[colombianjesus]

Hey guys! I'm going to be building my very first custom PC in the next week or so. I've spent countless hours researching parts and trying to find what will best suit me. I am a gamer, and I wish to play games such as Battlefield 3, Crysis 3, Arma II, Guild Wars 2, and Planetside 2 on max settings at 1080p with at least 45+ Average FPS. I also will be recording, editing, and rendering gameplay videos and uploading them to YouTube. I will soon be getting into 3D modeling as well, considering I want to enter the study of video game design.

After doing all of my research, I have come up with this build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/DBEo

I feel that the FX 8350 is the best price/performance processor out right now, and it definitely can handle everything I'm going to throw at it. I know an i7 is the ultimate CPU for hyper-threading and all this mumbo jumbo. But the 8350 has shown benchmarks that really contest i7's in various programs. For $100+ extra dollars, it really isn't worth it to me. Plus, my budget is only around $1200, so that would really push it over the limit.

In terms of gaming performance, the 8350 really doesn't show much of a difference paired up against an i5 3570k. Yeah the i5 wins in most gaming benchmarks, but it's only by around 5-10 FPS. Like I'm really going to notice a 5 FPS difference in game?

I would really appreciate it if you guys could leave any final suggestions or comments on my build! I'm open to all advice! I'm just counting down the days till I start ordering these parts

Thanks in advance guys!

(PS. The 7950 I'm getting comes with a bundle where you get Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite for free. I'm selling the Bioshock Infinite code to my friend for $40 and I'm saving $60 on Crysis 3!

So I'm basically getting a 7950 for $250

)

 

[Legonut]

You should be able to find a 2tb hard drive for a tad bit more. (man ever since the flood prices on hard drives have been terrible)

Everything else looks good. Great choice of PSU.

 

[raghu78]

OP you could go for a FX-8320. has unlocked multiplier. manually overclock to the highest possible clocks with voltage tweaking. 4.5 ghz should be quite easy.

http://www.amazon.com/AMD-FX-8320-Eight-Core-Processor-FD8320FRHKBOX/dp/B009O7YU56/

also the ASROCK 970 extreme 4 can be had for USD 100. why do you want to spend a lot more on 990fx chipset motherboard. supports CF.

http://www.amazon.com/ASRock-MB-970EX4-970-CrossFireX-Motherboard/dp/B0058HUQJ0/

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/970%20Extreme4/?cat=Specifications

 

[colombianjesus]

Any more suggestions?

 

[5starGeneral Alphasnake]

I'd like to know too, because i will be using my grants on a new computer for school and i need one like this... yeah and school.. but more of gaming.

 

[sgt76]

I would lose the 8350 and go with an 8320. Also the ram and SSD are a bit overkill- some cost savings are possible with cheaper models there too.

One thing with FX's is you really need a good motherboard (which you've got- though you might wanna bump up to a Sabretooth) and cooling (Hyper 212 might not cut it if you overclock). My 2 cents.

 

[xNovax]

Looks like a very solid build.

 

[boxwunder13]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgt76

One thing with FX's is you really need a good motherboard (which you've got- though you might wanna bump up to a Sabretooth) and cooling (Hyper 212 might not cut it if you overclock). My 2 cents.

I second this. Getting the best MoBo you can right out of the gate is the best idea. It will also help you get high stable OC's. The Sabertooth is awesome and worth the money, in fact, it is my next upgrade. As for the cooling, for that CPU I would suggest looking into a closed loop water cooler such as the Corsair H100i or the H80i depending on how much room you want it to take up in the case and benchmarking for cooling performance. That chip runs hot because it is a 125W chip, but it can be OC'd like a beast and it is not too hard. It is a sin not to OC that AMD CPU.

Take that fourty bucks your friend is giving you for Bioshock and put it towards a Sabertooth and I think that you will be happier with the build overall. Cheers.

 

[colombianjesus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgt76

I would lose the 8350 and go with an 8320. Also the ram and SSD are a bit overkill- some cost savings are possible with cheaper models there too.

One thing with FX's is you really need a good motherboard (which you've got- though you might wanna bump up to a Sabretooth) and cooling (Hyper 212 might not cut it if you overclock). My 2 cents.

