£350 soft budget, used

[Ripjaw]

No it was'nt my own thread it was someone elses, it was one of the mods that said he thought the phenom was better than the fx-4300.

 

[Bacon?]

Ahhhh, you don't mean this thread then do you lol?

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18496130

Where the mod was arguing the Bulldozer chip was good for gaming (where we know it isn't). That said a Phenom never entered the equation... Only an i3.

 

[Akagi]

Bacon wtf is your prob? Everything i say you condisend? I've made a **** up or two but gtfo off my back! Its already been said on here that the phenom is a better cpu the the FX equvilant, (cant find the thread) and again your going over budget, were not all kicking about with loads of spare cash. And on what planet does an i3 dual core beat a phenom quad? Clearly an intel fanboy. Yes intel are better than amd if you've the cash to spend.

Seriously, we are all entitled to our points of view, and sometimes they may oppose each other. Some of us are more well informed than others, and some of us like to take it personally when our opinions are questioned by those who know better.

 

[bbbearrr]

 

[Akagi]

Indeed.

Come on guys, just chill, tone it down a bit.

The benchmarks are out there to look at, anandtech has a great tool that many of us like to use to justify our opinions. The internet is full of reviews which show CPU performance in different situations, and the prices are there for us to look at.

At the end of the day, we are doing this to help people out, and if we see a post which we believe may not be the best option for the person in need of help, we will question it. If the same person does it to you frequently, it is purely co-incidental, and may indicate that you need to brush up on your researching before you post another suggestion.

It is not always about out and out performance, there are other things to factor in like feature set, future proofing, power consumption, warranty, reliability, stability, the list goes on and on and of course our opinions on which of these attributes are most important will differ.

 

[Ripjaw]

and may indicate that you need to brush up on your researching before you post another suggestion.

Thats what it came down to and im happy to admit i was wrong

 

[Ripjaw]

Right to get this back on topic.

@Nudles. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/677?vs=699 Use this to make your desition dude Theres not a lot between the two really.

 

[Nudles]

Bacon and Ripjaw, I really appreciate yours' and everyone else's input, it has highlighted focus areas for me to research deeper into, saving me a lot of time and stress!

Ha yeh

I'm looking to build a gaming pc on a budget.

All this info helps me too ! What games would you be looking at playing ?

I'm considering BF3 as well. I've had many hours of sitting sniping around the maps of BF2 and hope BF3 can fulfil the same role! I'll probably end up playing Skyrim and Bioshock: Infinite as well.
Although most of my gaming time will be spent playing less graphically intensive games such as the up and coming Torment: Tides of Numenera ('successor' so Planescape: Torment), Dead State, Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns, Dreamfall Chapters, and Project Eternity. All of them based in old school RPG style gaming. But they are so far away!

 

[Akagi]

Noticing that the OP actually says 'used parts', it rather depends on what comes up and at what price. But it is certainly possible to build a great PC for very little money if you hunt for all the bargains, do a bit of haggling, and build a system out of the resulting parts.

My server/folding machine cost me ohh... £200?

The specs are:

Phenom II 955BE w' Zalman CNPS10X Quiet
Gigabyte 78LMT-USB3 (AM3+)
16GB (2x 8GB) Patriot 1333MHz DDR3
PNY GTX460 XLR8 Enthusiast Edition
OCZ CoreXstream 500W
500GB Samsung Spinpoint F3
Xigmatek Helios XTK231
Genuine Windows Server 2012 (Courtesy of Microsoft Dreamspark)

I don't recommend this exact combination though, mainly because the side panel of the case wont fit over the heatpipes on the cooler

 

[Nudles]

Thanks again everyone for your input, every single bit has been useful.

You certainly did well to get that acme.

I've been researching like a fiend the last few days. Following the advice from this thread and about 100 others I decided to spend a bit more and go for this, new:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £199.99
1 x Silverstone Sugo SG05 HTPC Case with 450W Power Supply - All Black ( SST-SG05BB USB 3.0) £114.98
1 x Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £98.99
Total : £427.46 (includes shipping : £11.25).



Decided that since I'll have the machine for quite a few years I should spend a bit more and get something that I'll love. So went for mini-ITX as I want it to look discrete and presentable.

Got a 250 gb 7200 rpg seagate for the time-being to use, currently keeping an eye out for a bargain on 8gb or 16gb of 1600mhz ram and a used 7850 2gb card. I'm going to hold out on getting the card until I see something for a great price, the on-board video should get me by for the time-being as I can wait a bit before playing the intensive games.

 

[uzairzaidi]

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD580KWOHJBOX) £99.95
1 x Gigabyte F2A85XM-D3H AMD A85X Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 micro ATX Motherboard £61.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £55.99
1 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TXD38G2133HC11DC01) £49.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020046-UK) £40.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £26.99
Total : £350.00 (includes shipping : £11.75).

