3P is a fine board for overclocking.

Also, there is no such thing as an "Asus Killer"
Crosshair V Formula-Z (Asus Killer)
 
#14 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Iwamotto Tetsuz View Post

You would want to take out 970UDP for a Asus killer Z,990 gd80 or any top mother board so you know your mobo will not die on you
No.
 
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