Rig Advice -£600

GavinG · 24 Jul 2013 at 20:23

Hi

I contacted the pre-sales team, but just wanted to ask other experienced people what they would do. Hopefully you will be able to give a newb some good advice.

So basically i have a budget of about £600.

I want to build a new rig that will be able to play BF4.

If i am able to salvage any of my old rig that would be great so i can spend more on my new rig.

Things i might be able to use from my old rig: (Please let me know if they are any good or can be of use)

VTX HD Sapphire 6770 1GB
296GB Hard Drive with Windows Vista installed
CD/DVD Reader/Burner
850w Sumvision PowerX 3 Pro PSU (non modular)

The computer will almost entirely for gaming (BF4), with some general internet browsing.

Essentials i want from a new rig:

Something that will be able to play the newest games at med/high settings with good FPS.
Something i can add and improve to through time.
A decent MB and CPU (Overclocked if possible).
At least 8GB RAM.
Operating System.

Stuff i would like but not essential:

Colour matching the MB, Cooler and RAM (Red)
Modular PSU
Windowed Case
LED inside (Red)

Regards

Gavin

Doomedspeed · 24 Jul 2013 at 20:35

Welcome...

A nice list there..

I've changed things up a bit.. its a blue, white and black colour scheme now.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £185.99
1 x MSI HD 7850 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards £143.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £53.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £49.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £45.95
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £43.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £39.95
1 x Silverstone Argon SST-AR01 CPU Cooler - 120mm (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1150 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £28.99
Total : £607.84 (includes shipping : £12.50).

Obviously thats without an OS but you can use the Win8 Dev edition or you may be able to upgrade your current vista licence for cheaper.

The 7850 will handle most recent games on med/high settings at 1080p EASY!!

The 3570k can be overclocked to improve performance more.

You dont need more than 8GB of RAM for gaming.

Spangles · 24 Jul 2013 at 21:57

I throw my hat in with 7850. Fantastic card for the price, runs everything pretty well considering the price!

GavinG · 24 Jul 2013 at 22:13

Thanks peeps, what about the AMD route, i here you get more bang for your buck is this true?

Flashheart · 24 Jul 2013 at 22:15

For that budget and with BF4 being well multithreaded like BF3 I'd grab an fx 6300 and a 7950. Much better use of the cash

Doomedspeed · 24 Jul 2013 at 22:22

Flashheart said:
For that budget and with BF4 being well multithreaded like BF3 I'd grab an fx 6300 and a 7950. Much better use of the cash

Hmmmm..

I don't think that is great advice, as the 8350 never performed better at BF3 than the 3570k did, so how can you say multi-threading helped?

Gavin, if you have a bit of time, i suggest you take a look through this thread, as this issue has came up very recently and this gives a fairly two-sided story of the intel vs AMD comparison

RJC · 24 Jul 2013 at 22:25

Personally the spec Doomedspeed has done you cant get much better than that for price.

Doomedspeed · 24 Jul 2013 at 22:27

RJC said:
Personally the spec Doomedspeed has done you cant get much better than that for price.

That's going on the Fridge.

RJC · 24 Jul 2013 at 22:30

Doomedspeed said:
That's going on the Fridge.

GavinG · 24 Jul 2013 at 22:36

Believe me i am heeding the advice

I was away there downloading the overclockers basket thing and had did this but don't know about it now, jez this is hard, wish i had more to spend but saving for a wedding and managed to persuade the better half that we need a new computer hehe

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7850 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards £143.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6350 Black Edition 3.90GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £100
1 x ASRock 990FX Extreme3 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £90.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 8 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00403) £79.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £53.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £49.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £43.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £39.95
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £19.99
Total : £637.87 (includes shipping : £12.50).

GavinG · 24 Jul 2013 at 22:39

Whats the Class B stuff like is it reliable? And would 450w be enough?

teppic · 24 Jul 2013 at 22:44

BF3 is almost entirely GPU bound and is happy with any modern CPU. Some review benchmarks put the 8350 slightly ahead of a 3570K, some slightly behind, but with a decent graphics card it's always well over 60fps.

Early BF4 benchmarks suggest that it's somewhat CPU dependent, and that an 8350 will perform similarly to a 3570K. A 6300 overclocked to 4GHz or so typically performs about the same as an 8350 in games, though I'd be more inclined not to risk it and get an 8320 if going AMD.