How are the RAM and SSD overkill?

I don't plan on OCing too much with this 8350. The Hyper 212 EVO will do a great job for just a mild overclock to like 4.5 GHz. Plus I don't need an FX board because I don't plan on EVER running SLI/Crossfire. Too many problems with dual gpu set ups.

Quote:

Originally Posted by boxwunder13

I second this. Getting the best MoBo you can right out of the gate is the best idea. It will also help you get high stable OC's. The Sabertooth is awesome and worth the money, in fact, it is my next upgrade. As for the cooling, for that CPU I would suggest looking into a closed loop water cooler such as the Corsair H100i or the H80i depending on how much room you want it to take up in the case and benchmarking for cooling performance. That chip runs hot because it is a 125W chip, but it can be OC'd like a beast and it is not too hard. It is a sin not to OC that AMD CPU.

Take that fourty bucks your friend is giving you for Bioshock and put it towards a Sabertooth and I think that you will be happier with the build overall. Cheers.

Like I stated above, I don't plan on going for super high overclocks with this, just mild ones. And I don't even plan on OCing it at all when I first get it, considering this is my first build. I will just OC my 7950 GPU. For my needs don't you think the CPU Cooler and MoBo are enough? The ASUS M5A99X EVO R2.0 overclocks pretty well as well..

 

[boxwunder13]

Quote:

Originally Posted by colombianjesus

How are the RAM and SSD overkill?

I don't plan on OCing too much with this 8350. The Hyper 212 EVO will do a great job for just a mild overclock to like 4.5 GHz. Plus I don't need an FX board because I don't plan on EVER running SLI/Crossfire. Too many problems with dual gpu set ups.
Like I stated above, I don't plan on going for super high overclocks with this, just mild ones. And I don't even plan on OCing it at all when I first get it, considering this is my first build. I will just OC my 7950 GPU. For my needs don't you think the CPU Cooler and MoBo are enough? The ASUS M5A99X EVO R2.0 overclocks pretty well as well..

My bad. I must not have read your post thouroughly. In that case, then that cooler and MoBo set up will be great. I used the M5A99X EVO in a friends build and it is a great MoBo. The 212 EVO is also a great CPU cooler and will support a mild OC on that CPU.

 

[colombianjesus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by boxwunder13

My bad. I must not have read your post thouroughly. In that case, then that cooler and MoBo set up will be great. I used the M5A99X EVO in a friends build and it is a great MoBo. The 212 EVO is also a great CPU cooler and will support a mild OC on that CPU.

I was looking into different water coolers and I found two that I would be interested in getting in the future: The Zalman LQ-320 or the Corsair H80i. Which one would you recommend? I like the Zalman because of the Blue LED to go with my case It doesn't look like a bad cooler either. Just some negative reviews because of installing it.

 

[Grmadness]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181032

But honestly, I wouldn't buy a closed loop water cooler. the reasons are numerous.
1. They have way more moving parts. This makes them a LOT more likely to break, as they have many more things that can break
2.When they DO break, you are *******. Unlike a normal cooler, there is no metal heatsink left if the moving parts stop moving,which means the CPU doesn't have time to downthrottle properly (and you can guess what that means.)
3. If it fails totally,instead of plastic,the pc is filled with liquid...
4. They are noisier than air cooling systems because the fans work harder due to heatsink being denser
5.You get same cooling performance cheaper by using air cooler such as Noctua D14 or Silver arrow.

 

[symmetrical]

Some are recommending the 8320, but IMO the price difference isn't really that big of a deal anymore like it was with Bulldozer. Back then, the 8150 was $279+ at retail while the 8120 was $199-219.

But the price difference between an 8350 and 8320 is only $20. So just stick with your original choice of the 8350.

I say this because if you ever felt like just running the processor at stock speeds, 4Ghz right out of the box is always nice. You just never know when stability issues might happen and you have to default to stock for awhile.

I had a BSOD just recently with my setup, the first in a year or so. I had to run my i7-2600k at stock for a couple weeks until I had time to really troubleshoot my machine. Turns out that what was stable a year ago isn't stable now for some strange reason. I'm thinking it was just "breaking in" or something, but I needed 5mV extra to be stable.

Just a thought.