Skaz~SPARTA~ Posted May 6, 2012 Share Posted May 6, 2012 hey guys, I got some spare coinage, and I will be finally purchasing a desktop after several years. I wanted to clear out some doubts first. What I have in mind is an AMD system, for the budget build. 1. Thermaltake V3 Case 2. sapphire 6870 vga 3. ASUS m5a97 mobo 4. 650W PSU and 8gb memory combo 5. amd fx-4100 This build with the extra shit, HD, dvdrw and etc totals around usd 600. I consider 700 a maximum I can spend right now. The thing is, I'm not so keen on the fx-4100, I've been reading some forums about it, I would like peoples opinions on how it compares to a phenom x4 for instance? Im open to ideas and suggestions!!!! cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skaz~SPARTA~ Posted May 6, 2012 Author Share Posted May 6, 2012 please keep in mind the budget build aspect, I want to save some money.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athlon64~SPARTA~ Posted May 6, 2012 Share Posted May 6, 2012 (edited) Skas old buddie, check this out before ordering http://www.tigerdire...07&Sku=A79-0001 Hopefully the page will load for you. if not AMD FX-8120 3.10 GHz Eight Core AM3+ Unlocked CPU and ASUS M5A99X EVO AMD 990X Socket AM3+ Motherboard and AMD BATTLEFIELD 3 Game Coupon Promo Bundle for $334 Edited May 6, 2012 by Athlon64~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skaz~SPARTA~ Posted May 6, 2012 Author Share Posted May 6, 2012 nothing loaded athlon, what was it about? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athlon64~SPARTA~ Posted May 6, 2012 Share Posted May 6, 2012 (edited) Let me see if i can find it for you again. Friggen tiger direct sight screws up. Here is the link again. if it doesen't load. hitt compatibility mode at the top address bar untill the page loads, OK? http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1577707&Sku=A79-0001 Edited May 6, 2012 by Athlon64~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Batwing~SPARTA~ Posted May 6, 2012 Share Posted May 6, 2012 I am not stron in AMD CPUs, but I d like to give you a couple of general suggestions: 1 - Be sure you try to get the most of Videocard power you can get within budget - This allows you to stay on top of incoming games. 2 - Choose a CPU that make sense for your budget and what you use it for and do not create a bottleneck with GPU performances. 3 - don t be cheap on the Motherboard. Be sure it has last gen features such us USB 3 and SATA 3 - be sure about future compatibility if you want one day to put on a larger CPU In my experience, with an i7 920, quad-core (8 threads), a good quad-core last gen CPU is more than enough to handle your gaming experience and general pleasure use of a machine. If you are a professional in engineering or photo/video editing, you might need more cores, otherwise i don t see any specific reason to go to 6 or 8 cores at the momemnt. When it comes to choose between those 2 CPUs you are thinking about, look at this: http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-fx-8150--8120-6100-and-4100-performance-review/10 It will givew you an idea of compared performances (also vs some Intel). However it seems there is not much of a difference between the two, besides the power profile. I would choose the newest architecture, paying attention to not be fooled by some Marketing trick (such as a new name same old shit). Diiference in price between the 2 quad-cores is within 50 bucks, so is not really a "game changer". I would spend some extra money on Videocard, instead of 6870 I would go 6950 2GB, such as: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102987 You might be lucky to get a moddable model to 6970 (as I did, my model is different and discontinued, but it was moddable and is now an full effective 6970). Price is again within 50 bucks range, but the 69xx series is better than the 68xx. You should probably still be in budget, respecting your AMD preference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rawdog Posted May 6, 2012 Share Posted May 6, 2012 When you get back from vaca, we can figure it all out. unless you're good with the idea that anything is better than your laptop and as long as its under 500$.... then it becomes super easy.. hot glue and ductape and pancake mix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skaz~SPARTA~ Posted May 6, 2012 Author Share Posted May 6, 2012 the build I had on newegg was $580 buck, after tax and shipping went up to 693. its unbelievable, fricking 12% tax and shipping to an island, fml Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EL_n00biachi Posted May 7, 2012 Share Posted May 7, 2012 I told you a week ago......>>>>>>Talk to Haj you dumb ass. Just one thing,if you cant buy what you want.....dont buy shit just because;....save some cash for an extra month or 2 so you can really enjoy your new build instead of getting all annoyed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skaz~SPARTA~ Posted May 7, 2012 Author Share Posted May 7, 2012 haji is intel and nvidia user, its not a budget build. Also I dont expect to run miracles with my computer. It wouldbe great if it runs shit smoothly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skaz~SPARTA~ Posted May 7, 2012 Author Share Posted May 7, 2012 batty, do I need 2gb for a videocard even if im running on a 21.5 inch monitor? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Batwing~SPARTA~ Posted May 7, 2012 Share Posted May 7, 2012 That s an interesting question. What is the max res on your monitor? Keep in mind that besides what you need today, this kind of electronics has no residual value, meaning if you buy today something just shy of 200 bucks, when you possibly will like to improve your monitor one day, the re-selling value of that card will be crap... so you are basically throwing out the window something like 200 bucks. If as a comparison, you need to spend 240 bucks and be sure that card will stay with you for a decent amount of time, then your investment makes sense. The 2GB on board can help for higher resolutions, but the GPU architecture itself will probably provide better performances anyway. It would have been different if you were going to buy a budget card around barely 100 bucks, but choosing between 6870 or 6950 if you have the badget, i would say 6950. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skaz~SPARTA~ Posted May 7, 2012 Author Share Posted May 7, 2012 its 1600x900. How easy is it to mod the 6950? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athlon64~SPARTA~ Posted May 8, 2012 Share Posted May 8, 2012 (edited) Oh come man ,get the gold plated 690 super clocked crome exhaust pipe one. LOL!!! just kidding. Get Real the $1000 one with crome exhaust pipes is obsolete in 6 months now days. All my old parts go into my wifes machine, then from there make it to the spare parts computer of wicth i trade for hand guns. LOL! Unfortunately we are not million airs, that would be nice. Edited May 8, 2012 by Athlon64~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hajimoto Posted May 8, 2012 Share Posted May 8, 2012 Please note this post is a cut and paste of the response that was written and posted @ the ECWC-HQ Forums Skaz - First let me take a little bit of time to clarify some things. When someone is looking to build a gaming rig my very first question to them is "whats your budget" the second is " what is the primary function of the rig going to be?", once I have this information I put together the most performance for the dollar, PERIOD!. I have never directed a person towards a brand or product based on my personal preferences. My recommendations are based on the intended use of the rig and how much money the person has to spend. My personal experiences with brand names are just that, my experience. I do not read an article that speaks badly of a certain name brand and take that as the gospel, my opinions are formed from building 100's of rigs coupled with me laying out my own hard earned dollars to buy and use them for myself. Witht hat said, if I say that prodect X is better than product Y it is because I did it... I paid the cash to make that claim. AMD and Intel both have their respective markets and AMD has always offered the more affordable build. The problem comes into play when someone pulls the trigger on certain build and later says "Hey, how come this build doesn't do this?" or "Why can't this thing do that?" The buyer has to be completely honest as to what the system will be used for. If you want to mainly play games on the rig, that is part of the question. You also have to decide what level you want the games to perform at. You need to look intot he games that you want to play and research what the hardware requirements are experience that title at the level you wish to play it at. In my opinion the CPU speed is more important than the video card for an initial build. You can ALWAYS upgrade the VPU for better performance later but you can not always simply upgrade the CPU without concidering Memory Speed Requirements, Motherboard CPU Socket Conciderations and CPU Generation capatibilites. It sounds like Vanquish is offering the very capable 6970 for an extremely attractive price. You can then invest those dollars into your CPU and primary boot device (SSD). I would recommend a CPU with a minimum 3.4-3.8GHZ out the gate. A CPU with a clock speed of this as a minimum, will ensure a good gaming experience. A helpful tip is to know where the CPU performance curves are and then price the CPU according to where you want to be on the ladder. Refer to the below chart for an example of what I mean when I say "Performance Curve". Click image for full story As you can see when it comes to gaming performance, Intel is alone at the top on a lot of formats. Meaning a dude on a budget could buy an i3-2130 for $150 and out perform ANY AMD chip currently made. This is not an opinion, it is budget and performance. You get more performance for the dollar (currently) in the i3 and i5 CPU's. Now saying all this, it sounds like you have your mind made up on the AMD, great choice, now just buy as much processor and SSD as your wallet will allow. Something like a 975 Black would be the same $150 and will give good solid gaming performance. Also do not fall for the hype associated with 6 core or 8 core processors. You are gaming..... a strong 4 core at high frequency will result in very satifying game sessions. The high count multi core CPU's only start to show there muscle when you use programs that fully take advantage of them like video editing, encoding, protein folding or CAD intensive applications. Keep inmind that only a handful of games actually take advantage of multi core CPU's such as BF3, TW2 and Metro 2033. It is important to note that games today are mainly GPU dependant rather