Getting a new computer and need opinions on the specs

[Goldwell]

CPU: 3.3 GHz Intel i5-3550 Ivy-Bridge

GPU: 2GB GeForce GTX760

RAM: 8 GB DDR3-1600 Kingston RAM

HDD1: 120gb SSD

HDD2: 1 TB S-ATAIII

Mainboard: ASUS P8H77-M

 

So any recommendations? Or should I go ahead with this build? After doing a lot of research myself I have come to the conclusion that this is the best value for my budget and this setup should run most modern games on a high setting.

[jaxa]

http://pcpartpicker.com

 

Didn't see CPU in list, turns out Amazon/Newegg don't sell it I guess. Don't think the SATA 3.0 distinction matters for the HDD since it's backwards compatible and an HDD won't likely hit 300 MB/s.

 

And here it is: http://pcpartpicker....ests/saved/2iAS

 

Here is a build I dreamt up (not buying anything personally until 2015). Drop the case, wireless, PSU and it's not too far off from your build. I opted for a weaker CPU and fatter GPU.

Edited September 1, 2013 by jaxa

[lost_soul]

Personally, I'm waiting to get my hands on a 4 GB video card. I have a 1 GB GTX460, which is fine, but if I'm going to upgrade, I want way more capabilities for Blender.

 

What video card do you have currently?

[Bikerdude]

So any recommendations? Or should I go ahead with this build? After doing a lot of research myself I have come to the conclusion that this is the best value for my budget and this setup should run most modern games on a high setting.

Thats similar to what I have -

 

CPU: 3.4 GHz Intel i5-2500k Sandy-Bridge

GPU: 2GB GeForce GTX760

RAM: 16 GB DDR3-1600 Kingston RAM

HDD1: 256gb SSD Samsung 830

HDD2: 500 TB SATA-3

Mainboard: MSI Z77A

 

But now that the haswell chips are out I would suggest changing the cpu to that and a compatible mobo, they will be the same price or cheaper. And as an aside AMD are coming out with thier new chips at some point..

 

CPU: I5-4570 haswell

MOBO: MSI H87-G43

[Lydecker]

But now that the haswell chips are out I would suggest changing the cpu to that and a compatible mobo, they will be the same price or cheaper. And as an aside AMD are coming out with thier new chips at some point..

 

CPU: I5-4570 haswell

MOBO: MSI H87-G43

 

Agreed, it's better to get Haswell now. Also, get 4GB DIMMs when you buy that memory. Some time in the next 18 months you might think it's not enough and may want to buy another 8GB. I run out of 12GB on my old rig all the time.

[Goldwell]

 

Thats similar to what I have -

 

CPU: 3.4 GHz Intel i5-2500k Sandy-Bridge

GPU: 2GB GeForce GTX760

RAM: 16 GB DDR3-1600 Kingston RAM

HDD1: 256gb SSD Samsung 830

HDD2: 500 TB SATA-3

Mainboard: MSI Z77A

 

But now that the haswell chips are out I would suggest changing the cpu to that and a compatible mobo, they will be the same price or cheaper. And as an aside AMD are coming out with thier new chips at some point..

 

CPU: I5-4570 haswell

MOBO: MSI H87-G43

 

How does your computer handle games? I have also contemplated an AMD FX-8320 instead of the i5 but I'm still quite unsure. I just want to run games for the next couple of years on high settings and to run them smoothly

[Bikerdude]

Get 4GB DIMMs when you buy that memory. Some time in the next 18 months you might think it's not enough

Don't you mean get 8GB dimms, as the motherboard will have 4x slots he can have 8x2 (16Gb) now and upgrade to 32 should he wish too.

 

How does your computer handle games? I have also contemplated an AMD FX-8320 instead of the i5 but I'm still quite unsure. I just want to run games for the next couple of years on high settings and to run them smoothly

I can play all the latest games at way above average FPS and regarding the FX8320, I bought a buddy of mine a 8150 for xmas and it benchmarks at between my old C2D-9650 and the I5-2500K I now have. So the FX-8320 want be any faster then the Sandy i5 I currently have. AMD chips run a lot hotter and use more power than either sandy/ivy/haswell so atm your better of going for the Haswell i5.