GavinG · 24 Jul 2013 at 22:49

mmmm that thread you gave is very interesting, i assumed because the AMD stuff is newer it would be better, how hard is it to overclock btw? And the Dev version for windows 8 thats only for 90 days? Will i have to buy it in the long run anyway and if i do will i have to instal everything i use again?

teppic · 24 Jul 2013 at 22:56

No, it depends on whether the game uses lots of cores well. Games that only use 1-2 tend to do significantly better in benchmarks with Intel CPUs. It looks like BF4 wants a minimum of 4 cores, but is otherwise largely GPU limited (this is how it is with Crysis 3).

What Flashheart was saying was by getting a cheaper CPU you'd still get the same performance on the same card, so by using the money saved on a better graphics card you'd get better performance.

Flashheart · 25 Jul 2013 at 00:13

Doomedspeed said:
Hmmmm..

I don't think that is great advice, as the 8350 never performed better at BF3 than the 3570k did, so how can you say multi-threading helped?

Gavin, if you have a bit of time, i suggest you take a look through this thread, as this issue has came up very recently and this gives a fairly two-sided story of the intel vs AMD comparison

With respect its excellent advise. An Fx 6300 and a 7950 is going to perform much better in BF4 than an i5 and a 7850.

Benchmarks (which I dont have off hand) show Battlefield as incredibly GPU bound and it's not like the fx 6300 is a particuarly poor cpu. I just think the AMD option is much better balanced for such a low budget and I'm running on a 3570k.

We are forgetting the multi core coding that will soon become apparent when the new consoles are introduced. I think these FX chips may well start to be on a much more equal footing.

Doomedspeed · 25 Jul 2013 at 07:34

Flashheart said:
Benchmarks (which I dont have off hand) show Battlefield as incredibly GPU bound and it's not like the fx 6300 is a particuarly poor cpu. I just think the AMD option is much better balanced for such a low budget and I'm running on a 3570k.

I have benchmarks off hand, this shows BF3 isn't really CPU bound

Flashheart said:
We are forgetting the multi core coding that will soon become apparent when the new consoles are introduced. I think these FX chips may well start to be on a much more equal footing.

I agree, they should become more viable when multi-threading becomes more common but in non-threaded games they are way behind,

Take Skyrim for example: http://techreport.com/review/23750/amd-fx-8350-processor-reviewed/5

I think the 3570K + 7850 is a lot more balanced.

At the moment, if you can afford to, theres no reason no to get an i5.. If it's out of budget, the 6300/8320 are good choices.

teppic · 25 Jul 2013 at 12:26

If we're talking only about BF4 (which the OP only seems to be interested in), based on the early benchmarks the 3570K+7850 won't be able to compete with the 6300+7950. BF4 is being developed on AMD hardware and leaks are saying it's going to be part of the AMD games bundle.

IGN story:

Amidst the fray of E3 reveals and gameplay demos, EA announced a new partnership with AMD that could tip the scales for the chip maker's Radeon graphics cards. Starting with the release of Battlefield 4, all current and future titles using the Frostbite 3 engine — Need for Speed Rivals, Mirror's Edge 2, etc. — will ship optimized exclusively for AMD GPUs and CPUs.

Doomedspeed · 25 Jul 2013 at 13:37

teppic said:
If we're talking only about BF4 (which the OP only seems to be interested in), based on the early benchmarks the 3570K+7850 won't be able to compete with the 6300+7950. BF4 is being developed on AMD hardware and leaks are saying it's going to be part of the AMD games bundle.

IGN story:

Amidst the fray of E3 reveals and gameplay demos, EA announced a new partnership with AMD that could tip the scales for the chip maker's Radeon graphics cards. Starting with the release of Battlefield 4, all current and future titles using the Frostbite 3 engine — Need for Speed Rivals, Mirror's Edge 2, etc. — will ship optimized exclusively for AMD GPUs and CPUs.

Fair enough,

Personally i wouldn't sacrifce performance over many titles to gain a few FPS is one game.

I prefer to go on solid fact not on news coverage theroey.

teppic · 25 Jul 2013 at 13:44

A 7850 vs 7950 could make the game playable vs unplayable at high settings. A joint statement between EA and AMD saying the engine is optimised for AMD hardware isn't really theory.

Doomedspeed · 25 Jul 2013 at 13:53

teppic said:
A joint statement between EA and AMD saying the engine is optimised for AMD hardware isn't really theory.

Im not disputing that, im disputing the 'theroy' of it playing better on an AMD chip rather than intel. It should... Yes.. but until benchmarks are out its not fact.