than CPU dependant and the reason for buying a strong CPU is so you are not in the market doing a full system upgrade based on the CPU, MB and RAM being too slow. Typically your GPU purchases will be 3-4 times before you need to consider a CPU upgrade. That being said a video card for todays games should have at least 2GB on board for todays games. Textures drawn on the screen take up space in the video ram (VRAM) so they can load a lot faster, so when you are on a higher resolution you can see more textures, which takes up more VRAM. In games like Shogun2 with all the settings turned up to high resolutions it will take up to 2GB of VRAM. But again, the deal that Vanq is offering is so sweet you can turn textures down and be happy An 8 core gamer @ 4.0GHZ will not see any game perfomance increases over a 4 core 4.0GHZ gamer..... so be smart in your CPU selection. Either by a fast CPU or buy a CPU that can be OC'd to be fast (requires better cooling and a MB that allows for tweaking and adjustments). Please let me know if this response helped you in any way and please reply if you need more information on anything specifically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athlon64~SPARTA~ Posted May 8, 2012 Share Posted May 8, 2012 (edited) This hierarchy was originally based on the average performance each CPU achieved in our charts test suite using only four game titles: Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3, World in Conflict, and Supreme Commander. We have since incorporated new game data into our criteria, but it should be known that any specific game title will likely perform differently depending on its unique programming. Some games, for example, will be severely graphics subsystem-limited, while others may react positively to more CPU cores, larger amounts of CPU cache, or even a specific architecture. We also did not have access to every CPU on the market, so some of the CPU performance estimates are based on the numbers similar architectures deliver. Indeed, this hierarchy chart is useful as a general guideline, but certainly not as a one-size-fits-all CPU comparison resource. Toms hardware is run buy a news media group. articals put up buy media reporters as news articals. Edited May 8, 2012 by Athlon64~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hajimoto Posted May 8, 2012 Share Posted May 8, 2012 Toms hardware is run buy a news media group. articals put up buy media reporters as news articals. I am not sure I understand the relevance of a claim of biased reporting as it relates to gaming performance of CPU's in real world tests. The chart was not intended to be the sole source of information for which I made my recommendation, it was simply referred to as a grouping or curve of performance of conventional CPU's. I would have to say that you would be hard pressed to dispute the accuracy of the position of today's CPU's in that list whether you believe Toms Hardware or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skaz~SPARTA~ Posted May 8, 2012 Author Share Posted May 8, 2012 (edited) The chart does provide some sort of organization when viewing different cpus, but I find it really hard to believe that an i3 processor is ranked higher then a phenom II x6. I checked reviews and it loses on all benchmarks. In fact the phenom II x6 is really close to the i5 2400 it was x6, not x4 as I had originally posted cpu benchmark Edited May 8, 2012 by Skazbr~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athlon64~SPARTA~ Posted May 8, 2012 Share Posted May 8, 2012 (edited) Thats why i say toms is a friggen joke. No credibilty. But nice chart. Edited May 8, 2012 by Athlon64~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hajimoto Posted May 8, 2012 Share Posted May 8, 2012 I was under the impression that this thread was to make recommendations for a GAMING rig for under $700? Based on a rig that will be only be used for gaming, a 6 core is a waste of money, I covered that in my original post. I am not trying to defend Intel or AMD, I am sharing recommendations for your gaming rig. This will be the last post I make in this thread that wastes my time it what is fast becoming a fanboy argument. If you want my opinion on hardware or configurations, let me know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skaz~SPARTA~ Posted May 8, 2012 Author Share Posted May 8, 2012 I already bought the 980, im just trolling around, thanks for the help haji, athlon and everyone else that showed insights and opinions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Batwing~SPARTA~ Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 Good job Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EL_n00biachi Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 Though Haj knows that when you have a Phenom and you install ACE the internet will explode and your mouse will stop working,so be careful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hajimoto Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athlon64~SPARTA~ Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 (edited) The cool thing is, if you decide later that you want to up grade the CPU, the newer ones will plug in and work just fine. in the AM3+ socket. Remember to get the Black edition or FX. Edited May 10, 2012 by Athlon64~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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