[elwing]

hum, don't forget to take a good PSU... it's a frequently overlooked component but a good PSU will lower the power consumption, will avoid generating too much heat inside your PC, will make less noise, will avoid you some strange power related problems...

[Lux]

Also, 1 TB for a storage drive, are you using something else external for backup? At the minimum I'll take my storage requirement and double it and then just create a script that mirrors my primary storage to a second drive every day. You can also back up your base system image, etc. to it. It may be an extra hundred bucks or whatever, but it can save your hours if you have any issues. Its worth considering. If you already have an external drive or network storage, just ignore me.

Edited September 3, 2013 by Lux

[jaxa]

I'd say keep the secondary drive (1 TB) small, use externals if you can get them. Come Black Friday (November 29) drive prices may fall from $70 (2 TB) and $100 (3 TB) ($130 for 4TB?). 5 TB should be out in Q4 of this year. Might drive the prices down.

[Tr00pertj]

CPU: 3.3 GHz Intel i5-3550 Ivy-Bridge

GPU: 2GB GeForce GTX760

RAM: 8 GB DDR3-1600 Kingston RAM

HDD1: 120gb SSD

HDD2: 1 TB S-ATAIII

Mainboard: ASUS P8H77-M

 

So any recommendations? Or should I go ahead with this build? After doing a lot of research myself I have come to the conclusion that this is the best value for my budget and this setup should run most modern games on a high setting.

 

Those specs are good but I would go for the cheapest Mobo and go Haswell on the cpu. The GPU is always the biggest consideration here and where the money you earned should be spent.

 

I notice the i5-3550 is not a K version and the Mobo is not a Z version so no real overclocking is possible and because of this the mobo could be a simpler cheaper version of the new 81 (2 Dimm slots) or 85/87 (4 Dimm slots) chipsets. There are a few other differences but mostlyinconsiquetial to every day use.

 

Like I said the cheaper the Mobo and CPU the more money for a good GPU.

 

If I were to build one right now on a budget of say $600-800 it would look like this:

 

Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H Motherboard LGA1150, Intel B85 Chipset, 4x 1600MHz DDR3, PCI-E 3.0 x16 $95 or a slightly cheaper 81 at $70

Intel Core i5 4430 3.0GHz (3.2GHz Turbo) Quad Core CPU $215

Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB SSD Retail Box $149

Corsair CMX8GX3M2A2000C9 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 $109

The most I could spend on a GPU.

The rest on a storage drive.

 

These prices are massively inflated due to my location (Australia) and the industry in general gouging our pocket.

 

Would be easier if I knew your budget and I could give you the prices here for the products your looking at.

Hope you don't get any lemons but if you do don't wait RTM them straight away back to the seller.

 

Have fun building and post some benchmarks when you get it up and running.

[Goldwell]

So after a very long discussion with many of my friends and doing a lot of research online I have decided to change 2 things. I changed the motherboard to a ASUS M5A97 R2.0 and upgraded the CPU to a 4.0 GHz AMD AM3+ FX-8350. It have read many mixed reviews on the CPU however what ultimately won me over was a buddy of mine who actually owns it and he was streaming some game footage for me that just blew me away with how smoothly it went.

 

And this next part is purely my speculation but there is no denying the fact that most PC games are just console ports it's sad but it's true. Considering that both the PS4 and the XOne has an 8 core AMD chip inside of it, it's safe to say that they will probably be making games to run the best on an architecture and/or CPU very similar to my choice if not exactly the same.

 

Plus after looking at some benchmarks comparing the 3550K I see the following:

 

3550K - 6,858 points

FX8350 - 9102 points

 

Source: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

 

So as you can see the FX8350 is much better and from first hand accounts from friends it seems to run very nicely.

[jaxa]

It is not the same architecture:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldozer_(microarchitecture)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_(microarchitecture)

[Bikerdude]

after looking at some benchmarks comparing the 3550K I see the following:

3550K - 6,858 points

FX8350 - 9102 points

It is not the same architecture:

 

As Jaxa has pointed out, one is a 4x core and the other is an 8x core - you can't compare the two.