Hi I ordered this exact spec last week and am a little underwhelmed by the fps im getting in games at the moment. I don't know whether I need to make any tweaks / adjustments to my video card / processor / ram settings to bring out the true potential of the system. Are there any details I can share with you guys or any guides available to show me whether I have tweaked the system's performance? So far all I have done is install windows and download the latest drivers for everything.

I'm wondering whether I'll need to invest in a video card to pair up with my Processor and was wondering if you guys would recommend one that's a little more powerful than the 6670 but one that wont bottleneck my processor and allow me the get the maximum performance out of the system I've ordered.

Regards,
Uzair

 

[Bacon?]

Hi Uz,

In the BIOS have you confifured the RAM to run at 2133 speed? Also what games are you playing at what settings on what resolution?

 

[Ripjaw]

Thanks again everyone for your input, every single bit has been useful.

You certainly did well to get that acme.

I've been researching like a fiend the last few days. Following the advice from this thread and about 100 others I decided to spend a bit more and go for this, new:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £199.99
1 x Silverstone Sugo SG05 HTPC Case with 450W Power Supply - All Black ( SST-SG05BB USB 3.0) £114.98
1 x Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £98.99
Total : £427.46 (includes shipping : £11.25).



Decided that since I'll have the machine for quite a few years I should spend a bit more and get something that I'll love. So went for mini-ITX as I want it to look discrete and presentable.

Got a 250 gb 7200 rpg seagate for the time-being to use, currently keeping an eye out for a bargain on 8gb or 16gb of 1600mhz ram and a used 7850 2gb card. I'm going to hold out on getting the card until I see something for a great price, the on-board video should get me by for the time-being as I can wait a bit before playing the intensive games.

Good to see you got sorted mate Keep your eyes peeled on ocuk for a this week offer on the gpus (and ram for that matter) and pop some pickys up once you've built it

 

[uzairzaidi]

Hi Uz,

In the BIOS have you confifured the RAM to run at 2133 speed? Also what games are you playing at what settings on what resolution?

Im running the RAM at the advertised speed of 2133 now and it has made a considerable improvement in my game performance.

I am currently playing Counter Strike Global Offensive. All settings are on low and am playing on 1024 x 768 resolution to allow me to reach the 300fps barrier. Now I was getting 110 earlier but with the increase in Ram speed that has gone up to around the 200fps mark which is brilliant.

I have two questions at this point.

Would an investment in a 6670 to run the system in dual graphics mode help me achieve that 300fps mark? I've tried doing research on this and I know that not all games benefit from the graphics setup. I'm still not sure whether or not this would make a difference. Would pairing this setup with a discrete graphics solution such as the 650ti / Ati 7750 /7790 /7850 be worth the investment?

Secondly is there a danger of the ram / system overheating if I have not invested in any cooling device besides the stock copperhead cooler.

Would really appreciate your advice here.

 

[Bacon?]

Why are you trying to reach 300 fps? If you have 60hz monitor (like most people) max fps the screen can do is 60 fps. Same goes for 122 and 144hz monitors respectively.

 

[uzairzaidi]

I'm thinking of purchasing this card to run it in discrete mode. Will I see considerably improved performance?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-077-HS

 

[Nudles]

Good to see you got sorted mate Keep your eyes peeled on ocuk for a this week offer on the gpus (and ram for that matter) and pop some pickys up once you've built it

Thanks man

I ended up getting everything sorted . My brother has access to the MM here and picked me up 8gig RAM and a graphics card. Managed to stuff a 7950 into the tiny case, as you can see in the pictures in the first post here it's well stuffed in there lol, a few pictures of it in there. Still over the moon with it .

 

[Nudles]

I'm thinking of purchasing this card to run it in discrete mode. Will I see considerably improved performance?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-077-HS

As Bacon? said, having frames higher than your monitors refresh rate has no impact on what you can see. If you really want an upgrade, consider looking into a gaming monitor, something with low input lag is the most important aspect.

Edit ..and higher hz. This video demonstrates the potential issues with refresh rates well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax8NxWn48tY

 

[OliverDavis]

I'm thinking of purchasing this card to run it in discrete mode. Will I see considerably improved performance?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-077-HS

For a 'Free' upgrade, look in your bios for a setting that allows the onboard GPU to overclock as long as its within its thermal limits. I believable this is possible on Asus and MSi boards, maybe others.

My friends A10 will clock past 1000mhz (800 standard) as long as its cool enough.

At 1920x1080 he will get 50fps on Battlefield 3 on high!

 

[Bromhead]

I think I would have made the same choice as OP, i5 and suffer with onboard graphics until additional funds allow for a graphics card.

You might want to look at second hand 5850 or 6850, they're both still good cards and £50 second hand.