 

The FX8350 is a nightly chip to be sure but not worth the extra cash or power requirements over the quad core i5 haswell chip (yes the FX chip beats the ivybridge though). The few times the FX8350 will come into its own is for heavy cpu tasks like photoshop and the like. It all comes down to cash, if you can get the FX/mobo combo cheaper than the haswell then go for it.

 

And the above said, it seems you get a better feature set with the AMD motherboards. One example is more Sata3 ports, which for me is a big thing = more SSD's and the like!

 

-

[Goldwell]

Surprisingly where i'm ordering it from the FX8350 is actually cheaper than the I5. In terms of power requirements my computer comes with a 750W power supply so I shouldn't have any problems.

[Obsttorte]

I'm not sure whether you'll need a 8X core cpu for gaming. It seems a bit overpowered to me.

[Goldwell]

I'm not sure whether you'll need a 8X core cpu for gaming. It seems a bit overpowered to me.

 

That's good then!

 

I want a PC that will last a few years at least

[Bikerdude]

Surprisingly where i'm ordering it from the FX8350 is actually cheaper than the I5. In terms of power requirements my computer comes with a 750W power supply so I shouldn't have any problems.

Good, but whats the make and model of the PSU..?

[elwing]

any good brand with a 80 Plus Gold or more with enough power should be fine...

[jaxa]

Well the point of the 8-core CPU in PS4 and Xbox One is to future proof it, since it will be around for perhaps a decade. The point of 4+4 or true 8-core in say, a phone? That's hard to say. 8 core, 8-16 threads on a desktop? Many new applications are multicore, although I've heard that few modern PC titles will touch all 4 cores on a quad. Certain productivity applications like video encoding or other number crunching will take as many cores as you throw at it. 1 application per core/thread could also be useful, though higher RAM is probably a bigger concern then crunching things in the background (so you can have dozens of browser tabs open or w/e).

 

Edit:

 

The last two videos show how the big.LITTLE "octa core" processor can work now that it's been fixed up:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7313/samsung-announces-biglittle-mp-support-in-exynos-5420

Edited September 12, 2013 by jaxa

[Xarg]

The problem I have with posting figures from synthetic benchmarks is exactly that. They're synthetic benchmarks.. you can't play them. If you were linking FPS figures from games, that'd be a useful way to gauge the processor (ignore this if you do more than game on your home pc, which is what I do. Work pc stays at work.)

[delatroy]

Right now is a great time to buy an AMD GPU. They just released their re-branded 7000s in the form of the 200 series making the older, but completely the same, 7000 series great value as retailers rush to offload stock. They'll also support AMD's Mantle which will be released in December. If you see any deals on the 7000s and if you're in the market for a PC right now it could be a great time.

[Jinix]

CPU: 3.3 GHz Intel i5-3550 Ivy-Bridge

GPU: 2GB GeForce GTX760

RAM: 8 GB DDR3-1600 Kingston RAM

HDD1: 120gb SSD

HDD2: 1 TB S-ATAIII

Mainboard: ASUS P8H77-M

 

So any recommendations? Or should I go ahead with this build? After doing a lot of research myself I have come to the conclusion that this is the best value for my budget and this setup should run most modern games on a high setting.

 

Okay so it's now many weeks later.. so what did you get and what's it like???

[Xarg]

Just checking back in on this thread - if you haven't bought the whole lot yet, or at least haven't bought the hard drive yet, please do consider getting a 2 or 3TB instead of a 1TB. I never figured I'd fill 1TB until I did... you won't regret it later (even if you only use 1TB, you've got a whole other terabyte free for things like recording play sessions!)

[brethren]

Here's a system I built in the past week or so, all the hardware reccos came from Bikerdude, who is always a huge help. I splurged a little bit (Newegg is giving me a year interest free to pay it off so what the hell), I only build a machine once every 5 years or so, so I decided to have some fun:

 

CPU: Intel i7 4770 Haswell

GPU: Radeon 7970 Ghz edition, 3 GB

RAM: 16 GB DDR3

MOBO: MSI Z87-G43

HD: Samsung 256 GB SSD

 

The rest of everything I had already from my last build (other HDDs, sound card, Blu ray drive, etc.) and I just picked up a 27" monitor recently, so I should be set for a while.

 

This should run TDM (as well as anything else) nicely!